Lamentations 3:22-26

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
   his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
   ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
   to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
   for the salvation of the Lord.

Comment:

These verses are the second part of the third chapter of Lamentations. The entire chapter was originally structured as an acrostic—a sort of spiritual crossword puzzle in which lines began with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in order. Since it's hard to separate the two halves, let's look at the chapter as a whole.

The first half of the third chapter is a vivid description of what St. John of the Cross, hundreds of years later, would term "the Dark Night of the Soul." It is a time when nothing works, nothing relieves the sorrow and darkness—not even prayers and rituals that have worked in the past. It seems to the lamenter that God has turned completely against him: "He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding; he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate" (3:10-11). 

And yet, out of that darkness comes a renewed affirmation that "the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases" (3:22). The lamenter realizes that what has befallen Jerusalem is a consequence of negative choices made by the people, and that what is required is endurance, patience, and the certainty that the Lord will respond to their grief: "Let us examine our ways and return to the Lord!" (3:40). In other words, we are in the Dark Night so long as we feel ourselves to be victims, and blame God for our sadness. Once we realize that we are experiencing the consequences of our own fear-based choices, and decide to make new choices based in a total faith in the Divine, the darkness has served its purpose and we are moving toward the dawn of new possibilities.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed