After each Mass I go to, I pray Psalm 23.
For a long time, I only said the words.
At Franciscan everyone knelt to pray after Mass was over, and I wasn’t sure what to pray. So I quickly came up with a few routine prayers to say as I knelt after Mass so I wouldn’t stick out as the one leaving earlier than everyone else. (Ah my vain and prideful heart makes itself known again haha!) I would pray the prayer to St. Michael, a classic post Mass prayer, and I would pray the Memorare, for a little extra grace from Mama Mary.
Now, it wasn’t until my Sophomore spring that I began to pray Psalm 23 after Mass. My household (sort of a Catholic Sorority on campus, though that is a huge over-simplification) had updated our formation that year and it was required that each household sister memorize it and we began reciting Psalm 23 after every 6:30am Mass we went to as a household.
I did not often allow myself to really reflect on the words as I said them, though. I would say them passively, and I recited it on my own after Mass to keep the words fresh in my mind so that I would have it memorized per our household’s requirement. (If new sisters were expected to have it memorized it would be wrong of me not to, I figured it was important to teach by example.)
After college, I continued this practice. After Mass I would kneel and say the St. Michael prayer, the Memorare, and Psalm 23. I emphasize the word “say” because I don’t think I really prayed the words or took them to heart. I just continued to passively say the words out of habit.
In the last few weeks, the Lord has poured out His grace over me in a new way. Many of these personal graces which have touched my heart I will hold there, as I don’t think all of it is meant for the world, at least not at this moment. But one grace He has given me is a new love for the Mass and for Himself in the Eucharist (and I can say with full confidence that He wants me to share that with the world).
In a previous post, I talked about a fast from music that I felt called to, in order to attune my heart to the voice of the Lord. This fast has been the source of many graces, and has been especially fruitful during the car ride home after Mass each day.
It was after Mass one day when I was reflecting on the Lord in the Eucharist, that a line from Psalm 23 was placed on my heart. “His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (Ps. 23:6)
On this particular drive home, I was reflecting on who the Lord is in the Eucharist, and I shared some of this in a previous blog post. In reflecting on who the Lord is, it allows us to see more clearly who we are. His identity is where we find our own. And so I was reflecting on the Lord as the person of Love and the significance of receiving Him in the Eucharist that morning and just how good the Lord is. And that is when he placed Psalm 23:6 on my mind. “His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
I had often thought this was a prideful statement before. I think because I misunderstood this scripture.
Whenever I'd heard Psalm 23, I would focus on the first verse, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” And this verse has significance as it sets the tone for the whole rest of this Psalm. But in almost every reflection I had heard about Psalm 23 it focused on how there is nothing else we should want but the Lord. And each time I heard this, I was wracked with guilt because there were so many other things I wanted besides the Lord. I thought there was something so wrong with me because I was a human girl whose heart often was drawn to things of the world.
In many ways, I had missed the mark in my understanding of what that first verse meant. I had been so focused on how imperfect I was that I let it draw me away from the Lord. I was the sheep who strayed from the rest of the herd and from the Shepherd. I had thought that I needed to earn the Lord’s favor (this is a common theme in my blogs, I think, because it’s literally the story of my life.) I convinced myself that if I was the sheep who strayed, I should do everything in my power to find my way back alone instead of waiting for the Lord to find me and carry me back home. I had tried to make myself, a dumb little sheep, into a shepherd… and for anyone who knows anything about sheep that can only end in disaster since it’s quite an impossible transformation.
I had forgotten that very first line, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
And when you read the Psalm, which speaks of the goodness of the Shepherd, and of struggles and dark valleys and walking in the shadow of death, and it never once implies that a sheep has to make it through those places on their own. But the Shepherd, Who provides for every need, is there every step of the way. He is our protection. Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.
And that’s exactly what set in as I was reflecting on this in the car that day. His goodness and mercy follows me, not because I made myself into a shepherd to impress him, because that’s quite impossible, but because He is the Shepherd and it is in His nature to care for His sheep. It’s just who He is.
It is only in humility that one can truly receive.
And so only when we humble ourselves, and recognize that we are only lowly sheep, and allow the Shepherd to be who He is, goodness and mercy will follow each day of our lives, and he will bring us safely to His house where we shall dwell forever.
So to acknowledge that the Lord’s goodness and mercy will shower over us forever is not pride, because it is grace which is not earned. We receive the goodness and mercy of the Lord only when we humbly allow ourselves to. Only when we recognize our identity in Him can we receive what He has for us. And we can do that only when we realize that the Lord is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep.
And when we cling to that truth, that the Lord is our Shepherd who provides for the needs of His sheep, then we can truly realize that there is nothing else we could ever want.
Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters,
He restores my soul.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
For You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Comments