Enter With Gladness

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, November 20th, 2022:
The Solemnity of Christ the King

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Psalm 122

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. 

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

Jerusalem — built as a city that is bound firmly together. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord.

R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

As it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David. 

​R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

Next Sunday is the first week of Advent. A time of stillness and expectant waiting. Seen as a whole, this weekend’s readings are priming us for His birth, death, and resurrection. As Christians, we know the story of salvation, but what is our daily, lived response? Have we lost the wonder we had from the first hearing?

Today’s Psalm is an examination of conscience. How do I approach the house of the Lord? I know many a Sunday I have driven into the parking lot, inner thoughts grumbling about someone else’s parking (or how hard it is to park my 15-passenger van). I have sat down in “my” pew, bristling with cares and passing judgments. I have joined the worship, paying too much attention to how well or poorly those around me were singing, if people were paying attention, or what their posture was. My mind has wandered during the readings and homily, more interested in fixing my hair or if my kids were sitting still than in the Word.

I walked into the house of God, making more than ample room for my selfishness, distractions, and judgments, prone to the temptations from the devil. But David, in the Psalm, tells us he was glad to go to the house of the Lord. We know from the rest of Scripture that David was far from perfect. Yet he knew better than me how to enter to the house of the Lord. With gladness! That gladness that we’re called to bring to the house of the Lord starts well before we set foot inside the door. 

When we or someone we know is expecting a baby, the thought of that impending miracle is never far from our thoughts. Recently, one of our lovely Ora team welcomed her first child, and the secondary excitement the entire team felt as we awaited the joyful news was palpable. When the news was announced, our team messages practically exploded with joy for this new child. This miracle was new and unseen! This miracle demanded and received our attention! 

Do we still approach the miracle we have seen and heard before with the same joy? The seasons of the Church in many ways are designed to shake us out of the feeling that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are tinged by a sense of ordinariness. It is so much the fabric of our lives that it has become a matter-of-fact, unremarkable thing. Advent comes to remind us to live in that feeling of expectant joy for the birth of the Christ child. In the stillness of the darkest nights of the year, we are invited to see His light, with clear eyes and hearts filled with gladness.

Let us rekindle in our hearts the gladness of David when we enter the house of the Lord, and let us invite the Holy Spirit to make our hearts clean to make room for that gladness. 

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Stéphanie Potter

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