King

A Reflection on the Psalm for May 29th, 2022:
The S​olemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

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Psalm 47

R. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.

R. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

God has gone up with a shout, he Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.

R. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a Psalm. God is king over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.

R. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
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There’s quite a space between 5 and 50, and there were a lot of things that floored me the first time I came to Mass as an adult. The presence of God in the people in the foyer. The drum kit up-lit with purple lights. (I really didn’t see that one coming). The obvious joy in the lifting up of Jesus in song. And in the Word. And in the Bread. 


The weight given to the Word of God in the Mass, I also didn’t see coming. The ambo on the same marble floor as the altar. The passing of the baton from the books of history to the psalm, from the psalm to the letters of the early church, and then the way they all handed it off to the Gospel to bring it home.


So here, in this song for the Ascension, I find the psalm holding hands with what comes before and what follows after.  


In the first reading, the disciples’ ask was too small. “Is now the time when you show yourself King of Israel?” In the psalm, He is lifted as King of all the Earth. In the second reading He is seen as King of Heaven — King of All.  

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O Jesus, just before You rose up from the earth into the clouds on Your way to sit at Your Father’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, just before that — when they asked You if it was time for You to show Yourself as king of a small land, bordered by river and sea and sand — was their ask about You, or was it about themselves? Having followed You for three years, were they really asking, “Is this the time when we get to live as a free nation? When the oppression stops?”


O my Sweet Jesus, my Awesome God, is my own ask too small, my understanding of freedom too stunted to even know what it is that You are really offering me?  


I can’t really fault the disciples. They were dealing with real hardship. In the midst of a stressful month at the end of a couple of stressful years, I can’t even seem to weather the dog eating a bag of icing sugar on our red couch and my husband breaking the vacuum in his attempt to clean it up. Carrying the heavy stuff is easy; it’s the small things that I seem to drop. So, instead, I think I’ll just put it all down and lift up my hands and praise Your name.  Jesus.  What a beautiful name.




Noreen Smith
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