Select Sunday > Sunday Web Site Home > Music > Musical Musings
Musical Musings
Twenty-third Sunday
of Ordinary Time A
September 10, 2017
MD Ridge
Harden Not Your Hearts

A truncated version of Psalm 95 shows up frequently in the lectionary, as well as in the Liturgy of the Hours. It’s useful to look at the entire psalm text. The psalmist begins with the invitation to worship joyfully, recounting both God’s power over the whole world and his tender care for the sheep of his flock.

Then the tone shifts abruptly from invitation to a sharp warning at verse six:

            Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
            as in the day of Massah in the desert
            where your fathers tempted me,
            though they had seen my work.

  “In the desert” is the key. Remember, Israel wandered for 40 years in the desert; the people grumbled and argued and were angry. Meribah was a place much travelled through in Israel, but the word basically means “contention, quarreling” and Massah is the same, and it means “testing,” or the place where Israel tried God’s patience.

What doesn’t show up in the lectionary is the psalm’s closing verses, in which God says, “I loathed that generation. … They are a people whose hearts go astray. … Never shall they enter my rest.” Harsh words, indeed, from an angry shepherd.

Read the whole psalm; discuss it with your music ministry. Choose a setting that underscores the urgency of both the invitation to worship (the acceptable time is now) and what happens when we do not respond wholeheartedly to God’s invitation.

The more you and the members of the music ministry delve deeply into the psalms, the more likely you will be able to sing them with conviction and power.

MD Ridge
[09/07/14]
Return to Music
Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C).
This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org
Return to Music