This blog is an attempt to look at everyday life with the wisdom offered by the Daily Bible readings of the Catholic Church.

PSALM 139

Lord, you examine me and know me, 

2 you know when I sit, when I rise, you understand my thoughts from afar. 

3 You watch when I walk or lie down, you know every detail of my conduct. 

4 A word is not yet on my tongue before you, O Lord, know all about it. 

5 You fence me in, behind and in front, you have laid your hand upon me. 

6 Such amazing knowledge is beyond me, a height to which I cannot attain. 

7 Where shall I go to escape your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? 

8 If I scale the heavens you are there, if I lie flat in hell, there you are. 

9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell beyond the ocean,

10 even there your left hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, ‘Let the darkness cover me, and the night wrap itself around me,’ 

12 even darkness to you is not dark, and night is as clear as the day. 

13 You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

14 For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders.  

"If I take the wings of the morning"

There was an article by Muriel Gray in the Sunday Herald newspaper yesterday, which took issue with the recent decision of a judge that a man’s conviction about climate change should be considered (for the purposes of employment law) as if it was a religious belief. I think I agreed with her main point, but the article was marred, for me at least, by an intemperate and hysterical abuse of religious belief as such. I have admired Ms. Gray’s journalism for many years, but this is not the first time she has adopted a bullying tone, in categorising all religious belief as idiotic and irresponsible. I can understand her taking a polemical stance against the prejudice of some religious thinking, but to caricature all faith as dangerous, is to put Desmond Tutu in the same sin-bin as Ian Paisley. The conviction displayed in Psalm 139, that existence is circumscribed by transcendent love, is not irrational: the writer was speaking out of a national experience of conquest, occupation and exile, and doubtless knew personal suffering as well, yet he/she stubbornly insists that God’s love has been constant in heights and depths. The psalm articulates an imaginative insight that the facts which can be agreed by science, are encompassed by the mystery of divine love. The last line quoted demonstrates that the fruit of this faith is a conviction that all life is marvellous, requiring gratitude and respect.

I wrote the above, but then I had an uneasy feeling, and had a look at the bits of the psalm the Catholic lectionary leaves out:

Luke 16: 1-6

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Causes of falling are sure to come, but alas for the one through whom they occur! 

2 It would be better for such a person to be thrown into the sea with a millstone round the neck than to be the downfall of a single one of these little ones. 

3 Keep watch on yourselves! ‘If your brother does something wrong, rebuke him and, if he is sorry, forgive him. 

4 And if he wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, “I am sorry,” you must forgive him.’ 

5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’ 

6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith like a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you. 

In this passage Jesus is depicted instructing his followers about their life as a community. “Causes of falling” are literally “obstacles to make people trip up” and these exist in the life of all communities, where ordinary human badness hurts others. The “little ones” here are not children, but people who have a childlike faith, which might be mistaken by unsympathetic critics as childish. Jesus told his followers that they were required to forgive their brothers and sisters, when they did hurtful things. “Seven times a day” Jesus is quoted as saying. No wonder they asked for their faith to be increased! It is their faith in the goodness of God which sustains their capacity to forgive. To scorn it is unintelligent, as well as heartless.