My dear friends, very often people ask the question nowadays, we hear you saying God is love, but what does this mean to us? Now this exactly is the question we try to answer, at least partially, in these discussions on the Psalms. And in order to do so, we first refer to our daily life as it is lived by us in the context of the basic cosmic rhythm. There is the change of day and night, which still plays an essential role in our lives today. There is also a basic rhythm determining the course of the day itself. The new impetus we receive in the morning when the sun has fully entered into the picture.

[01:01]

The height of the day at noon, which brings with it also the crisis of the day. And finally, the slow running out of the day in the afternoon. This cosmic rhythm affects our daily life deeply. And the meaning of the three little hours of thirst, sexed, and known is to help us to penetrate through prayer into its inner spiritual meaning, and in this way to pray our lives. The monastic tradition of the West, as it is presented by the rule of St. Benedict, has chosen the so-called Psalms of Ascent, or Pilgrim Psalms. many of which used to be sung by the Jews on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the three big feasts of the year. These psalms have been chosen, as I said, to turn our pilgrimage through the day into an encounter with God's love.

[02:10]

In the preceding conferences, we have tried to enter into the spiritual meaning of the morning by studying Psalms 119, 120, and 121, the Psalms of Terth, and into the mystery of noontime, which is marked by the praying of Psalms 122, 123, and 124. Now we conclude the course of the day in the light of Psalms 125, 126, and 127, and we begin by indicating the general meaning of the afternoon. Let us become aware of what happens when the heat of the day is over. The ninth hour of antiquity corresponds to our three o'clock in the afternoon, although we always have to remember that the counting of the hours did not take place in a mechanical way through a clock which counts time as if it were a mere quantity of equal seconds and minutes and hours.

[03:32]

But the hours change with the course of the sun. Since the public proclamation of the hours always took place at the end of the hour, the ninth hour was announced about four o'clock. At this time the sun has lost its sting. The temperature begins to sink, and the light takes on a new quality of softness. It transfigures things by a mature clarity, the clarity of detachment, of peace, of reconciliation, of consolation, of that mysterious fullness which frees us from all fear of the approaching night. The afternoon does not present the mood of a desperate last gasp before death hits its victim with destructive force.

[04:41]

It rests in a quiet, radiant victory. It solves all disharmonies. It does not destroy. Afternoon is to the day what autumn is to the year, when the leaves of the trees flame up in a symphony of color so rich, so unexpected, so magnificent, that it seems unsurpassable. The ninth hour of the day of Christ's Passion was just like that. The darkness that had covered the earth since the sixth hours passed away before the golden light of the late sun that filled the whole air. It glows in some of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, around the cross on which the Lord has surrendered His Spirit, not with the signs of physical breakdown

[05:49]

but with a loud voice." Read Matthew 27.50. What else could this loud voice be but the voice of prayer? And could one not assume that it was the end of that prayer which the Lord had started in the course of the six hour? I mean Psalm 21. The psalm that begins with the words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27, verse 46. And then ends with the triumphant cry, My soul shall live for him, my children serve him. They shall tell of the Lord to generations yet to come. declare his faithfulness to peoples yet unborn.

[06:52]

These things the Lord has done. In this context, Psalm 21 would truly reveal on Christ's lips its last meaning as a Passover psalm, leading from the night of deepest agony of the heart into the joy of the resurrection. and from the absolute loneliness of the dying Son of Man into the fullness of life of the new Adam, the head of generations yet to come, of peoples yet unborn. These things the Lord has done. In the day of the Lord's passion The ninth hour plays, in a spiritual way, the role which the afternoon plays in the course of the natural day.

[07:58]

It breaks the bonds of death. It unties the knots of guilt. Christ brings the soft, consoling life of reconciliation into the darkness of the netherworld. to all the generations that were waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Now his work has been accomplished. The hour during which he was delivered into the powers of darkness is over, and descending to the very bottom of history, he turns the captivity of former generations into a procession of triumph. The veil of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom, and the graves opened. Matthew 27, verse 51 and 52. The mood of the military that had carried out the execution and stood by the cross turned from mockery to fear.

[09:12]

The captain confessed, this is truly the Son of God. Matthew 27, verse 54. Now let us turn to the ninth hour as we live it in our days. The first thing that hits the eye is that in our eight-hour working world, The ninth hour has acquired, in a new way, just this very character of loosening the chains of labor. Think of the crowds in the big cities during the rush hour. With a big sigh of relief they quit work and run to their cars or buses or are swallowed up by the wail of the subway. I know of many people who use this time of return to their homes to pray Vespers.

