Fr. Billy Swan – Word on Fire Blog –
In 1978, the band Boney M had a hit single with the song called “The Rivers of Babylon.” The song is based on Psalm 137 in the Bible and expresses the sadness of the Jewish people who found themselves in exile away from their homeland and in Babylon in the sixth century before Christ.
During this modern time of restriction—when we cannot gather as a faith community to worship in our local churches—this psalm and its poignant sentiment of longing is resonant for us. I felt this same sadness acutely (and ironically) on Easter Sunday, when celebrating Mass of the Lord’s Resurrection while looking down on empty pews. On the most joyful and important day of the Church’s year, we felt the sadness of not being able to gather in our places of worship. Yes, modern technology has softened the blow by live-streaming many liturgies from our churches, but we know that it just isn’t the same. We want to be there. We want to be together. We want to be back home. What this experience of being in exile connects us with is the joy of worship and how we miss that joy by not being able to worship as a community in our local church.
Unfortunately, before the pandemic crisis, we often slouched toward Mass with a sense of obligation, endurance, or habit, with little thought as to what it meant to be free to worship and the privilege to worship in our own place. Or worse still, we didn’t gather at all. This is the stark reality for over 70% of baptized Catholics. Weekly worship with the faith community is not part of their lives. What that points to, based on the psalms we have looked at, is the need to rediscover the delight of worship that powerfully awakens the Spirit of God dwelling within us.