Thursday
at Terce [1, 2, 3]
Psalm 72 (73)
How good is God to Israel,
to the upright of heart!
As for me, my feet almost slipped,
my steps all but faultered,
because I was incited on account of the wicked,
seeing the prosperity of sinners.
For they have no regard to their death,
nor do their wounds fester;
they do not toil as do men,
not scourged as other men are.
So pride holds them fast,
and they are covered in their iniquity and sin.
From their corpulence proceeds iniquity:
they have passed into delighting in their passions.
They think evil and speak it:
they have spoken their wickedness on high.
They have set their mouths against heaven,
and their tongues pass across the earth.
Thus the Apostle speaks: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:1-2) And yet we are laughed to scorn by those whose lives appear blessed by the gods while their souls pour forth iniquitous harm upon their fellow man and mock the God who made them.
Their prosperity taunts our poverty, seeking to make of it mediocrity in the eyes of men; a mediocrity that seeks to debase God through our humiliation, and consolidate all power in heaven and on earth in the hands of those who have no fear of judgment, for they are their own judge, their own god. And yet how good God is to Israel, to give us wisdom to see the wiles of the foe, to see how they condemn themselves in their vainglory.
O that we should see beyond their fleeting victories to their eternal defeat, but too often our gaze falls short of the clouds upon which the Saviour will return to vanquish the wicked. We forget that their fate is already sealed by the sacrifice of the Lamb, whose victory over death is our eternal vindication. We forget, and all but fall into their trap of doubt and despair.
So my people shall turn to this
and have full days of plenty in them.
And they say: ‘How can God know?’
and, ‘Is there any knowledge in the Most High?’
Behold, these are sinners, rich in the world,
amassing worldly riches.
So I said: ‘In vain have I kept my heart just
and washed my hands among the innocent:
and was scourged all the day long,
with new chastisements each dawn.’
If I had said: ‘I will speak as they have spoken,’
I would have condemned the nation of your children.
I have tried to train my mind to understand this,
it is a labour in my eyes,
until I enter the sanctuary of God
and understand their final end.
But how can God not know – He who sees into the depths of each heart and there calls out for conversion – the depravity of those whose souls are willing captives of the evil that stalks in the night and is made known by their schemes in the day? Shall we look beyond these walls wherein God has chosen us to be kept safe for the day of His return and envy the lavish lot of the many that have been called but not chosen?
Approach now the wedding banquet of the Lamb, enter His sanctuary and gaze upon the Lamb of God who opens the eyes of your soul to see in the sacrifice’s consummation the end of times and the eternal bliss of the chosen. Labour not but rest here and He will give you understanding of your participation in His sacrifice that brings man’s flesh to the humiliation of the dust only to raise it to glory in Him. Fear not that you suffer the scourge and chastisement of the sinner, for your cries from the depths are heard in the courts of our God, while their eternal screams echo off the walls of the abyss with no way out.
Take and eat, Him who gives you strength to keep your heart pure and your will from decay, that you may look upon them with pity for their temporal triumphs, and not to God for action– for the action is already complete and the Lord awaits now only our response. Let us not, then, condemn those who would turn to God for the witness of the lives we have been chosen for. Instead, with faith, let us proceed to live for the final end and show that there is no humiliation in being humbled by the world; no ignominy in refusing to accede to values that place man at the centre of God’s universe; no degradation in suffering; that God sees all through eyes of pure love, which would never see His chosen ones put to shame.
But indeed you have turned their deceit back upon them,
where they were lifted up, you have brought them low.
How have they been brought to desolation!
Suddenly ceasing to be,
they have perished for their wickedness.
As a dream upon awakening, O Lord,
so in Your city You will bring their imaginings to nothing.
For my heart was embittered and my loins troubled,
and I was brought to nothing and knew not the reason.
I was like a wild beast in your presence,
and yet I am always with You.
You held me fast by my right hand,
and You have conducted me in Your will,
and with Your glory you have received me.
For what have I in heaven, and besides You,
what do I desire upon earth?
Though my flesh and my heart waste away,
You are the God of my heart,
the God that is my portion forever.
For behold, they that stray from You perish,
You have destroyed all those that are unfaithful to you.
As for me, it is good that I should cleave to my God,
to put my hope in the Lord my God;
that I may declare all Your praises,
in the gates of the daughter of Sion.
That their gain should be our loss would be to defy the nature of God Himself. So the Good News roars its truth, “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world but forfeits his own soul? Or what shall man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) Money will not buy His favour nor riches redeem a soul from hell. For the salvation of my soul I have no currency to offer except my devotion, my true love, my unmitigated trust; the worship of my lips that echoes the oblation of my heart, which prostrates my whole being before my Lord Crucified upon the altar. To His Cross I will cleave in hope of salvation, and with hope that I shall be raised upon it with Him, I shall look down on my foes.
For their riches are a mirage in the same desert through which we have wandered, fed upon Heavenly Manna to sustain us until we reach the Promised Land. They shall be lost, who chase delusions of sufficiency on their own dexterity, for it is God’s right hand alone that saves. In vain have they gathered their wealth, when God lavishes His riches upon the poor. In vain have they battled for status, when God lifts up the lowly. In vain have they sought to preserves their lives, when God the giver of life will inflict no corruption on the bodies of His chosen.
And doubt not that we have been chosen, and fear not that He would forswear His choice. His faithfulness is not that of man’s, which waxes and wanes with each fleeting thought to gain the upper hand. What else, then, should we desire, than His faithful love; what more shall we hope in, on earth or in heaven, than His Holy Covenant, sealed with the Blood of Christ: the consummation of His loving faithfulness that has guided us here in His praise, into the very midst of the Godhead.