A Reflection for Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Find today’s readings here.
“Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.”
If I may be a bit vulnerable with you, I had a somewhat troubled winter.
As a backdrop to it all, I have since November been deeply distressed by our country’s political situation and fearful of the cruel, authoritarian direction in which the current administration is pulling our society. But it isn’t only our civic life that has posed challenges. A few months ago, my family had to say goodbye to a beloved pet who had been with us for nearly twelve years. And just last weekend, my grandfather passed away after a period of illness. It has been, in many respects, a winter of loss.
Whenever I’ve spent time with God in prayer lately, two pearls of holy wisdom have come to the forefront of my mind. The first is the words of St. Teresa of Ávila—”Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away. God never changes”—about which Brother Joe Hoover, S.J., wrote eloquently in the days before the election, and with which I prayed on election night when the outcome became clear. The second is today’s psalm.
Many Christians have heard the words of Psalm 23 so often that they come to seem almost trite. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…yes, yes, we get it…rod and staff, green pastures, overflowing cup; it’s all very nice and therapeutic. I’ve had some Catholic friends who expressed weariness with what they see as overexposure to the psalm. Isn’t all this the spiritual equivalent of a lukewarm bath? Does it push us out of our comfort zone? Does it challenge us at all?
But then we get to that line about the “dark valley.” What a beautiful declaration of faith the Psalmist makes here: “You are at my side.”
Whenever I’ve prayed with this psalm over the past few months, in moments of exhaustion from all the crises that have seemed to break out at once, these words have been an immeasurable consolation. No matter what else is happening in the world, God will not leave me. More importantly, he will not leave the people I love who are struggling. Often, when I prayed for my grandfather during his final days, I did so through the lens of this psalm, saying to God: “I have faith, I know, that you will not leave his side, in this world or the next. Thank you, God, for your constant presence and nearness to him. Thank you for the gift of this faith.”
Praying with this psalm doesn’t make the crises go away, but it does help me cultivate the faith to face them with some measure of equanimity. There’s a reason why Christians keep coming back to Psalm 23, why we always hear it at funerals, why David’s words are among the first on our lips whenever we feel ourselves on the precipice of despair. It expresses God’s simplest but most sorely needed promise—that he will never leave our side.
Without God’s help, steeling ourselves against fear and doubt in the midst of dark hours is much easier said than done. But in that vein, I think this psalm does challenge us—it challenges us to walk through the “dark valley” with open eyes and steady feet, facing evil without fear, but it also gives us the means to do so: the knowledge that God is with us at each step.
