O God, you are my God, for you I long;

God is everyone’s, not just mine, but here the psalmist shows his focus: ‘me & my God’.  Indeed, throughout the psalm, the only pronouns are I, me my, you and your.  It would be unhealthy and unhelpful only to consider our spiritual lives as being ‘me & my God’, but for this psalm, we’re invited to indulge a little in that cosy relationship of ‘just the two of us.’

for you my soul is thirsting,

My body pines for you

like a dry, weary land without water.

St Augustine famously said, ‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you’.  I suppose the quotation is so famous because it hits the spot so accurately.  We have a God-shaped space within us and – on this side of death – it seems to be never completely filled.  The yearning goes on and on.

So I gaze on you in the sanctuary

to see your strength and your glory.

This reminds me of an anecdote told by St John Vianney (the Cure d’Ars):

‘When I first came to Ars, there was a man who never passed the church without going in. In the morning on his way to work, and in the evening on his way home, he left his spade and pick-axe in the porch, and he spent a long time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Oh! how I loved to see that! I asked him once what he said to Our Lord during the long visits he made Him. Do you know what he told me? “Eh, Monsieur le Curé, I say nothing to Him, I look at Him and He looks at me!” How beautiful, my children, how beautiful!’  (from Eucharistic Meditation #22, available here)

For your love is better than life,

Not simply better, but longer-lasting too!

my lips will speak your praise.

So I will bless you all my life,

in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul shall be filled as with a banquet,

my mouth shall praise you with joy.

And so the inevitable happens.  The cosy ‘me and my God’ relationship can’t contain itself.  God’s love of us is so immense that to respond to it even a little means that our cosy relationship out-grows the ‘inner chamber’ of our hearts and flows into a more evangelical, truly apostolic love of God and – therefore – of neighbour.

On my bed I remember you.

On you I muse through the night

for you have been my help;

in the shadow of your wings I rejoice.

What do we think of when falling asleep, brushing teeth, driving, hanging out washing?  When our hearts are unguarded and have an idle moment or two, they show us (if we care to take notice) where our riches are.  For the psalmist, his heart is with God.

My soul clings to you;

your right hand holds me fast.

In those two lines we find the summary of the psalmist’s relationship with God.  The simplicity of it is beautiful: our prayer and works of charity need not be complicated, acknowledged or measured-out.  God only asks for our faithfulness.  We would be wrong to think that God dumps us by the wayside if we are unfaithful, if our prayer lacks fervour or beauty.  For his part, he loves us unconditionally and will not let us down.

Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinners nor sits in the company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders his law day and night.

In the psalmist’s time, the company you kept would have exerted the biggest external influence on you.  If you could read, you’d be steeped in scripture.  If, as was more likely, you couldn’t read, you’d be formed by your parents and wider family, your priests and your friends.

It was salutary, therefore, to keep a check on just whose company you kept and make sure you didn’t walk, stand or sit in company that was going to contaminate your soul. Consider the contrast with our society.

We often can’t choose the company we keep.  From day to day, we spend much of our time with colleagues or clients; circumstances throw us together with others who may not be of our choosing.  Today, the ‘company’ we keep includes the vast realm of communications media which holds such a dominant position in 21st Century Britain.

We read widely – books spiritual and temporal, magazines, newspapers, Internet.  We watch TV and films, listen to radio and music in so many different places and through so many gadgets, that our ancestors would be truly staggered (and possibly deafened). It is then, I suggest, these other influences on our lives that we might like to examine in the light of the first few verses of Psalm One, not least of all because we tend to have more control over what we read, watch and listen to than we do over what our colleagues discuss within earshot.

I remember a priest once saying that living a Christian life in our society is ‘like trying to keep clean whilst living in a dustbin’.  Yes, I know what he was meaning by that, but at the same time, we do have more control over our external influences than we perhaps realise. Lent begins a week from now.  It is a perfect opportunity to take a careful look at what we read, watch and listen to.  ‘The Counsel of the Wicked‘ could be a book title, couldn’t it?  ‘The Way of Sinners‘ wouldn’t look out of place in TV listings, nor ‘In The Company of Scorners‘ in radio listings.

In all honesty, wouldn’t our lives be purer without some of that?  ‘Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord’ is the response to our psalm this Sunday.  That’s a promise from God. He keeps his promises.

The heavens proclaim the glory of God

and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.

Day unto day takes up the story

and night unto night makes known the message.

No speech, no word, no voice is heard

yet their span extends through all the earth,

their words to the utmost bounds of the world.

There he has placed a tent for the sun;

it comes forth like a bridegroom coming from his tent,

rejoices like a champion to run its course.

At the end of the sky is the rising of the sun;

to the furthest end of the sky is its course

There is nothing concealed from its burning heat.

The law of the Lord is perfect,

it revives the soul.

The rule of the Lord is to be trusted,

it gives wisdom to the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right,

they gladden the heart.

The command of the Lord is clear,

it gives light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is holy,

abiding for ever.

The decrees of the Lord are truth

and all of them just.

May the spoken words of my mouth,

the thoughts of my heart,

win favour in your sight, O Lord,

my rescuer, my rock!