| Today's Responsorial Psalm Psalm 69:8-10,21-22,31 and 33-34 R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me. For your sake I bear insult, and shame covers my face. I have become an outcast to my brothers, a stranger to my mother's sons, because zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me. R. Lord, in your great love, answer me. Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for consolers, not one could I find. Rather they put gall in my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. R. Lord, in your great love, answer me. |  I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify Him with thanksgiving: "See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the LORD hears the poor, and His own who are in bonds He spurns not." R. Lord, in your great love, answer me. |
Reflection
In today’s psalm first we hear of abandonment and suffering, then bitterness, and finally it ends with singing and praise. This Psalm reads like a commentary of Jesus upon the Cross. In the throes of His agony, Jesus is abandoned by all but a few, looked upon with contempt, rejected. Line by line we can imagine these words being in Jesus’ mouth. In His last moments, a soldier gives Jesus vinegar to drink, pausing the psalm, for now, and shortly thereafter He dies. Easter morning, Jesus’ joy breaks through the tomb, completing psalm, “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive!” announcing to Mary Magdalene His Resurrection.
In our lives, we will often pass through moments of abandonment, desolation, and suffering. Perhaps we can relate to the words of the psalmist, words of pain and sadness, but the pattern of the psalm reminds us of an essential truth: with every Calvary, comes Resurrection. God never allows us to endure a suffering from which He will not draw a greater good.
If Jesus truly rose from the tomb, then our greatest enemy, death, no longer has power over us. Jesus frees us to live as people of hope, trusting in His promise of eternal life. All pain, all suffering is temporary, but the joy of those who know God is eternal. Today, offer your sufferings up to God and pray for more trust in the Lord. Let us renew our trust in the promise of hope found in this psalm and Easter.
In today’s psalm first we hear of abandonment and suffering, then bitterness, and finally it ends with singing and praise. This Psalm reads like a commentary of Jesus upon the Cross. In the throes of His agony, Jesus is abandoned by all but a few, looked upon with contempt, rejected. Line by line we can imagine these words being in Jesus’ mouth. In His last moments, a soldier gives Jesus vinegar to drink, pausing the psalm, for now, and shortly thereafter He dies. Easter morning, Jesus’ joy breaks through the tomb, completing psalm, “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive!” announcing to Mary Magdalene His Resurrection.
In our lives, we will often pass through moments of abandonment, desolation, and suffering. Perhaps we can relate to the words of the psalmist, words of pain and sadness, but the pattern of the psalm reminds us of an essential truth: with every Calvary, comes Resurrection. God never allows us to endure a suffering from which He will not draw a greater good.
If Jesus truly rose from the tomb, then our greatest enemy, death, no longer has power over us. Jesus frees us to live as people of hope, trusting in His promise of eternal life. All pain, all suffering is temporary, but the joy of those who know God is eternal. Today, offer your sufferings up to God and pray for more trust in the Lord. Let us renew our trust in the promise of hope found in this psalm and Easter.
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