24 September 2021
Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Send forth your light and your fidelity; they shall lead me on
And bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling place. (Ps 43:3)
The Lord leads to His holy mountain, to where He dwells, but the journey is demanding. He led Abram out of the land of his fathers. He led Moses and the Chosen People out of Egypt. He led David in the midst of attacks first from his father-in-law and then from his own son. He led the exiles by way of the often hard messages of the prophets. Finally, to return to the land of Judah, the Lord led them through the desert once more.
The journeys were difficult, but they were possible because the light and the fidelity of the Lord were what accompanied and the led the Chosen People through all these challenges. The journeys were also possible because of their goal: the dwelling place of the Lord: as much dwelling with the Lord through loving fidelity to His covenant as much as enjoying manifestations of His presence in the land of promise.
Finally, we can hear these words of the psalmist on the lips of the Church, speaking to the Incarnate Lord. Of old, God hallowed the mountain of the covenant by His presence and by the covenant with the Chose People sealed with the blood of calfs. (Ex 24:8) But today, we may consider how the Lord leads the Church ever to remember the covenant ratified in His own blood, shed upon the Cross on the mount of Calvary. Here the Church asks to be led, ever to be renewed by the memory and presence of that sacrificial love of God in Her midst. Today, let us ask to remember the fidelity and the light by which the Lord leads us, accompanying us even in suffering and death, so that He might lead us to dwell with Him in eternal life.