Commentary on Ps 117 for Mercy Sunday
Psalm 117 appears every Easter Sunday. It’s always been a call to the community to give thanks and celebrate God’s “steadfast love”; so it’s
especially appropriate for our Easter Celebrations. Our liturgy selects five of the 29 verses in the whole psalm, a song which focuses on God, repeating the
divine name 28 times.
The psalm was originally a song of the community as it made a joyful procession through the Temple gates on a great feast day, probably the Feast
of Tabernacles. In Jewish subsequent practice the psalm, being one of the Hallel Psalms, was sung at the end of the Passover meal after the fourth cup of
celebratory wine. It is used in all four Gospels and would have been sung by Jesus and the disciples on the way to Gethsemane. Our Easter setting is one
that celebrates the ultimate victory of the risen Jesus.
That “cornerstone” refers to the block of stone that hold together at right angles the walls of the building. If it was flawed, then the whole building would
be unsteady. How strange then that a rejected one was used! Isaiah (28.16) saw in the Remnant of returning exiles an amazing act of God for the renewal
of Israel through these little ones: they had been rejected into exile and were now returning to be the stones that would rebuild Israel.
Jesus uses this verse in the Passion Narratives and elsewhere. He will be rejected but return in victory over death. In the Letter to the Ephesians, this
rejected stone is the one that holds the whole church together.
Our weekend liturgy surrounds this psalm of rejoicing with the apostles: in Acts, the first reading, people gather for healing through the Peter; and in the
Gospel, the risen Lord, the cornerstone of redemption, appears to doubting Thomas who will eventually acknowledge him as Lord and God.
Let us rejoice and be glad for the Lord is risen indeed!
Ps 117: words (c) The Grail, England. Music Gerry Fitzpatrick (c) Kvin Mayhew. Sung by the St Mungo Singers
Ps 117: words (c) The Grail, England. Music (c) Gerry Fitzpatrick. Recorded by Magdalen and Donald McInnes wth children of Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School.
