Jes 26,7-9.12.16-19
The path of the Upright One is honesty; you smooth the honest way of the upright. Following the path of your judgements, Yahweh, we set our hopes in you, your name, your memory are all our soul desires. At night my soul longs for you and my spirit within me seeks you out; for when your judgements appear on earth the inhabitants of the world learn what saving justice is. Yahweh, you will grant us peace, having completed all our undertakings for us. Yahweh, in distress they had recourse to you, they expended themselves in prayer, since your punishment was on them. As a pregnant woman near her time of delivery writhes and cries out in her pangs, so have we been, Yahweh, in your eyes: we have been pregnant, we have writhed, but we have given birth only to wind: we have not given salvation to the earth, no inhabitants for the world have been brought to birth. Your dead will come back to life, your corpses will rise again. Wake up and sing, you dwellers in the dust, for your dew will be a radiant dew, but the earth will give birth to the shades.
God’s love for us and our love for him should be the great theme of our lives. It is not without reason that God gave us the first commandment, which is to remind us and to call us to enter completely into the reality as it is given to us by God. Only then will our life unfold in all its beauty and dignity and gain a supernatural splendor. Life is then more and more under the guidance of a loving Father and we give space to his desire to live with us in close communion.
To the just, so the text says today, the way is paved.
Righteous here means the believer who lives in accordance with the will of God and strives to find God’s pleasure in all what he is doing. Here the way becomes straight, that is, he will always find a way, even if chaos threatens around him. It is then not “his way” in the sense of his own mastery, but the way of the Lord becomes his way.
It is part of the adorable wisdom of God to always show the right solution for the respective situation, no matter how confused it may be, no matter how it may be caused by human guilt and its consequences.
A holy simplicity enters into life. Simplicity does not mean that one inadmissibly simplifies complex themes, but simplicity comes from the fact that one can always trace the ultimate causes back to God – be it his active will or his permission. Because one does this, one gathers his strength in God to give the right answer to the respective situation and does not waste it to find an answer for ourselves, which often gets stuck in many doubts.
By the just is certainly not meant an infallible person, and the straight path does not consist in a rigid immobility or even in a stubbornness to set one’s own view for absolute. To be righteous towards God is a trusting attitude towards God, which allows us to affirm even unknown paths, because we are convinced of his love.
This justice towards God, to trust him more and more and thus to give the right answer to his fatherly love, pleases our Lord very much, because it is the adequate and right answer to his love. This knowledge and trust is expressed in the words “for when your judgements appear on earth the inhabitants of the world learn what saving justice is. Yahweh, you will grant us peace, having completed all our undertakings for us.”
God’s paths become ours, we will go on His paths, then our paths will be safe, whatever happens!
Harpa Dei accompanies the daily scriptural interpretation or spiritual teaching of Br. Elija, their spiritual father. These meditations can be heard on the following website www.en.elijamission.net
