Call Out!

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, September 15th, 2024:
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 116

R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. 

R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, save my life!” 

R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord protects the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. 

R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. 

R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Humans. We are needy creatures, aren’t we? As I pray with Psalm 116 today, neediness is where I believe the psalmist is coming from. For all that technology allows, and all the things we think we’ve discovered to keep us independent and safe and, most importantly, “in control,” there is always a wake-up call waiting to happen. As we allow our God-given imaginations to wander through the verses of this Psalm, we may wonder what this man has been through in his life to write, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid upon me.” This is a soul who has seen great suffering. He has even feared for his life. 

But he does not stop in that place of neediness and absolute poverty. (And may we not stop there either!) Instead, from the depths of his soul he calls on the name of the Lord. Do we believe the Lord will hear and answer, as the psalmist proclaims that He will? Listen to this story that happened to a close family member of mine about 40 years ago.

She and her friend were driving in one of those awesome 1980s minivans, and her one-year-old baby was strapped in a car-seat in the back. They were stopped on a steep hill in a line of traffic with a huge log truck stopped directly in front of them. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t. 

The log truck driver tried to change gears to move ahead and instead his brake cable let go. In the blink of an eye, the truck began rolling back into their van! With a massive rock wall ascending to their right and a steady line of on-coming traffic to their left, they had nowhere to go to get out of the way. They sat there, helpless, as the truck began cutting into the dashboard of their van. In the middle of the panic and chaos of that moment, she lifted her voice above everything and cried out, “Jesus, save us!” 

At that moment, the truck driver – who had been at a loss as to how to stop crushing the vehicle behind him – “jackknifed” the steering wheel and swung the back end of his truck away from their van. The whole front and side of the van were sheared away, and the logs spilled off the truck and rolled down the sidewalk before their very eyes. But the two women and the baby got out on the other side without a scratch! 

When she got home that night, she knew she needed to pray, although she admits she doubted that her “call out” had anything to do with their being alive. She opened her bible at random and came upon Romans 10:13, “Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” 

Like the psalmist today – like Saint Paul, like this family member of mine, and like those of us who have seen miracles happen when we call upon His Name – may we always take recourse to the saving power of His name!

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​Sr. Angela Burnham

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