One Psalm that has always resonated with
me is Psalm 127 (I also discuss it more briefly in my post on Daytime Prayer, here,
and it provides the title for a recent post on poverty, here).
It is fairly short (four stanzas), but beautifully reminds us of our dependence
on God and his providential care. The psalm opens with the image of house
construction: “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders
labor”. The psalmist then presents a series of images illustrating how
useless our efforts are without God’s help:
If the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the
watchman keep vigil.
In vain is your earlier rising, your going later to rest, you who
toil for the bread you eat, when he pours gifts on his beloved while they
slumber.
What an eloquent reminder that it is only through Grace that our
efforts bear fruit!
The focus shifts in the last half of
Psalm 127:instead of building a house, here we are building our “house”, that
is, our family, again only through the Grace of God: “Truly sons are a gift
from the Lord, a blessing, the fruit of the womb”. Here, too, God is the
real author; and our children are Providence in tangible form: both gift and
blessing, which is to say their source is God, and that’s a good thing. And not
just good in some spiritual sense:
Indeed the sons of youth are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
O the happiness of the man who has filled his quiver with these
arrows! He will have no cause for shame when he disputes with his foes in the
gateways.
You can’t ask for images more down-to-earth than these: are sons a
like weapons, they’ll back us up when we face our enemies, and all through the
generosity of the Lord.
It will come as no surprise that the idea
of our progeny as gift and blessing is not as common as it once was.
Thirty-five years ago, in his introduction to Pope John Paul I’s Illustrissimi, John
Cardinal Wright wrote:
The present almost pathological lack of
joy shows up in every vocation and in every area of life. There already
exist among us people who rejoice as little in the coming of children as once
used to do only some of our neo-pagan neighbors. Among descendents of
people who, only yesterday, of the coming of a baby as a “blessed event,”
maternity is no longer thought joyful.
That train has gone much further down the track since 1979, so
that now even the President of the United States can speak of a young women
being “punished with a baby”.
We need to speak out, of course, against
this anti-child attitude, the anti-family ethos and what Pope John Paul II
called the Culture of Death. I regularly do so in this space. But
we also need to remember, as Cardinal Wright points out, that our message is at
root a message of Joy. Our children, and children in general (sadly, not all
who wish it have their quivers filled in this way) are “a gift from the Lord, a
blessing, the fruit of the womb”. We need to say it often, and live it
publicly, and always gives thanks to God for building up our house.
Psalm 127
Unless the LORD build the house,
they labor in vain who build.
Unless the LORD guard the city,
in vain does the guard keep watch.
It is vain for you to rise early
and put off your rest at night,
To eat bread earned by hard toil—
all this God gives to his beloved in sleep.
Certainly sons are a gift from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb, a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the sons born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man who has filled his quiver with them.
He will never be shamed
for he will destroy his foes at the gate.
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