And let them trust in thee who know thy name: for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee, O Lord. (Psalm 9:11 DR)
In the realm of knowledge there is the significant distinction between knowing about a thing and actually knowing that thing. The former exists at somewhat of a remove in that we perceive the thing we know about externally to it, as it were, whereas the latter is understood in some manner from within.
For us humans this distinction often manifests itself in the separation between us intellectually knowing or understanding it and experiencing or doing it. I can read as many books about fitness and health as I want and come to intellectually understand the subject, but until I actually put it into practice (e.g., going to the gym, exercising, etc.) it stays in some manner exterior to me, for even though my mind can comprehend it, I have to bring the totality of myself into it so as to actually know it.
The same is true in the spiritual life, for we can intellectually apprehend truths of the faith, but unless we bring them into the day-to-day of our lives in a concrete manner they will remain abstract and ineffectual. Worse, we can delude ourselves into thinking that merely possessing knowledge of some aspect of the faith translates into a concomitant growth in charity towards God or increase in virtue. After all, while learning about prayer may not be easy, it is probably less difficult than actually praying. But this practice of any element of the Catholic faith is necessary to advance in spiritual growth.
Dr. Gavin Ashendon gave a tremendous talk at the Catholic Identity Conference in which he related a story about how he had an experience of demonic oppression before his conversion and had asked a priest about what to do. The priest wisely told him to pray the Rosary, to which Dr. Ashendon replied that he certainly understood what the Rosary was and its historical development; in fact, he had been studying it for years! However, it wasn’t until he actually started to pray it that the transformation in his own heart occurred and the attacks of the evil one ceased.
The Psalmist speaks the truth that those who trust in the Lord know his name, but this knowledge is not just intellectual apprehension. After all, the demons certainly know the name of the Lord (cf. James 2:19) but for them it is not a source of trust but of terror. For the Psalmist this knowledge is predicated on the acts of God in the past towards His people and towards the Psalmist himself. For while his enemies have compassed him about, he has still chosen to turn his will to the Lord, to hope and trust in spite of what the circumstances might otherwise suggest. He thus orders the entirety of his life around this confidence in the Lord’s provision, rejecting the things of this world for that which is lasting:
For the soul indeed that seeks where to fix her hope, when she is torn away from this world, the knowledge of God's Name seasonably receives. For the mere Name of God has now been published everywhere: but the knowledge of the name is, when He is known whose name it is. For the name is not a name for its own sake, but for that which it signifies. Now it has been said, “The Lord is His Name.” [Jeremiah 33:2] Wherefore whoever willingly submits himself to God as His servant, has known this name. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 11.)
St. Augustine’s point here is absolutely crucial, and ties in with Dr. Ashenden’s comments. We cannot expect to be able to place our confidence and trust in the Lord and thus come to know Him if we are still clinging to the things of this world and our own estimation of ourselves and our abilities. It is only when we hold the pleasures and stuff of this world in contempt for the sake of having charity towards God that we then receive the knowledge of His name, as the Psalmist says. For when we cling to the things of this world we necessary have our wills turned towards them, which leads to a posture of having our backs turned towards God. Stated in another way, we cannot lift our hands to God on prayer if they are holding onto the stuff of this life.
But as we begin to fix our wills on the Lord and submit to Him with the entirety of our lives, we begin to gain this knowledge as a matter of course. Similar to how one comes to know health and fitness more the one engages in the things which promote it, so the more we do the things of God such as prayer, attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, penance, making use of the sacraments, sacrifice, mortification, etc., the more the whole of our being is reoriented towards our Lord and reconfigured in His likeness, for in reality we are doing the things that He did while He dwelt among us. Our lives become cruciform, as it were, and we become a living sacrifice (cf. Romans 12:1) by which our hearts and minds are renewed and transformed. This transformation itself is what allows us to begin to truly know God’s name rather than just know about, like blurry vision being brought into focus and enabled to see and know what is before it.
This reconfiguring of our minds and hearts then leads into the second half of this passage in which we see that our Lord’s promise to never forsake us (cf. Hebrews 13:5) has nothing to do with our external circumstances but rather the charity of God which is poured into our hearts (cf. Romans 5:5). This charity is not an abstract concept but is the living presence of the Holy Trinity dwelling within us, which fulfills our Lord’s promise that the one who loves the Lord and keep His commands will experience this reality (cf. John 14:23). This reality is both transcendent of and deeper than the present circumstances of this life, which are full of trouble and tribulation in this vale of tears. But our hope is not to be on the things of now or the things of the future, but in God alone in whom eternity resides:
“Let them” then “who know Your Name, hope in You;” that they may not hope in those things which flow by in time's quick revolution, having nothing but “will be” and “has been.” For what in them is future, when it arrives, straightway becomes the past; it is awaited with eagerness, it is lost with pain. But in the nature of God nothing will be, as if it were not yet; or has been, as if it were no longer: but there is only that which is, and this is eternity. Let them cease then to hope in and love things temporal, and let them apply themselves to hope eternal, who know His name who said, “I am That I am.” (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 11.)
If our hope is in the things of this world, St. Augustine observes, our hope will always by definition be disappointed, for we either hope for what will come or regret what has been and cannot be again. Both of these realities exist outside of our grasp of the now, and thus every hope will be frustrated and every regret unmitigated. It is thus the highest folly to trust or hope in things which by their very nature remove themselves from our grasp and which always exist external to us. We long for them and then lose them, we are sad when they are gone and can never go back to the joy when they were extant. This constant cycle of anticipation and loss is what characterizes our lot in this mortal coil, and thus built into this existential dilemma is the corollary that we must seek after that which is eternal.
If insanity is colloquially defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results, then to hold the things of this world in contempt is the sanest thing we can do, to fix our eyes on the Lord and lift our gaze to things eternal, rather than clinging so tightly to that which we know cannot last and thus can never satisfy. The goods and pleasures of this world will necessarily forsake us, but with the Psalmist we can confidently say that the Lord never will.
I had the notion of something kind of hazy and nebulous for this animation, and so I used the plugin Nebulosity to create the wispy sort of look here. I thought it might be a nice conceptual juxtaposition, but I also thought it kind looked cool. I added in some textures and lights and color correction.
I think the .gif had some encoding issues, but I’m too lazy to go back and fix it.
Enjoy.
And let them trust in thee who know thy name: for thou hast not forsaken them that seek thee, O Lord.
(Psalm 9:11 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: