Whenever we hear about "mysticism" or "mystical experience", we inevitably think of it as a rare grace, reserved to great saints and far beyond the expectations of us ordinary Catholics. Yet a spiritual master has taught us that mysticism is nothing more than the full flowering of the virtues, faith, hope and love.

For today's Mass we read the first Psalm as our responsorial. This first Psalm may be taken as an essential summary of the doctrine contained in different forms in all the 150 Psalms. Even as a summary, it may also be understood as an elaborate "title" for the Book of Psalms, telling what the Psalms are speaking about.

The opening words of the first Psalm, "Happy is the person who...." immediately point to a great purpose of the Psalms, and indeed of the whole Bible, namely to answer the question: in what does human happiness consist? The opening phrase instructs us not to follow the counsel of the wicked nor to walk in the way of sinners. These negative injunctions are followed by a very consoling phrase: we are to delight in the law of the Lord for, as the response asserts, "Happy are they who hope in the Lord".