Psalm 5: You Are God’s Flute

Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

June 30, 2020

A Brief Prayer on Today’s Gospel from 2016
Today, in Mercy, we pray for all those tossed on a stormy sea, like Christ’s disciples. For all who are alone, in darkness or full of fear. There is no storm through which God cannot come to us. May we always trust that God is taking us to a new grace beyond the storm.

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 5, the first one of several to mention “the Name of God” as a theme.  The psalm, a morning prayer to be “accompanied by a flute”, is a mix of lament and exaltation – like many of our own morning prayers, no doubt.

At dawn I bring my plea expectantly before you.
For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
the evil one does not remain with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.

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Now, first off in the morning, we’re probably not going to talk to God about wickedness, evil, and arrogance unless we went to bed pretty upset the night before. The psalmist apparently has “slept on” his troubles without complete resolution.

We had a dear, wise Directress of Postulants who, on many an evening, patiently listened to our various vocational waverings. We were young. Just like the disciples in Matthew’s boat, we really weren’t as sure of our calls as we would like to have been. Sister Inez’s repeated advice soothed a lot of our growing pains, “Just give it to God and get a good night’s sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.” And they always were.

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As the psalmist prays this morning prayer, things clear as well. After a brief diatribe, the prayer realizes:

But I, through the abundance of your mercy,
will enter into your house.
I will bow down toward your holy sanctuary
in awe of your greatness.

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Psalm 5 beautifully complements today’s Gospel. Jesus is in the storm-tossed boat peacefully “sleeping on it”. The disciples, on the other hand, cannot just “give” their terror over to God. When they wake Jesus, terrified, he gently reprimands them, “O ye of little faith”.

Jesus wants them and us, to realizes what the psalmist realizes in verse 12:

All who trust in God will be glad
and forever shout for joy.
God protects them 
and their lives are a melody
to God’s beloved Name

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Poetry: A Hole in a Flute ~ Hafiz

I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves through; 
listen to this music.

I am the concert 
from the mouth of every creature 
singing with the myriad chorus.

I am a hole in a flute 
that the Christ's breath moves through; 
listen to this music.

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Music: The Edge of Night by a group called “Siyotanka” which is actually the Lakota name for this type of flute.