[10:14]

Maybe, under the impact of my explanations, they switch to known and say Psalm 125. Listen. When the Lord delivered sign from bondage, it seemed like a dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter. On our lips there were songs. Who of all the victims of the rush hour could possibly not see the point of playing in this way at this moment of their own return from the cold world of the skyscrapers and offices to the warmth of their homes? The psalmist, of course, did not think of the rush hour in the late afternoon in our big cities. He had probably in mind the great turning point in Jewish history when, after the fall of Babylon, the Persian king Cyrus allowed the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland.

[11:30]

You may read Isaiah 45.1. This event had come about against all human expectation, and it all seemed like a dream to the people. Their mouths were filled with laughter. Dreaming and laughing and singing are man's reactions to a sudden and overwhelming turn in his destiny. In this miracle, Jarve reveals the power of his love. Also, the heathens are taken by surprise. In verse 2 of Psalm 127, it says, The heathens themselves said, What marvels the Lord worked for them! And the Jews eagerly repeated, What marvels the Lord worked for us!

[12:32]

Indeed, we were glad. As you see, the psalm starts with the remembrance of an outstanding manifestation of God's love for Israel, a turn in the history. The word turn, in Hebrew, shug, is one of the key words of the psalm, which is repeated in verse four at the beginning of the second part of the psalm. By the word turn one does not understand merely a change which could be an arbitrary superficial thing, as one speaks about a change changing one's mind, or says, I need a change. These changes are very often nothing but ripples on the surface of life.

[13:34]

What is meant in our psalm is a radical turn of destiny, something that cannot be brought about by human machination, a real marvel. It reaches the very roots of Israel's existence as a nation before God. It restores the covenant between Israel and Jahweh on which the destiny of the whole people depends. As the covenant has been established by God's election of Israel as His chosen son and has been crowned by Jahweh's gift to His people of the Holy Land, so has also the loss of the Holy Israel's being led away captive into exile had been brought about by Jarvis turning away in anger from the people because of their breach of the covenant.

[14:42]

This forced emigration was the most drastic turn in the history of the Chosen People. The fact of losing their independence and living as captives or deportees in a foreign land under foreign rulers and foreign guards changed their entire existence. Jarvis' intention was that this exile should bring about two things. First, an inner change of heart among the people, from their former flirting with the pagan gods, to fidelity to Jarvis, in obedience to his law. And second, the sowing of the seed of God's Word among the nations, which through Israel's exile came in contact with Yahweh, Israel's God.

[15:50]

It will help you to understand and appreciate this Psalm 125 as a poem if you realize that it plays on two alliterations, both very popular and very meaningful in Jewish thinking. Namely, the close similarity of sound between the Hebrew words captivity or taking captive and turning around. as well as the phonetic affinity between Yisrael, meaning God-conqueror, and Yisrael, meaning God-sowing. In German, Gottes Sieger and Gottes Saat. The first alliteration associates closely the idea of captivity or exile with that of turn or return in the sense of going home, as well as in the sense of repenting or spiritual return from the moral captivity of sin and its estrangement from God to a new closeness to God through reconciliation.

[17:17]

The Hebrew word for repentance, teshuvah, derived from shu, to turn, means change of direction. It corresponds to our English word conversion. This is significant because in the general context of Jewish speech and thought, life is essentially a way. To live is to walk. toward the goal, which is either God or the evil one. The Greek equivalent is metanoia, or change of heart, while the word repentance is derived from the Latin penitentia, from the root of pena, meaning punishment. In these three words we are able to observe three different attitudes.

[18:24]

The Jewish change of direction puts the emphasis on the way of the law, the practical aspect of action. The Greek change of heart expresses the interior spirit. while the Latin penitentia has a definite juridical connotation—punishment. The Jewish teshuvah is the change of direction, the return on the broad straight way through the desert, as described by Deutero-Isaiah, to Jerusalem or Monsin, the place where Yahweh dwells. This return has definitely been prepared by a better observance of the law on the part of the people, which averts against true turns God's anger. But in the last analysis, the turn can only be brought about by an act of reconciliation on the part of God.

