The responsorial psalm for Mass on the 4th Sunday of the year, this year, is Psalm 94. It is also the psalm often used in the Daily Office – the first prayer of the day, suited for every day: O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the rock who saves us.
Let us come before him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us:
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
O that today you would listen to his voice!
‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.’O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’
Psalm 94:1-2,6-9
Notice what the psalmist presumes will help us to avoid hardening of our hearts: knowledge of his saving love; humility and an acknowledgement of God’s power and his exercising of that power for us.
It seems safe to presume that being careless of who and how God is, and being deceived as to our own power and capacity to care for ourselves will close our ears and will open our hearts.
Gratitude, thanksgiving inspires the psalmist. May it fashion and shape our present day too.
- For what might you give thanks today?
- What might you place in God’s hands, acknowledging it is beyond your power to control.
Photograph of Picasso’s 1937 portrait of Dora Maar. Picasso museum, Paris. Photograph (c) Allen Morris, 2015.
Living Eucharist 