“Why, O Lord, are they multiplied that afflict me? Many are they who rise up against me. Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. But thou, O Lord, art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.”
This Psalm is written in David’s exile when his son Absalom rose up and turned Israel against him. It prefigures Judas rising up against Jesus: “If my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden my self from him. But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar” (Psalm 54:13-14). Just as Israel rose against David in the insurrection of Absalom, both Judea and Rome stood against Christ in the betrayal of Judas. It is a cry from the depths of social suffering, when friends are few and far, and enemies are many and near, when the words of God that proceed from your lips find no soil in which to be planted, and all seems fruitless and empty. Thus, either the voice of the devil or a person can find footing against you: “There is no salvation for you in your God.” “Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). When all seem to turn against you, and there is nothing to show for it, this is when Jesus is nearest to you, and when it is most fruitful to pray: “But thou, O Lord, art my protector.” It is a great act of faith to maintain your confidence in God and love of Him while all things are crumbling, and to maintain that He protects you, even when you feel the opposite. His seeming departure makes you more tender, and increases your desire for Him: “I sought him, and found him not: I called, and he did not answer me” (Song 5:6). He is your protector that will keep you near to His heart, even when it feels as though you are cast far from Him, keeping your love safe by the intercession of angels and saints: “Thy neck,” that is, the love by which you are connected to the Head of the Church, “is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armour of valiant men” (Song 4:4). He is your glory, because heavenly glory is simply a measure of the love with which you lived your life, and it His Holy Spirit that gives you this love: “The Spirit breatheth where he will” (John 3:8). Finally, He lifts up your head, because from this place of deep sorrow and heaviness, He will raise your head to great joy and rejoicing: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 125:5). “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him” (James 1:12). Even if your joy is postponed to the next life, look for love in all circumstances, for He is present through you in your suffering, and a joy that remains even through grave trials is an immovable one: “The joyfulness of the heart, is the life of a man, and e never failing treasure of holiness: and the joy of a man is length of life” (Ecclesiasticus 30:23).