Speak Lord: our help and our hope…

The responsorial psalm on Sunday may seem a strange mix of thanksgiving and a stretching out for hope beyond hope.

Well, welcome to what is life for many of us!

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

 I thank you, Lord, with all my heart:
   you have heard the words of my mouth.
In the presence of the angels I will bless you.
   I will adore before your holy temple.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

I thank you for your faithfulness and love,
   which excel all we ever knew of you.
On the day I called, you answered;
   you increased the strength of my soul.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

The Lord is high yet he looks on the lowly
   and the haughty he knows from afar.
Your love, O Lord, is eternal,
   discard not the work of your hands.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

Psalm 137:1-3,6,8

In these present days when loss and the horror of human cruelty are daily before us, there is good reason to lament and to need to renew our trust.

• Where does the work of the Lord’s hands seem in jeopardy?
• What is permanent in our world? How do we know?
• When did you last give thanks to God? Why?

Image of the Pieta is of carving by Louis Botinelly in the Cathédrale Sainte-Marie-Majeure de Marseille. Photograph (c) Allen Morris, 2014.