“Hear my voice, O God, as I complain, guard my life from dread of the foe.” (Ps 64:1)
I prayed these words this week on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul as part of the Office of Readings. It was a wonderful way to start the day and reflect on these two great saints and the trials and tribulations they encountered following Jesus Christ. The Psalm is a plea to God to help when we are being slandered, abused and lied about and treated with contempt. It is a prayer of hope that all of these things will boom-a-rang on the people committing them and I will be given a life of peace. How many times have we prayed something similar?

Here is the same verse translated slightly different: “Guard me, God, I need protection. Everyone seems to be sharpening their sword agains me.” (Ps 64:1 from “Prayers before an Awesome God: The Psalms for Teenagers” by David Haas) It is often good to hear the prayer of our hearts said in different ways. It is the entering into a deeper conversation where our hearts become united through a common desire with the heart of our ultimate desire to be loved deeply and profoundly by God. In our crying out to God we also need to enter into the silence of God. It is listening with our heart and mind attentive to the reality that is around us because God is with us.
Cardinal Sarah in his book “The Power of Silence” shares these words, “The silence of God is understood by faith, in meditation on the communion that can exist between him and men. The divine silence is a mysterious revelation. God is not insensitive to evil. At first, we may think that God allows evil to destroy men. But if God remains silent, he nonetheless suffers with us from the evil that tears apart and disfigures the earth. If we seek to be with God in silence, we will understand his presence and his love.” (#165 p. 90)

“Listen and help, O God. I’m reduced to a whine and a whimper, obsessed with feelings of doomsday.” (Ps 64:1 “The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language” Eugene H. Peterson) Cardinal Sarah reminds us of two very important things…we need to cry out and we need to enter silence. God invites us to cry out to him in need. He commands us to ask for help, to seek reconciliation, to fight against the sin of the world but he also invites us into a communion of silence where the comfort of God touches the inmost heart. The perfect image of this is a child with a parent. The child wailing in anguish and hurt seems inconsolable until the mom or dad lift him into their arms. They comfort the child with whispers and gently kisses of love and the child enters into this same silence of love where ultimately no more words are spoken except the word of love that is only heard by the presence of one with the other. It is the word of love spoken again and again as husband and wife hold and embrace, as friends listen and bless as the stranger reaches out to serve and be grace to the other.

“O God, hear my anguished voice; from a dreadful foe protect my life.” (Ps 64:2) Each of us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are blessed with the abundance of love and gifts that we are all called to share. In Matthew Kelly’s book “Resisting Happiness”, that we have shared before, he reminds us of the necessary movement is sometimes as simple as crying out in need. “When you are discouraged or caught up in procrastination, simply do the tiniest thing to move whatever you are working on forward.” (p181) The movement will ultimately be in holiness towards God. This is our destiny.
So don’t worry about crying out, complaining, or shouting at God…he’s a big boy he can take…but don’t forget, in the movement, in the going forward to allow the silence of his love to comfort and heal us as we sit with him in peaceful quiet.
God bless
Fr. Mark