My Portion

A Reflection on the Psalm for July 26th, 2020:
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 119

R. Lord, how I love your law!

The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. 

R. Lord, how I love your law!

Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. 

R. Lord, how I love your law!

Truly I love your commandments more than gold, more than fine gold. Truly I direct my steps by all your precepts; I hate every false way. 

R. Lord, how I love your law!

Your decrees are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. 

R. Lord, how I love your law!

Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

I want to talk to You about this, God.


Let’s go to the top. ‘You are my portion’… what I get to have. Like in land — my portion and my lot. Like in supper — my portion and my cup. I can understand, maybe, that there is an astonishing, breathtaking, weighty grace given to me in that I could hold and behold even a portion of who You are. But that You, without limit, are my portion, how can that be? Why can that be?



‘Your steadfast love’… Okay, so there’s the answer. The only reason that I can hold or behold You. Your love. Not my capability to contain You. Not my merit to meet You, but Your mercy. But I am too small, Lord, to even receive what You want to place in my hands. You are too heavy, I’ll drop You. How can I grow stronger?


‘I love Your commandments’… Well, that’s a turn around. How could I have so misunderstood their meaning? How could I have not seen the inherent value in the wonder of the words from Your mouth? Your commandments were never given as proscriptions to limit me, but as prescriptions to layer on muscle. A way to train my core, to be able to carry more of You. Could this be, that Your precepts are preparing me to see more of You?


‘The unfolding of Your words gives light’… How many layers, Lord? Every time I come to Your word, unfold the fabric thinking it’s flattened now and fully open, I dimly see there is another layer waiting underneath. My eyes just aren’t strong enough to discern the edge of the cloth to lift it yet. I have to live a little longer in my present layer — let my eyes adjust to the light these words give me.



Woven through it all… ’Lord, how I love Your law!’  Your law, Your decrees, Your commands, Your precepts, Your word. Your Word. The Liturgy of the the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the ambo and the altar both anchored on the sanctuary floor. They are both about Your Presence. Feeding me so I can grow to become strong enough to hold and behold You. Making me ready, one Day, to be able to withstand seeing and being seen by, holding and being held by, without limit, You — my Portion.




Noreen Smith

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