I wrote this reflection on the readings for Mass on Saturday, February 4. The readings are from Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21; Psalm 23 and Mark 6:30-34. This question haunts me. What does it mean to praise when everything we had and hoped for lies slain at our feet?
Lent is near. Christians ask, “What will we give up this season?” The question assumes a choice. But what happens when a sacrifice is forced upon us: the death of a child, or the inability to have a child to delight in or to mourn? An illness stripping us of agency, of rest, of joy? What then?
When hope is barely remembered, are we asked to offer God “continually . . . a sacrifice of praise”? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews gets the noun right, returning us to sacrifice as ritual slaughter, burnt remains offered to God.
How can we praise when everything we had and hoped for lies slain at our feet?
There is a way, and it begins with understanding that praise is not applause. Look at the psalm. No “thanks for the wolves” here. No “thanks for making us prey.” There is only this promise for sheep lost on their own: we have a shepherd. Our shepherd is good. Our souls will be restored. We will find green pastures. We will pass through valleys, dark with death, on the way. We will not be spared the journey, but we will not walk alone. Our shepherd is with us. We are not told to praise the dark valleys. We are told to praise the one who guides us through.
Praise him.
As St. Mark tells it, Jesus stands before a vast crowd and, “His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus comes to be our shepherd. He feels for us and with us, and he receives our feeble praise with hands that have been bloodied and bound. He knows what it is to offer a sacrifice of praise from dying lips.
Praise him.
[CREDIT] from the February 2023 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.
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