My House

A Reflection on the Psalm for December 1st, 2019:
First Sunday of Advent

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.

To it the tribes go up, the tribes 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.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” R.

For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. R.

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Growing up in a traditionally Catholic household had both benefits and drawbacks. My faith was external—dependent on my circumstances—and it was shallow. In short, I prayed when I needed stuff. The benefit to this upbringing was the way in which it enhanced my admiration of, and desire for, tradition—particularly as it relates to family. My dad had a handful of siblings living in our small town, and they all had kids who were somewhere about the age of my sister and I. As it was, if you tallied the number of parishioners who attended our church in those days, my family likely comprised a good twenty-five percent of the total. This was a benefit. I love my family—quirky though they be. So, the tradition of meeting up with family each Sunday was one I held dear. The fact that we met up in the house of the Lord, though, was a drawback. I saw faith as legalistic, rigid, and outdated. Because of this, I would have much preferred to meet with my family at my grandparents’ house and skip the inconvenience of mass.


As I reflected on Psalm 122, I thought about the way I perceive the house of the Lord today and contrasted it with how I saw it back then. Today, I am still meeting in the house of the Lord with family, but family looks different. They’re still pretty quirky, but outside of my children, none of them are related by blood—at least, not by my blood. We are related by the blood of the cross. And we are entrenched in an even deeper and more intimate relationship than I was with the family of my childhood, with good reason: we strive toward the same ultimate goal. The way in which we individually strive toward this goal sometimes looks different, but the objective remains the same—we all want to become more like our Father. In order to achieve this goal, our relationship with the house of the Lord is paramount.

"Psalm 122 is not only calling us to go rejoicing to the physical house of the Lord, but to the metaphysical one: We are the house of the Lord."

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Psalm 122 is not only calling us to go rejoicing to the physical house of the Lord, but to the metaphysical one: We are the house of the Lord. In my youth, I had a lot of housecleaning to do before I was able to shift my perspective on what it truly meant to have peace within my walls and security within my towers. Christ is peace and security. The more I have of Him within me, the more peaceful and secure I become. 


This song of David is a reflection of the traditions of his time, but it is also a premonition of what is to come: the physical birth of the Prince of Peace, and the free gift of His spiritual birth within us. It is a prayer for the good of the whole—the physical and spiritual house of the Lord—that each might find peace and security within. What we want to see around us, though, we must first achieve within us. So, may we build a tradition of fidelity to our family in Christ this advent season, as we increase our consumption of Him who brings us peace.



​Lori MacDonald

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