Catholic Commentary on Psalm 39

"Show me, Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is." (Psalm 39:4)

The Silence That Breaks

Psalm 39 begins with a resolution to silence: David decides he will not sin with his tongue, will not speak while the wicked are near. He is silent, he holds his tongue, he refrains from speaking. But the silence is unsustainable: My heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue. The prayer breaks out because the alternative is worse. The silence would have been a kind of dishonesty, an inability to bring before God what is actually happening inside. So he speaks, and what he speaks is a meditation on human mortality.

Show me my life's end and the number of my days. Let me know how fleeting my life is. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. A person is merely a phantom as they go about life. They are restless and accumulate wealth without knowing who will finally get it. The meditation on death is not morbid. It is clarifying. The person who has looked honestly at their mortality is freed from the illusions that consume the person who refuses to look.

Hope Is in You

But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. The meditation on mortality produces not despair but reorientation. If life is a breath and wealth is futile and human schemes are phantoms, then the only thing worth looking for is the one who is not a breath, not futile, not a phantom. The Lord is the only stable reality in the landscape of human transience. Hope in him is not one option among many. It is the only option that leads anywhere.

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, the practice of meditating on death is one of the great traditions of the spiritual life: memento mori, remember that you will die. Not as a morbid obsession but as a clarifying practice that strips away the illusions and reveals what actually matters. Do it today, briefly and honestly. What will matter at the end? Build that now.

Prayer

Lord God, show me how fleeting my life is. Let the meditation on mortality free me from illusion and reorient me toward the only lasting reality: you. My hope is in you. Hear my prayer and do not be deaf to my weeping, for I am a foreigner and a stranger, as all my ancestors were. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

39
I Will Watch My Ways
For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.
 
1 I said, “I will watch my ways
so that I will not sin with my tongue;
I will guard my mouth with a muzzle
as long as the wicked are present.”
2 I was speechless and still;
I remained silent, even from speaking good,
and my sorrow was stirred.
3 My heart grew hot within me;
as I mused, the fire burned.
 
Then I spoke with my tongue:
 
4 “Show me, O LORD, my end
and the measure of my days.
Let me know how fleeting my life is.
5 You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths,
and my lifetime as nothing before You.
Truly each man at his best
exists as but a breath.
Selah
6 Surely every man goes about like a phantom;
surely he bustles in vain;
he heaps up riches
not knowing who will haul them away.
 
7 And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in You.
8 Deliver me from all my transgressions;
do not make me the reproach of fools.
9 I have become mute;
I do not open my mouth
because of what You have done.
10 Remove Your scourge from me;
I am perishing by the force of Your hand.
11 You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity,
consuming like a moth what he holds dear;
surely each man is but a vapor.
Selah
12 Hear my prayer, O LORD,
and give ear to my cry for help;
do not be deaf to my weeping.
For I am a foreigner dwelling with You,
a stranger like all my fathers.
13 Turn Your gaze away from me,
that I may again be cheered
before I depart and am no more.”

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