[19:31]

an act which liberates the people and which presupposes a turn of heart on the part of Yahweh. This is well expressed in a psalm which is very similar to ours and also plays on the same alliteration of return and captivity, I mean Psalm 84. He begins with the words, O Lord, you once favored your land and revived the fortunes of Jacob. In the Hebrew original, the last half of the sentence reads, You turned the returning of Jacob. Verse 7 of this psalm expresses precisely the point we want to make here. It says, again in the Hebrew original, Jave, you turn and give us life, and your people will rejoice in you. The Latin might still ring in your ears.

[20:35]

Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos, et plebstura letabitur in te. which verse used to form part of the prayers at the foot of the altar in our Latin Mass before it was remodeled. In the context of the Mass, this verse immediately reveals the whole depth which it receives in the light of Christ. Man's conversion springs from a conversion in the very heart of God. He loved us first, when we were still His enemies, and sent to us His Son-made Man, Jesus Christ, as a propitiation for our sins. The incarnation of the Word of God is the turning of the Father's face to us. This turning reached its climax in the Lord's death on the cross, when He, extending His arms to a mocking crowd, prayed, Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.

[21:44]

The same truth is indicated in St. Luke's report on the repentance of Peter, when the latter denied Christ for the third time, thus consummating, as it were, his turning away from the Lord. At that moment, Jesus turned around to Peter and looked at him. And this turning, this glance of Jesus' eyes, brought about Peter's return. He went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22, 61 This was the decisive conversion in Peter's life, and his tears make it clear that he realized that the reconciliation he received was not his own doing. He went out. He knew he was not worthy to be around any longer in the vain attempt to bring about a turn for the better that would avert the worst, Christ's condemnation and death, as he had thought.

[22:50]

He knew not that Jesus had to die so that he, Peter, may live again. Jesus had to leave the city to die outside the walls. Golgotha geographically was outside of the Holy City. Spiritually, it represents the exile. Jesus himself sums up the whole history of Israel. As Yisra'el, God-conqueror, becomes Yisra'el, God-sowing, so Christ Himself becomes the grain of wheat which falls into the ground and dies. He Himself goes out full of tears, but then in His resurrection He comes back full of song, carrying His sheaves, those to whom He has given life. What Christ went through in His suffering and resurrection then becomes the destiny of the new Israel of us.

[23:59]

In this spirit, we make our own the concluding part of Psalm 125. It says, Deliver us, O Lord, from our bondage, as streams in dry land. Those who are sowing in tears will sing when they reap. They go out, they go out full of tears, They come back, they come back full of song, Carrying their sheaves. As out of the remembrance of Yahweh's goodness, which has worked the marvel of return of the people into the Holy Land, there rises in the hearts of the Jews a confident prayer to bring about again a turn in their present calamity. So should we, going out to sow in tears, confidently pray for our return, full of song, carrying our sheaves. The great turn that God has worked for the deliverance of all mankind from the bondage of sin is being relived by the Church.

[25:09]

The historical experience of the Jews becomes a reality for us in the celebration of the sacraments, first for every one individually, being all sheaves. The great turn that God has worked for the deliverance of all mankind from the bondage of sin is being relived by the Church. The historical experience of the Jews becomes a reality for us in the celebration of the sacraments, first for everyone individually in baptism, where we are buried in the death of Christ and rise with him. Then it accompanies our life in the Holy Eucharist and through the sacrament of penance. In fact, it is the meaning of the Church year, and especially of the liturgical celebration of Easter, to enable us, the new Israel, to experience again and again our return from the exile and our rebirth in the power of the resurrection.

[26:19]

The sowing in tears becomes a reality in Lent. The reaping in joy takes place in the blessed fifty days after Easter, between Easter and Pentecost. What the Church celebrates liturgically fills the daily life of every Christian. Our life as Christians is not an unbroken train of victories, not even a slow but constant development for the better. It is rather a succession of ever new conversions. We fall and we rise. We die and we are born again. One may even say that the important thing for us is not never to fall, but to rise after the fall. But whoever has experienced such a resurrection can never be sure that he will not fall again. This is the secret of our life in Christ, which the Lord himself has foretold us. Amen, amen, I say to you. You shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.

[27:23]

And you shall be sorrowful, but your soul shall be turned into joy. John 16, 20. His anger lasts but a moment, his favor through life. At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn.

[27:39]

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