In today's first reading, Ex 1: 8-14, 22, we are told the story of how the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, oppressing them "with forced labor," reducing them to "cruel slavery, making life bitter for them with hard work in mortar and brick and all kinds of field work--the whole cruel fate of slaves." Every boy born to an Israelite was drown at birth, to limit increased population of the Israelite nation.
In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 124, the Israelites pray: "Had not the Lord been with us...when men rose up against us, then would they have swallowed us alive, when their fury was inflamed against us. Then would the waters have overwhelmed us; the torrent would have swept over us; over us then would have swept the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord, who did not leave us a prey to their teeth."
We know the story of how God freed the Israelites from the oppression of the Egyptians, how they escaped through the Red Sea, in which the pursuing Egyptians' horses and charioteers and the whole Egyptian army drown. We also know the story of how God brought the Chosen People to the Promised Land, being with them in all the battles that ensued in route!
We, too, encounter many a hardship on our journey to the Promised Land of eternal life: wars, domestic violence, oppression by the cruelty of some bosses and/or employees; hard labor, natural disasters, unemployment, chronic illnesses, the "loss" of children who get lured into drugs and those who become victims of sexual predators, and on and on!
God is right there with each one of us when hard times come our way! We may not see God or feel His Presence, but God has a plan to free us, make us whole, and restore us to the life He intends for us. It is God who "does not leave us the prey" of the teeth of "predators." "Broken is the snare, and we [are] freed. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth," the psalmist prays, and so do we!
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