As the procession entered Mass this morning we sang the Introit Laetetur cor - Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and be strengthened. Seek his face always. These words are taken from Psalm 104 (in our Greek numbering. St. Benedict has us sing it each week at Saturday Vigils). The idea of seeking God occurs several times in the Psalms (cf. e.g. Ps 39/40:16; 68/69:6 etc.) Another familiar Introit has a closely related text, taken from another Psalm (26/27:8-9): Tibi dixit cor meum - To you my heart has said, I have sought your face. I will earnestly seek your face O Lord. Do not turn your face away from me.
Coming to Mass today is an expression of our determination to seek God. People come to monasteries for the same reason: to seek God (cf. HR 58:7). Surely every Christian life should be driven by this constant thought. Let me see! cried blind Bartimaeus, and we all with him. Let me see God! Let me see you, my Lord! And when the Lord by miracle gave sight to that blind man, we take that for a sign, an encouragement, a consolation: that our prayer will be answered; that our quest for God will not be in vain. The Lord did say to Moses in Deuteronomy: If you search for the Lord your God honestly and sincerely, you will find him (Dt 4:29). Or in an oracle received by Isaiah, as we sing in one of our Lauds Canticles: I have not said to the descendants of Jacob, seek me in vain! (Is 45:19).
But who is God? Where is he to be found? How shall we seek him, or find him? Did not God say to Moses: No one can see my face and live (Ex 33:20)? Does not St. John say in his Prologue: No one has ever seen God (Jn 1:18)? Many set out eagerly enough on this path, but lose their way, and land up worshipping false gods, not the real one; or they become discouraged, and even give up. For God is invisible and incomprehensible to the created eye, and inaccessible to the created mind. God cannot be imagined. He is not like anything. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to encounter God, he went up into thick cloud and darkness (cf. Ex 19:9; 24:18; 34:5). The mystical tradition of the Church has always understood this as a sign of the paradoxical darkness that surrounds the one who is all-holy, and utterly other. And yet: God never ceases to call us, to draw us to Himself. He smiles on all our efforts to approach him. According to the image of the prodigal Father in the parable, He even comes running to meet our own faltering footsteps towards Him. We approach God then through ever deepening prayer, and ever-increasing virtue; through ever more radical detachment from all that is not God; also through patient suffering. And God responds – always! - with ever-increasing grace, and ever more abundant self-gift. Often in a hidden, interior way, God communicates directly and personally His presence, and power, and holiness. Sometimes these communications can be manifest, and felt in exterior ways. In either case the person concerned is sanctified, renewed in knowledge and love by the Holy Spirit, lifted up, transformed.
The Psalmist of today’s Introit links seeking God with joy. And how could it not be a joyful task to seek, to enter into communion with the One who is wholly good, and the source of all goodness, all being, all life?! Yet this same Psalmist also dwells on the difficulties and trials that must afflict those on this quest. He cites the example of the Patriarchs wandering as exiles without a home; Jacob suffering famine; Joseph sold as a slave; then later Israel oppressed in Egypt. To them it must have seemed as if God’s promises had failed. But no. The divine promises indeed held, and God’s purposes were worked out in ways far more wonderful than could ever have been anticipated.
We Christians love to read these Old Testament texts in the light of Christ. Christ crucified is the supreme example of a promise of God apparently failing; a life of virtue apparently unrewarded; a fidelity to God seeming to end in failure and defeat. But no. Here was God’s supreme blessing; God’s final answer; God’s bridging of the gulf between himself and us. Through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, we now come to God unerringly, efficaciously, even easily. And in the human face of Jesus we see also the true face of God. Whoever has seen me, he said at the Last supper, has seen the Father (Jn 14:9).
Quaerite Dominum et confirmamini – seek the Lord, and be strengthened, we sang. To strengthen and encourage us along our way, we can be much helped by art – by painting and sculpture - maybe especially by the traditional art of the Icon. Also by poetry: witness especially the poetry of the Psalms. Also, maybe above all, by music. We who are privileged to inherit the tradition of Gregorian Chant believe this music has more than human inspiration. We seem to hear the Holy Spirit himself breathing through it, in worship with words and beyond words; in song that seems of itself to draw us to God: to lift our prayer up to God.
You can hear today’s Introit as the first piece on our “Tempus per annum” CD. The composer here has set his text in the second mode. This mode is structured around a narrow minor third interval: which would naturally lend itself to expressions of sorrow. But here the Chant conveys a prayer that is deeply interior, contemplative, peaceful. The steady alternation between the two structural notes gives an impression of calm stability. But against that, the light ornaments give an equally strong impression of forward movement, of progress, of steady direction towards a goal.
Looking out on our world, and on the Church, and even on our own situation here, we may well feel cause for despond. But we are reminded today, yet again, that our lives are set towards God. They are going somewhere; towards one who is with us even now, but who ever calls us to deeper union with himself. Now we seek him with joy, but also amid darkness and difficulties. Our ultimate goal, according to his promise, is perfect possession, in consummated joy. And now in this Holy Eucharist we not only seek God: we find him. For as we come to him, so he comes to us; and as we give ourselves to him, so he gives himself to us – always for our good, our consolation, our joy - in Jesus Christ our Lord.