Asking in Trust

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, June 25th, 2023:
​Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 69

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother’s children. It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. 

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. With your steadfast help, rescue me. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. 

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own that are in bonds. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.

​R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Do we ask for what we truly want from God? 

I remember being a child and simply being free to ask for whatever I needed and wanted from my parents, with an open heart and without hesitation. I did not have a sense of my needs being small or big – I didn’t think twice about it. In my littleness, I didn’t even worry that I might inconvenience my parents or consider that they might not want me to have whatever I wanted. A small child is not motivated by such cerebral processes – they are moved in honesty by their desires and needs, and they are motivated only by love. A secure child knows that her parents love her and want the best for her, and the rest flows from that. 

In today’s psalm, the psalmist trusts himself to God’s steadfast love and simply asks boldly to be heard in his need: “Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.” We do not know whether the one praying had weighed and measured every rational detail first, or if he tried to make it on his own. But to my ears, this cry of the psalmist is familiar, and it’s the kind of cry that comes from the depths of gut-honest truth and childlike need before God. 

“Lord, answer me,” I might cry after having asked and begged and pleaded for a petition without any tangible outcome. “Lord, answer me,” when, as the psalmist relates, everyone else has gone and I have been left alone in a moment of total interior solitude with God. If He doesn’t speak, how will I bear the weight of that silence any longer? “Lord, answer me!” because You are the only Truth, Lord. I have nowhere else to go for answers. I’ve tried my truth and I’ve tried the world; they do not work. They do not satisfy. So, in Your steadfast love, Lord, answer me. We know that when we do make our desires known, God will not always give us everything we ask for, just like a good parent knows the true good for the child even better than they do themselves. But by the same token, as a good Father God does want us to bring our desires before Him. He will answer every request because “the Lord hears the needy.” 
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As I was reflecting on this passage, I looked up the word “steadfast” in the dictionary. It is defined as “resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering.” Imagine, this week, entrusting the cares of your heart to God’s love, which is resolutely firm. What if you don’t hold back, but tell him what it is you really desire, knowing that His love is dutiful towards you and that He is unwavering in His passion for you. Then, we can resound with the open heart of the psalm, “Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.”




Sr. Angela Burnham

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