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BENEDICT XVI • 113 What great deeds the Lord worked for us! When the Lord restored the captives of Zion, we thought we were dreaming. Then our mouths were filled with laughter; our tongues sang for joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord had done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us; Oh, how happy we were! Restore our captives, Lord, like the dry stream beds of the Negeb. Those who sow in tears will reap with cries of joy. Those who go forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed, Will return with cries of joy, carrying their bundled sheaves. The Psalm speaks of a liberation of captives, who are returned to their original state, to a prior positivity. We thus begin with a situation of suffering and of need to which God responds by offering salvation and by bringing the Psalmist back to his condition of origin, which is even enriched and changed for the better. That is what happened to Job, when the Lord gave him back what he had lost, multiplying and enlarging to an even greater blessing (cf. Jb 42:10-13), and that was also the experience of the people of Israel when they returned to their homeland after the Babylonian exile. The return from exile is the paradigm for every time God intervenes to save…. The people of the covenant, scattered among the pagans, painfully ask themselves about a God who seems to have abandoned them. That is why the end of the deportation and the return to the homeland are experienced as a marvelous return to the faith, to trust, to communion with the Lord; it is a “reversal of fortune” that also implies the conversion of the heart, forgiveness, restored friendship with God, consciousness of his mercy, and the renewed possibility of praising him (cf. Jer 29:12-14; 30:18-20; 33:6-11; Ez 39:25-29). It is an experience of extraordinary joy, of laughter, and of cries of joy, so beautiful that it seems to be “like a dream.” Divine interventions often take an unexpected form, which goes beyond what man could imagine; thus, his amazement and joy express themselves through praise: “The Lord has done great things for them!” That is what the nations say, and it is what Israel proclaims: “Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us; whereof we are glad.” God does great things in human history. By bringing salvation, he reveals himself to everyone as the powerful and merciful Lord, a refuge against oppression, who does not forget the cry of the poor.184 184 Benedict XVI, General Audience of October 12, 2011. Psalm 126 Meditation on Psalm 126 © Bridgeman The Last Judgment (c. 1431), Fra Angelico (c. 1400-1455), Museum San Marco, Florence, Italy. P R A Y I N G wi th Benedict XVI

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