aeternus

My song is of mercy and justice;
I sing to you, O Lord.
I will walk in the way of perfection.
O when, Lord, will you come?
I will walk with blameless heart
within my house;
I will not set before my eyes whatever is base.
I will hate the ways of the crooked;
they shall not be my friends.
The false-hearted must keep far away;
with wicked I disown.
The man who slanders his neighbor iin secret
I will bring to silence.
The man of proud looks and haughty heart
I will never endure.
I look to the faithful in the land
that they may dwell with me.
He who walks in the way of perfection
shall be my friend.
No man who practices deceit
shall live within my house.
No man who utters lies shall stand
before my eyes.
Morning by morning I will silence
all the sicked in the land,
uprooting from the city of the Lord
all who do evil.

This is the first Psalmody in today’s Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and you can see how the psalmist’s heart is longing for perfection and purification so he may be closer to the Father. While we live in our many imperfections of sin we must constantly be purging ourselves of our faults and shortcomings. Practicing virtue will help us overcome our attatchments to our personal weakness. The psalmist is drawing us a road map, lending us his practical guidance to help us walk this on this road to perfection. Let us pray today to keep our eyes focused and our mouths closed except to speak the truth and to love. Let us pray that we may give so much time to the improvement of ourselves that we will have no time to criticise others.

Let us find more encouragement from St. Paul as he speaks to us the first reading of our mass this morning:

let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us
and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the leader and perfecter of faith.

Paul is so right for who could not find the strength to overcome a small fault today just by closing our eyes and imagining Jesus right there with us, helping us and encouraging us to fight our temptation. Sure this is no easy struggle, we must use all our will and strength to do it. But as St. Paul continues he says:

In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.

Heb 12:1-4

Let us meditate on this. If we are contrite and our hearts long only to be with the Father, than we will be determined to find the strength to overcome our weakness and we will recognize that Jesus is with us, helping us through the Holy Spirit to reach our goal.