“Oh
shepherd of Israel, hear us.” A name; a
request. That’s the simple way in which
Psalm 80 begins. But the name is not
just a customary title. It’s a
confession of faith. Shepherd of Israel…
it’s a confession that God leads, protects, nurtures and nourishes his
people. “God of hosts,” it continues, a
confession that God directs and marshals forces to defend us. Planter of the vine that is us… God gave us
our origin, planted us in soil and deeply desires us to grow towards Him. Shepherd of Israel, God of hosts, planter of
the vine: it’s a litany of titles of trust, love and awe from the psalmist to our
Creator.
But
the psalmist doesn’t stop at awe. No, he
trusts enough to ask. We learn that a
friend truly trusts us when they pick up the phone at the time when they know
it’s inconvenient and say, “Please… I need your help.” The psalmist trusts enough to yearn and to
let God know the full wrenching of that yearning. “Let us see your face; be with us.”
Over
the summer, Pope Francis said, “Faith doesn’t just gaze at Jesus, but sees the
world as Jesus sees it.” With eyes of
faith, we can see the world’s needs and let our hearts be broken by them. We read in today’s gospel of Jesus’
recognition that all is not right with the world. That people don’t recognize the bearers of
His word for who they are, and “do what they like” with them, treat them as
disposable. To have hearts of faith is
to let our hearts be broken by the throwaway culture we have, that treats
anyone as disposable. To have hearts of
faith is simultaneously to feel our hearts pulled upward in yearning towards
the God who shepherd us, marshals his hosts and gave us our planting. Our one response to this tearing can be: “O
shepherd of Israel, hear us.”
John
of the Cross was a man of passionate desire for God. In his Spiritual
Canticle, he unabashedly describes himself as love sick for God, crying
out: “Reveal your presence! Behold the illness
of love is incurable, except in your presence and before your face.” His fervent desire matched the psalmist’s. He chose the name “of the Cross” because he
knew that that’s the only place he could find solace, in the Cross. That’s the privileged place to see God’s
face, to see what love looks like.
That’s where his rent heart found its mirror in the Divine Heart that
expresses its sacredness through its piercedness. There he found the only love powerful enough
to put this broken world together again.
He described his encounter with God as encounter with “the tranquil
night at the approaches of the dawn, the silent music, the murmuring solitude,
the supper which revives, and enkindles love.”
The
shepherd of Israel hears us.
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