“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
I love that there were short verses for the psalm today, and we got to repeat this refrain from the Psalmist over and over. If you think about it, and if you really enter into it, it becomes a kind of mantra, a way to center ourselves and open ourselves up to the Lord in this Eucharistic celebration.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
Because we are all in need of the Lord’s mercy, aren’t we? Whether it is sinfulness, addiction, illness or infirmity, anxiety, worry about a family member, uncertainty about a job or the economy as a whole, frustration over politics, frustration over the pandemic, frustration over racism and civil unrest, frustration that this year nothing is normal. We all have to realize that so much of the time we are in desperate need of the Lord’s love and mercy. Certainly this year has had to underscore that for us.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
And we come to the point that we know that the only thing that can help us is the Lord’s mercy. We may have tried so many times on our own to cure ourselves or make the pain go away or focus on the positive or not cause waves, we know that of ourselves, ultimately, we are unable to fix the things that really vex us. Sin takes hold, circumstances beyond our control confound us, powerlessness causes frustration. And then, all of a sudden, we remember the God we were trying to hide from, the God we didn’t want to bother with our little troubles. But in the face of our own powerlessness, we must turn to the God whose power can overcome all.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
And so that powerlessness eventually, inevitably intersects with the loving power of our merciful God, who desires so much more for us than we would settle for. And then we really do let God’s mercy come to us. Because it was always there in the first place; never withheld. We had just to let it come to us, had to be open to it, had to be in the place where we could receive it and come to the point where we could acknowledge our need for it and our gratitude for receiving it. And when we at last arrive there, and that mercy comes to us, how overwhelmed with joy we can be, how transformed, how loved we can feel, how cared for. God’s mercy is always there, we have just to let it come to us.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”