Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Scripture
Today’s responsorial psalm has an interesting refrain: “The Lord takes delight in his people” (Ps 149:4a). The root of this word “delight” is love, as is echoed in the line which says “For the LORD loves his people” (Ps 149:4). It is one of the great tenants of Christianity that God loves us, but yet we do not often think of the Lord delighting in us. We might notice that in this psalm, the people are described as also rejoicing in the Lord, praising God and exalting him. One insight we could take from this is that the Lord delights in human beings recognizing him as God. Of course he loves us regardless, but God really delights in us returning his love. Why might this be?
Today we have a reading from the book of the prophet Haggai. Of course, it is always hard to hear the truth when the truth is bad news. The people listening to Haggai hear that much of their actions are wasted: they sow without adequate harvest and eat without satisfaction, for example. While written years ago, these words ring true for us today. We who look for our ultimate fulfillment in things like food, drink, and money will always be disappointed because our ultimate fulfillment is only to be found in God. We may temporarily feel we are satisfied, but we always hunger for more.
I mentioned before that God delights in us returning his love. This is not because it makes God feel important when we worship him. He does not get a boost of self-confidence from our prayer. Rather, God delights in us returning his love because he knows that this is what makes us the most human. When we worship him, dedicating our entire lives to him, we are at our best and most fulfilled. We are called to be in relation to God and seek satisfaction in God. Hence God delights in us returning his love because God knows it’s what’s best for us.
It is not an easy task to order everything in our lives for love of God. It is tempting to seek satisfaction in the things around us, rather than using all of creation to glorify God. So the good news is that God delights in us when we’re trying, even if we’re not always succeeding. Neither God nor we should expect perfection all the time. We can, however, always rely on God’s grace. Today, let us take some time to think about how we can get caught up in worldly matters. How might we better worship God so that he can delight in us returning his love?
- Maria Morrow