Psalm Reflection - Week 10

Psalm 131

"Truly I have set my soul in tranquility and silence"

Perhaps this very short psalm is the best way to end this summer of prayerful reflection on the psalms. Hopefully it is not the end of YOUR time of praying with the psalms! Psalm 131 is a short psalm but good things come in small packages! The simplicity and brevity allows us to focus on what is important: quiet confidence and contentment in God's presence. How important are the images that we find in the psalms! And here is one that we can readily identify with: the child content on its mother's lap.

The images of the weaned child and of contentment remind me of conversations I had with a good friend. Contentment to me once carried the connotation of complacency. I thought that contentment was settling for second best and the more perfect thing to do is to continually strive for something beyond. I begin to see that contentment is some sort of acknowledgement that God is in charge of things. It is a handing over and being peaceful…not going after things too lofty for me. BUT isn't God too lofty for me! Yet I am supposed to seek him and try to grasp the enormous mystery that God is! Putting these seeming contradictory pieces together can take us where we need to go to get to the heart of this psalm. Indeed union with the God is beyond each of us, yet recognizing that it is impossible for us to achieve this on our own, except for God's grace, takes the search out of our hands and puts it into God's hands. It remains a seeking in FAITH not a seeking to grasp and understand with our human mind. The latter might suggest it is within our power to accomplish this and for sure it is not.

The psalmist is one who has learned how to be calm, silent and to wait. These are qualities that have been learned. Such do not come naturally, but these valuable attitudes usually come to us through the trials of life and the challenges we face. Such situations can make a person angry and resentful or patient and trusting. It seems to me that how one sees God's hand in life may tip the scales in the more positive direction. It seems that the psalmist has only one goal in mind and that is a trusting relationship with God. When do we learn that we are made in God's image? This demands of us a certain resignation and handing over. God is not made in our image! We are not the ones who define God. This seems to be the important lesson the psalmist has grasped: God is great, I am small! Was this not the real problem in the Garden?

The beginning of the psalm is interesting in that the psalmist seems to be drawing a comparison with others and setting himself apart from them. "My heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty and I have not sought what is too sublime for me". Is it a comparison, or is the psalmist perhaps questioning his own purity of intention? Humility which might be considered at the heart of the attitude of the psalmist, often disguises itself as taking pride in ones humility or the opposite which is a kind of self effacement. The psalmist seems to be trying to hold to the fine line between the two.

The wisdom of this psalm must be mined by each of us! For sure we learn to pray by praying and by listening to God speak to us. The way to God is not one we can map out. It is a way set by God who finds us and makes us his own.

As we draw these reflections to an end for this summer, we look toward the beginning of the coming school year. I conclude these in the hope that you will persevere in the ways of prayer, that you too will be like a weaned child on God's lap-content and quiet! These reflections have been a prayer to God for blessings on those of you who have found them and on those who have helped me to revere them: the monks of Conception Abbey and the community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. May God receive these prayers, rising as an evening sacrifice. AMEN