Speak Lord: Comfort in our need

 

In your great love, answer me, O Lord.

It is for you that I suffer taunts,
that shame covers my face,
that I have become a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons.
I burn with zeal for your house
and taunts against you fall on me.

In your great love, answer me, O Lord.

This is my prayer to you,
my prayer for your favour.
In your great love, answer me, O God,
with your help that never fails:
Lord, answer, for your love is kind;
in your compassion, turn towards me.

In your great love, answer me, O Lord.

The poor when they see it will be glad
and God-seeking hearts will revive;
for the Lord listens to the needy
and does not spurn his servants in their chains.
Let the heavens and the earth give him praise,
the sea and all its living creatures.

In your great love, answer me, O Lord.

Psalm 68:8-10,14,17,33-35

The Responsorial Psalm at Mass tomorrow, the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time, comes from the lips of the Church called to imitate Christ, and experiencing something of the persecution that the Lord himself experienced.

But the Church travels in the steps of Love and in her trials receives love to endure and be raised again to joy in God’s presence.

Maquette for memorial, Tikhvin Cemetery, St Petersburg, Russia. (c) 2015, Allen Morris.