If you are like me, you may be missing receiving our Lord in the Eucharist during this Coronavirus pandemic. Psalm 42 nearly completely sums up my longing to receive Jesus in this moment of worldwide crisis.
“As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When can I enter and see the face of God?” ~Psalm 42:2-3
I truly rely on the graces that Christ fills me with in the Eucharist to help me be a more loving and effective wife, mother, friend, and Christian disciple. Not being able to receive Christ’s precious Body and Blood in this time has been trying for me. I cry during almost every online Mass when the Host is raised, “Behold the Lamb of God…”
I have made a personal commitment to pray through this Psalm each day until we are able to attend Mass and receive the Eucharist again. I invite you to pray it with me whenever you feel hungry for the Lord’s presence and cannot receive Him physically. It reminds me to remain joyful and not remain “downcast,” but instead to live in joyful anticipation of the time when we can go to Mass and receive Him again.
“Why are you downcast, my soul,
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.“ ~Psalm 42:12
I also am reminding myself of this: our contrite, humble hearts are the place where Jesus wants to encounter us the most. He is there with us at all times. It is up to us to recognize His loving presence through his Holy Spirit that comes to us in quiet moments of prayer and through His holy Word.
St. Paul tells us that Christ comes to our hearts through the Holy Spirit: “For this reason I kneel before the Father…that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19).
God the Father, draw near to me with your loving presence. Christ, come and dwell in my heart. Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your love in my inner self.
Psalm 42: Longing for God’s Presence in the Temple
For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites. As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When can I enter and see the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, as they ask me every day, “Where is your God?” Those times I recall as I pour out my soul, When I would cross over to the shrine of the Mighty One, to the house of God, Amid loud cries of thanksgiving, with the multitude keeping festival. Why are you downcast, my soul; why do you groan within me? Wait for God, for I shall again praise him, my savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I remember you From the land of the Jordan and Hermon, from Mount Mizar, Deep calls to deep in the roar of your torrents, and all your waves and breakers sweep over me. By day may the LORD send his mercy, and by night may his righteousness be with me! I will pray to the God of my life, I will say to God, my rock: “Why do you forget me? Why must I go about mourning with the enemy oppressing me?” It shatters my bones, when my adversaries reproach me, when they say to me every day: “Where is your God?” Why are you downcast, my soul, why do you groan within me? Wait for God, for I shall again praise him, my savior and my God.