Psalm Reflection: The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A

“Blessed are those who fear the Lord.” - Psalms 128

The center of a hydrogen bomb explosion registers at approximately 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit), and the blast moves through the air at about 300 meters per second (roughly 670 miles per hour).

In contrast, cosmologists believe the Big Bang explosion that began our universe flung energy in all directions at the speed of light: 300,000,000 meters per second, or 671 million miles per hour (a million times faster than the hydrogen bomb). 

It is estimated that the temperature of the entire universe rose to 1000 trillion degrees Celsius a tiny fraction of a second after the explosion. That is the equivalent of the heat exerted from one million hydrogen bombs. Even the cores of the hottest stars in the universe today are much cooler than that.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second, precisely 10-32 of a second (0.00000000000000000000000000000001 seconds). Most cosmologists and astrophysicists agree that before the Big Bang, there was nothing; it was the beginning of our universe. Now, how can you go from nothing to something? It is simple: you cannot. You need something (or someone) to act, to create. 

Furthermore, how do you go from nothing to something as massive, powerful, explosive, chaotic, and cataclysmic as the Big Bang? And how does all of that chaos somehow coalesce into the exact conditions needed to sustain life? You need a being so big, so powerful, and so intelligent that is able to control such massive forces. You need God.

This is why we speak of the “fear of the Lord,” not because God is scary, but because when we gaze into the vastness of space or the complexity of creation, we cannot help but be in awe of the One who created it all.

My children have a healthy fear of me. I am not scary and they know that I love them and would never hurt them, but to them I am larger than life. I am so much bigger and stronger than them (and least for now) that they look at me with a sense of wonder and awe. When they are not listening and they hear my footsteps on the stairs, they start acting differently because they know that daddy is coming.

This is how we are to be with God. God does not want us to cower in fear of Him, He wants us to be His children. He wants to provide for us, and reveal to us the truths of the universe that He created especially for us. As His children, we will naturally see Him as larger than life. At times we will be amazed by Him, and at other times we will shutter in His presence, because we understand and have experienced the power and the glory of who He is.

As the Psalmist reminds us, we are blessed when we fear the Lord. In other words, we will experience the blessings of God when we let Him Father us as His children, because that is when we can more clearly experience His love, His power, and His might.

So fear the Lord, but do not be afraid of Him, because He loves you and He orchestrated the Big Bang for you, so that you could have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

This week, go out and experience the glory of God in nature. Take in the sunrises and sunsets, gaze at the night sky, look into the eyes of your loved ones and recognize that all of it is being perfectly and effortlessly crafted in the hands of your loving Father.

I am praying for you, please pray for me, and I will see you in the Eucharist.

Matt

Sources: 

https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/origins/big-bang

https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html 

This reflection is based on the Responsorial Psalm for this Sunday, November 19th, 2023, which is The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A: Psalms 128:1-2, 3, 4-5.