A bountiful rain
May 23, 2023 - Tuesday, Seventh Week of Easter
Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21
The fragment of Psalm 68 that we hear today in the liturgy of the word mentions “a bountiful rain” that God showered upon his inheritance (Ps 68:10). The ancient rabbis taught that we would not exist without earth or rain. In the second account of creation in Genesis 2:4-25, human being is created from the ground that is moistened by mist (see Gen 2:6-7). In ancient times, the fertility of Palestine depended entirely on the fall of yearly rain that comes from the Mediterranean Sea which is located to the west. If that rain failed to materialise then it would have devastating consequences on the people living there.
The book of Deuteronomy describes the promised land as “a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven” (Deut 11:11). Moreover, the yearly rain is linked to obedience to God’s commandments. We hear further in that book that if the people obeyed God’s instruction, love and serve him, he would give them “the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full” (Deut 11:14-15). Here we stumble upon an insight that is seldom mentioned in our discussion about ecology and creation, namely that our disobedience to God’s commands negatively affects the environment we live in. The biblical author warns his readers that if they go after false gods, the Lord “will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you” (Deut 11:17).
“A bountiful rain” is the sign of God’s blessing and his care for the people. With the rain life is restored and the needy can look forward to a bountiful harvest that will fill their hearts with joy. But the ancient commentators on the Bible also interpreted the rain metaphorically seeing in it the symbol of God’s Torah given to the people on Mount Sinai. The gift of Torah is the sign of God’s love and care for the people. In obedience to it, there is life and abundance of God’s blessing. For a Christian, a bountiful rain can be linked with the gift of the Holy Spirit that the risen Christ sends from the Father upon his Church. He falls like a dew upon our dry and stony hearts and transform them into hearts of flesh. He writes on our heart God’s commandments and empowers us to live in obedience.
My youngest brother once attended two-week youth Catholic camp. At the beginning of that camp they invoked the Holy Spirit with the song, “like reviving rain, come Holy Spirit”. Their prayer was so effective that it rain for two weeks during the entire camp. There is another Christian song in my country that compares God’s love to ‘a warm rain’. Saint Paul writes that “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. He recreates us through his creative power, turns our inner desert into springs of water, he restores our languishing hearts and revives our lives.