Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 31: A Prayer of Thanksgiving and Comfort for the Lord’s Deliverance—Jesus was hated, so will His Christians be. Jesus was assaulted by the Evil One, so will His Christians be. Jesus suffered much at the hands of those spiritual and earthly forces that tried to destroy Him, and so will His Christians be. Yet through all of this the Lord God sustained Him, and He will sustain His Christians too. Psalm 31 is a great example of how we pray THROUGH CHRIST for all the comfort, help, and strength that God promises to give us. We are actually praying for the things that God promises. This is what gives Christian prayer its certainty. This understanding appears at the beginning of the psalm: “Bow down Your ear to me, deliver me speedily; be my rock of refuge, a fortress to save me” (the petition); “For You are my rock and my fortress; therefore, for Your name’s sake, lead me and guide me” (the confident assertion of faith). The certainty that God hears our prayers is anchored in the great truths of the Gospel that He promises and declares to us. “Since He is our God and Savior, since He has redeemed me from all sin, death and the power of the devil, THEN I can be confident that He hears my prayers for His deliverance, and I will give thanks to Him for the assurance of His answer to my prayers!” Confidence in God’s promises of deliverance rests in what Jesus has done for us in His death and resurrection. Christ is, therefore, the One who gives certainty and confidence to our prayers! In Psalm 31 we can hear Jesus’ own prayers. He faced every challenge for us! He endured in the confidence that His Father in heaven was His refuge and strength! And the Lord heard His prayers. In His suffering, persecution, and death, Jesus confidently commended Himself to His Father in heaven: “But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand; Deliver Me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute Me.” We pray these same prayers through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the full assurance of faith, because we are joined to Him. It is for Jesus’ sake that we commend ourselves to God: “For You are my strength. Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” As Jesus prayed these words with confidence from the cross, we are enabled to pray them with confidence in Him and in His redemption.CP230219