May all the nations know our God
October 2, 2023 - Monday, Memorial of the Guardian Angels
Psalm 102:16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23
Psalm 102 has a unique superscription: “A prayer of the lowly man when he is faint and pours forth his plea before the Lord” (Ps 102:1). The miseries of that person include sickness, loneliness, and enemies who revile him. Moreover, he ascribes the cause of his miseries to the wrath of God (see Ps 102:11). And so, he poured forth his plea before the Lord, and the Lord heard his prayer - God's wrath turned into mercy.
We do not know who that lowly man was, but the reference to rebuilding Zion would indicate that he was one of the Jewish exiles taken to Babylon. The prophets saw the destruction of Jerusalem as the expression of God’s wrath. Yet they continued to proclaim that God’s mercy would prevail over His anger. The Jews would return from the exile and rebuild Zion. It would be a new Exodus. As the Lord looked down from his holy place and saw the misery of His people in Egypt, so He would look down and see the misery of the exiles in Babylon.
In the Book of Sirach, we find this prayer: “As you have used us to show them your holiness, so now use them to show us your glory” (Sirach 36:3). Seeing the punishment the Lord inflicted on His people, the nations realised God’s holiness. But by submitting the nations to the power of God, the Lord would show his awesome glory to His people. And that is what our lowly man prayed for. He hoped that all the nations would revere the name of the Lord and all the kingdoms serve the Lord.
The tragic experience of the city of Jerusalem and its citizens has also befallen many Christian communities in the world. In the first millennium, the Church was flourishing in the Middle East and Persia, but it is nearly extinguished now. In the sixteenth century, Saint Francis Xavier was predicting that in a short time, Japan would become a Catholic nation, but after his death, severe persecution destroyed that fast-growing Church. How do we approach such tragedies? Do we believe, like the psalmist, that God will rebuild the Church in those places? Do we pray for it?
The psalmist prays “that the name of the LORD may be declared in Zion, and his praise, in Jerusalem” (Ps 102:22). Today, the name of the Lord is declared in the Church, but we do not see yet all the nations revering and serving the Lord. And so we continue to pray with the lowly man from Psalm 102. Today we are pouring forth our plea before the Lord that through the growth of the Church among the nations, He will make His name glorified in all the kingdoms of the earth.