Psalm 90:2
hidden refuge
He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust. (Psalm 90:2 DR)
It is often said that our true character is revealed not in what others see us do, but rather in what we do when no one is looking. This is as true in the spiritual life as in the normal day-today actions that we may take.
In some respects there can be an “advantage,” if it can be called that, to suffering or striving before the eyes of others. For while we may be assailed by men on one hand, there can be the consolation that others can perceive the injustice and may be led to truth by the example of perseverance set forth. The cliche that courage is contagious is often actually true, and that can be a great consolation when suffering for what is right in the view of the world.
However, much more difficult is the silent suffering that must be borne that no one else can see, for there is an isolation present that cannot receive the same consolations. No suffering is easy or desirable as an end to itself, but there is something about that suffering which is invisible to others which may be seemingly impossible to bear. This is especially true when it involves temptation, as St. Augustine notes:
For many men are brave, when they are enduring persecution from men, and see them openly rage against themselves: imagining they are then imitating the sufferings of Christ, in case men openly persecute them; but if assailed by the hidden attack of the devil, they believe they are not being crowned by Christ. Never fear when thou dost imitate Christ. For when the devil tempted our Lord, there was no man in the wilderness; he tempted Him secretly; but he was conquered, and conquered too when openly attacking Him. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 90, 2.)
Those sufferings and temptations which we experience can thus be as much a source of triumph in virtue and conformity to Christ as those borne openly, for we imitate Christ in both instances. The hidden temptations can seem especially difficult to perceive in this light as they seem to come from within, but this purification of our minds and hearts and closing the door to the snares of the evil one are as much a battle to win as those which come from without.
These secret assaults will come, and there is no escaping them. As the Psalmist will note later in this Psalm, even retiring from the world will not remove them, as the noon-day devil will rear its head to attack. Monastics of antiquity retreated to the desert not to escape the devil, but rather with a mind to more fully confront him in their interior life. Job himself was considered by God a righteous man, and it was ironically precisely because of this righteousness that God permitted him to be tested by the devil in such seemingly unimaginable ways so as to prove him:
This do thou, if you wish to enter by the door, when the enemy secretly assails you, when he asks for a man that he may do him some hurt by bodily troubles, by fever, by sickness, or any other bodily sufferings, like those of Job. He saw not the devil, yet he acknowledged the power of God. He knew that the devil had no power against him, unless from the Almighty Ruler of all things he received that power: the whole glory he gave to God, power to the devil he gave not.... (ibid.)
Our progress in the spiritual life is this constant battle against temptations, whether from without or from within. Thus the Psalmist continues in this verse by reiterating that the Lord is his protection, refuge and God. St. Robert Bellarmine sees in this threefold confidence a triptych of sorts that applies to favors that God grants in the past, present and future.
The first favor of the past is found in “protection”, which is the “unspeakable mercy of God” through which we are saved from sin, brought to penance and granted confidence for the future. The second favor of the present is that the Lord is our “refuge,” which is when “God protects anyone through the grace of justification.” This grace is not merely to be freed form the pains of hell but to gird us for battle, to be placed “in the line of his soldiers” wherein we fight against temptations and difficulties, relying on God to preserve us in this fight as our refuge. The final favor is of the future found in “my God,” which is the promise of beatification and obtaining God wherein “we shall enjoy the supreme good.”
The just man, therefore, reflecting and allowing that God was one time his protector, then his refuge, and, after this life, will constitute his happiness, comes to the conclusion, “in him will I trust;” that is, I am firmly determined to put my trust in him, through every danger and temptation, as did holy Job, when he said, “Although he should kill me, I will trust in him.” (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 90, 2.)
This life is a battle, and as we progress in the spiritual life we should expect greater tribulation and trouble; as Christ promised, “The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord.” (Matthew 10:24) As we imitate Christ more closely, so we will share in his sufferings more closely. The hidden suffering of Christ in his temptation is a consolation to us as we face the hidden sufferings in our own, for as he overcame, so he gives us the grace to overcome as well as we make him our refuge and protection and God:
He then who so imitates Christ as to endure all the troubles of this world, with his hopes set upon God, that he falls into no snare, is broken down by no panic fears, he it is “who dwells under the defense of the Most High, who shall abide under the protection of God” [Psalm 90:1], in the words with which the Psalm, which you have heard and sung, begins. You will recognise the words, so well known, in which the devil tempted our Lord, when we come to them. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 90, 3.)
For this animation I knew I wanted to go heavily abstract, but didn’t have a clear conception of where I would take it. I had been playing around with some other techniques for other projects, but wasn’t particularly inspired.
Finally I decided to create something geometric with some repeating patterns primarily for the aesthetics of it, which I think turned out well. However, sometimes it works out that the reflections on the Psalms retroactively seems apropos.
I began with a cool texture I found on Unsplash. I then created a simple triangle and added a repeater to it, adding various copies to it and spreading them out to create a vertical line of triangles. I then animated the position of the triangle within the shape layer itself, rather than on the main layer since I wanted to be able to reuse it and reposition without messing up the animation.
I created the loop, which can be tricky with this sort of thing, but I usually will just created a guide layer somewhere in the comp and set the initial keyframe so that some prominent part of the image intersects with it; in this case the top point of the triangle. I then went to the end of the animation and adjusted the position so that it ends in roughly the same spot. It usually takes a bit of tweaking to get the perfect loop without doing the math, but in this case it wasn’t too bad to just eye it.
I then duplicated the background texture and flipped it. Next I used the animated triangles as a track matte for this new texture so that it would only be revealed within the triangles. I then duplicated the triangles and texture, flipped and repositioned the triangles so they animated in reverse, and then repeated the same process.
I finally added in some drop shadows to give it some depth and separation before placing my text in there, which I think (in retrospect) goes well with the hiddenness theme of the reflection above.
Enjoy.
He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust.
(Psalm 90:2 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: