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<\/p>\n“I have waited, waited for the LORD,
\nand he stooped toward me”<\/p>\n
Those of us who read the Psalms, not just listen to them during\u00a0 Sunday Mass, always have a favorite.. The common favorite is probably \u201cLord is my Shepherd, I shall not want..\u201d because it is so soothing and full of gratitude.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Psalm is mine. I have prayed with its words in various circumstances because \u201cmud\u201d can refer to so much…<\/p>\n
For Jeremiah it was a very real mud\u00a0 filling the bottom of an empty cistern into which he was thrown by his enemies. In those times rainwater was collected in rock cut containers. Level of rainwater in a cistern was often\u00a0 an indicator of good or bad harvest. Empty cistern did not bode well \u2013 famine was afoot. During famine you\u2019d stop feeding prisoners. Jeremiah would have died out of hunger in this make-shift prison if he were not saved. It was a very real danger. Physical danger.<\/p>\n
When I asked several friends what that \u201cmud\u201d meant to them, one told me a story of being lifted from utter poverty and hopelessness. He happened to be an immigrant, transitioning through Germany to Canada. He desperately needed money to pay for his wife\u2019s air fare to the country of their destination and could not find any job to earn it. He was attending Mass when he heard this Psalm. He wept\u00a0 – and that is a hard man we are talking here. Suddenly felt surrounded by great love and warmth, so physical and literally \u201cup-lifting\u201d that he looked around if other worshippers noticed something unusual.<\/p>\n
When he left church a man came up to him on the street and offered him a job. The man had heard of him somewhere, was not even sure of his identity.
\nThus the plane ticket was purchased on time and the young family was united.<\/p>\n
\u201cMud\u201d can be sin, too. In time of my youth grave sin was something that you keenly experienced. The knowledge of one\u2019s transgression was deep and painful like a never healing wound. That blessed pain would bring you to the confessional and there a miracle happened. The Lord would stoop down to you, He would literally lift you up from the mud, wash off that dark, filthy and clinging matter from you and then, He would place you on a mountain crag, high above the place of your torment. He\u2019d show you the blessed, free world of His own \u2013 so free and pure and beautiful.. and He\u2019d \u201cput a new song into one\u2019s mouth,
\na hymn to our God\u201d that you will try to sing the rest of your life.. Sometimes it is hardly above the whisper, sometimes in full voice \u2013 but no matter how old you get, you remember the moment when you were lifted from the mud by Mercy.
\nThis hymn, of course, originates with the Fire that Jesus brought to the world at the cost of His suffering \u2013 and so the great words of the Old and the New Testament are fulfilled in our little human lives…<\/p>\n
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“I have waited, waited for the LORD, and he stooped toward me” Those of us who read the Psalms, not just listen to them during\u00a0 Sunday Mass, always have a favorite.. The common favorite is probably \u201cLord is my Shepherd, I shall not want..\u201d because it is so soothing and full of gratitude. Today\u2019s Psalm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n