Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter 

Psalm 42:1–6

“As a hart longs for flowing streams, 

so longs my soul for you, O God. 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

When shall I come and behold the face of God? 

My tears have been my food day and night, 

while men say to me continually, “Where is your God?” 

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: 

how I went with the throng, 

and led them in procession to the house of God, 

with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, 

a multitude keeping festival. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul, 

and why are you disquieted within me? 

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 

my help and my God.”

The Gospel reading for today is essentially the same as the one for yesterday.  This happens occasionally because of the way the Lectionary was changed in the 1960’s.  When the first lectionaries were assembled in the 400’s, the aim was to provide a particular theme for the particular day within its ecclesiastical season, and so the readings never varied from one year to the next.  The aim of the reformers of the 1960’s was to expose as much of the Scriptures as possible for the people at Mass to hear.  To this end, a three year cycle was created for the Gospels and a two year cycle for Old Testament and other New Testament books. As a result, the readings, except those for the great feasts, now have only coincidental relation to the Mass of the day.

Let’s look at the Psalm for this Mass, which is one of the most beautiful and poignant of all the psalms.  It is Psalm 42, according to the Hebrew numbering common for modern English translations.  It is Psalm 41 according to the Septuagint, which was used for the Old Latin and Vulgate translations, and subsequently the Douay-Rheims. Only the first part of it is used at Mass, a customary practice for the longer psalms.

“As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God.”  The Psalmist begins with a picturesque and urgent, even breathless, image.  The deer is pursued and is both thirsty and in need of protection.  A “flowing stream” would help with both needs in that it offers clean, fresh water, and a barrier against predators with shorter legs, like dogs.  The “flowing stream” here will save the deer’s life.  It is, in fact, its only hope, and in the same way, “my soul longs for you my God”.  The soul, pursued through the wilderness of this world by predators that would bring it town and tear its life from it.  We can think of the soul of an unbaptized person desiring union with God and awaiting the moment the Sacrament will free it from sin, make it an adopted child of God, and fortify it against the temptations of its enemies.  We can also think here of the soul of the devout Christian, weary and in pain and longing for the presence of God.  We would understand the “flowing water”, then, as the Holy Spirit in his role in the water of baptism, and in his role as our Comforter (cf. John 14, 16).

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold 

the face of God?”  I find this verse very moving.  During the mid 1980’s, when the AIDS epidemic was at its height and very little was known about the disease except that it killed everyone it infected fearfully and painfully, my sister and I took time off from her school and from my job and we worked as live-in volunteers at the Gift of Peace in D.C., which Mother Teresa had established as a hospice for AIDS sufferers who had no place to go.  At the time, families and even hospitals were kicking AIDS patients out into the street.  The sisters and volunteers took good care of these folks, up to the moment of their deaths.  In the bedrooms there were pictures of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin and the saints, and Scripture quotes lined the walls on posters.  In one room there was a picture of Jesus embracing a newly arrived soul in heaven.  While the soul’s face was not visible, the expression on that of Jesus was, and it was an expression of great relief and love.  Next to the picture were the words of this psalm: “When shall I come and behold the face of God?”  There was so much pain and fear in the ward in which I worked, but the witness and tender care of the sisters brought Jesus to the patients and many of them converted.  The conversions were very heartfelt and emotional, and often brought estranged family members together again.

“My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me continually: Where is your God?”  The tears are those of contrition for sin, or those from meditating on the Lord’s Passion, or of the suffering endured for the Lord’s sake.  “Men” or demons tempt and mock the Christian just as they mocked the Lord even when he was dying on the Cross.  We unite our tears with his and conform ourselves to him as he carries out the Father’s will.

“These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.”  We “pour out” our souls in prayer to God, prayers right from our full hearts.  We recall the past  years of service, times of joy, which are the merest signs and foreshadowing of the joy and camaraderie to come in heaven.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?”  The Psalmist here takes courage from the promises of Jesus and from the grace the Lord provides to sustain us and help us persevere in times of trouble and persecution.  The faithful Christian lives in hope, and so he says, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”  This hope is not wishful thinking or a denial of reality, but is the expectation of the fulfillment of what has been promised by One who can not deceive or be deceived, and who can do all things.  

And so we live in hope during these times of disruption and peril, longing fervently for the day when we will feast in the house of God.