Thanksgiving.

Do you have any little bits of Scripture that stick in your head for no apparent reason? 

I have certain passages of Scripture that stick in my mind for, well, apparent reasons.   Once my confessor ended my absolution with "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his mercy endures forever."  That stuck in my mind.  Another time, moments after I had given birth, I exclaimed "I don't know how I did that!" and the midwife half-turned on her way out the doorway and said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  That stuck in my mind too.  And then there are some that I take to heart because they have so much to teach about our faith.  "Do whatever he tells you."  "Behold thy mother."  "On this rock I shall build my church."  I know why I remember all these.

There are a few other passage that pop into my mind for no apparent reason at all.    One of these is "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad."  It's from Psalm 118, a very popular psalm, and there are of course lots of hymns written on it, so maybe that's how it got stuck in my head.  For many, many years, whenever I stepped outside on a glorious, sunny, blue-skied day, no matter what other things had been on my mind, that little sentence would pop into my head.  It always arrived without context; I could never have recited the rest of the psalm, nor even remembered that it contains others of my favorite passages.

Anyway, it always prompted me to stop and be thankful for the lovely blue-skied day that seemed to inspire the thought, and made me feel satisfied and a bit less worldly, more holy.  I always thought of it, therefore, as a verse for being thankful about the many blessings in my life, thankful for beauty and for things going my way.  I never considered any other thing it might mean.

It went on like that for years.  And then once I was having an awful day, a terrible day.  The details don't matter.   No major catastrophes, of course -- It was one of those ordinary terrible days, the ones where you lose all perspective and say "poor me" because you ran out of detergent and have to wash all your dishes by hand, or you were stuck in traffic and missed your appointment, or you have to stay home with a sick child instead of going to a party, maybe all three things at once.  Having one of those terrible days and wishing it were different, and suddenly there it was:

"This is the day the Lord has made."

"This is the day the Lord has made."

Not some other day; this.

And suddenly that bit, which I'd always thought of as nothing more prayer of thankfulness for blessings, became a wakeup call, an admonition to live in the present and to accept what comes.  And not just with acceptance, but with rejoicing and gladness.

It's never sounded the same to me since, not even when I step out under the blue blue sky.

Comments

[Sandee]

how interesting - as a non-Catholic who attends mass with my husband and children, this has always been the hymn that I loved - exactly for that double meaning! I used to hum it to myself when the kids were very little and having a temper tantrum, to help myself get through it. (Still do really - the kids require patience at every age!)