Ant. 1 We saw him despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with infirmity.
Psalm 22 God hears the suffering cry of his Holy One
Jesus cried with a loud voice: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress. O my God, I call by day and you give no reply; I call by night and I find no peace. ...
Do no leave me alone in my distress; come close, there is none else to help.
I prayed Terce this morning (the mid-morning prayer in the Office) instead of the Morning Prayer. I'm glad I did. I feel now as if it was providential. This is what stood out to me - well, nearly the whole thing, there's only one section of a Psalm in the little hours, but these parts particularly stood out to me as I have felt like this lately.
I have often found myself in the Psalms. I'm sure we all can here and there, and that's why they're there for us. So this time, I find myself inside the cries of Jesus, both prophesied and actually, as well as of the writer of the Psalm. And even though these words sound painful, and they are, to read them in conjunction with my own inner goings-on is comforting.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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