A Reflection for Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud
and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message
and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near.”
“Praise Song for the Day” is a poem written by Elizabeth Alexander and delivered at the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. In my sophomore year of college, I first felt its elegant power—how the lucid images touched a spiritual awareness I couldn’t reach alone.
I had never heard a praise song read aloud, and as we turned our heads toward the video at the front of the classroom, Ms. Alexander addressed the vibrant crowd from her podium on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
These first two stanzas—unrhymed, three-line “mini arguments,” as my professor described them—set the tone for a delivery that took a Swiffer duster to the shelves inside my heart.
Each line filled me with optimism. This was a praise song, a collection of words praising or glorifying a subject (traditionally a town, animal, plant, person or god), and here, Elizabeth Alexander was praising the “day.” Something as mundane and predictable as that.
But she was also praising the moment. Barack Obama would be the first Black man to hold the highest office of the United States. We had elected him, and the stirring inside my chest spelled out “hope.”
Written for a moment of national unity, “Praise Song for the Day” praised the everyday acts of love and labor that knit together the fabric of community. The invitation was clear: have endurance for hope, and maintain an active awareness of where to source that hope—not only in grand gestures or distant promises, but in the ordinary moments of today.
That’s the instruction of today’s First Reading, too: Maintain hope, and listen when people are speaking hopeful things aloud. “Blessed is the one who reads aloud and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near.”
This verse from Revelation reminds us of the power of both speaking and hearing God’s Word. It’s not enough to read or hear passively; the blessing comes in heeding the message, in letting it shape how we live.
