Living at Risk of You

Here we are again at the turning of the year.  The liturgical cycle begins anew.  The cynic in us may say with Qoheleth, “What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun!” (Qoh 1:9).  What makes today any different than yesterday?  What will make this year any different?  Even St Augustine asked how we can sing a new song, when it’s the same old words as before.  But he came to a conclusion:
“Anyone, therefore, who has learned to love the new life has learned to sing a new song, and the new song reminds us of our new life. The new man, the new song, the new covenant, all belong to the one kingdom of God, and so the new man will sing a new song and will belong to the new covenant.” (Sermon 34.1)
In other words, it is realizing that we are new that allows us to sing a new song.

Our inner cynic may be grumbling, but our inner child knows that something new is afoot.  She smells the evergreens, watches the candleflames wavering, feels the pinch of cold and senses the indrawing of shortening days.  The turning of the seasons, set in motion by the Creator, reflects the movement, growth, and newness which is written in our nature.  We are creatures in the process of becoming, made new every morning and every year brought to new life.  Our readings also call us to a new awakening, to arise from sleep, for the day is at hand.  We are to be reborn as children of light, of the deifying light, as St Benedict would say.  We are to live in a state of expectancy, so that the coming of the Lord, who is also on the move, will not catch us by surprise.  So let us choose the child over the cynic and sing a new song!

For this Advent’s Chapters, I would like to take as a reference point the opening chants of the Mass, which we sing in Gregorian Chant, but which the whole Church has as entrance antiphons.  I would like to approach them in the mode of lectio divina, the patient repetition of the words of Scripture until they yield their meaning.  It is not just the literal meaning we seek, but the spiritual overtones and undertones, the specific word that the Lord addresses to us, to you and to me, at this specific moment of life.  Chant can be seen as a mode of lectio divina, in that putting the sacred text to music helps us to carry it with us, murmuring, humming, perhaps even whistling, uncovering the resonances of the words through the melodies.
So, what do these words from Psalm 24:1-3, placed on our lips as the first song of this new liturgical year, have to say to us?



To you have I lifted up my soul,
My God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame.
And let not my enemies taunt me,
because all, who wait for you,
shall not be confounded.





To you have I lifted up my soul.

The first movement is one of confident hope, in which we lift up from the depths to the heights our soul, our very self.  It is an intimate moment because we are voluntarily exposing ourselves to God’s gaze, almost placing ourselves in his hands.  During Mass, at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest calls upon us to “Lift up your hearts,” and we respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.”  I have sometimes felt that my heart was floating out of my body at that moment.  But more often, it is not so ready to rise.  My heart can feel heavy as lead and lifting it to the Lord seems like a weightlifting contest.  Thankfully, we don’t need be weightlifters, because even on good days, we can hardly lift ourselves very far, let alone all the way up to God.  So, we can be sure that on good days and bad, he reaches from the heights to the depths and lifts us like an infant to his cheeks.

My God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame.
And let not my enemies taunt me,

Calling on the God who is ours – mine! – takes us even higher than before.  Being claimed as his children gives us the right to say he is ours, just as a child who believes she is her father’s favorite claims him as her own.  In him we confide all our weakness and incapacity, letting our hands drop, knowing that we are safe in his arms.  And yet, we are asking him, begging him with repeated insistence of long-held notes not to let us fall to the ground red-faced.  I find it curious that along with this great gesture of confidence, there is a threefold insistence that we not be put to shame: non erubescam – do not let me blush for shame; neque irrideant me inimici mei – do not let my enemies laugh at me.  Like Noah building his ark before the flood came, we realize that following God’s commands could lead to our being embarrassed.  Finally, the point is made more calmly as a statement of conviction:

because all, who wait for you,
shall not be confounded.

We might prefer to translate this in the negative, “No-one who waits for you will be confounded.”  But no, the text places it in the positive: universi – all people – qui te expectant – who are living in expectation of you – non confundentur – will not be confounded, upset, confused, bewildered, or dismayed.  Appropriately, the music emphasizes that the heart of the word expectation is spes – hope.  On the day of our Solemn Profession, we sing similar words in what we call the Suscipe:

“Receive me, O Lord,
according to your promise and I shall live;
do not disappoint me in my hope.” (Cf. Ps 119:116)

The third line in Latin reads: non confundas me ab expectatione mea – do not upset, confuse, bewilder, or dismay me in my expectation.  This is the moment when we hang our whole life on the peg of God’s promises.  It is an act of faith in his trustworthiness, without knowing for sure what the future holds.  We are not presuming but asking: receive me, let me live, do not let me down.  Christophe Lebreton expressed this perfectly, telling the Lord: “I live at risk of you.”

So, what is the content of our new song as we enter Advent?  We are taking a risk to lift up our soul, our heart, our self to God, believing not in our own muscles, but in his strength to draw us to himself.  We are taking a risk to trust, to let our hands drop, to let go of the fear that our self-exposure will result in humiliation.  We are taking a risk to allow ourselves to hope, to live in a state of expectancy for the Lord’s coming.

Source: Commentary by Fulvio Rampi