Please read this passage before reading the homily.
We celebrate our pilgrimaging with Jesus to the throne of the Father. Our ancestors, the Israelites, would sing the psalms of ascent or of pilgrimage as they went in pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem.
There are fifteen of these psalms, called Psalms of Ascent or of Pilgrimage. They are psalms 120-134, and they celebrate the Israelites’ pilgrimage up to the Jerusalem and the temple of the Lord. To go on pilgrimage to the temple was a time for rejoicing. The Israelites would sing these psalms as they walked.
Many Spanish speaking people begin Mass by singing from Psalm 122, “I rejoiced when I heard them say, ‘Let us go up to the house of the lord.’”
For us there is no temple in Jerusalem, no blazing fire as happened on Mt Sinai, no trumpet blasts, no terrifying winds. For us, instead, there the Mount (Zion) and the City of the living God with thousands upon thousands of angels, all the just and holy people, and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.
No one ought to be separated from this celebration of our pilgrimage to the throne of God. If we do not sing with our mouths, we must sing with our lives. Our pilgrimage to the throne of God is not easy, but it is possible: we can go up to God’s mountain, “I rejoiced when I heard them say, ‘Let us go up to the house of the lord.’”
It is a happy thing that we can go on pilgrimage and come to the house of the Lord. We can lift up our eyes to the Lord who dwells the heaven. From the depths we cry out to the Lord.
Let us go up to God’s mountain, to the place of God’s presence with joy. Let us sing with the voice of our lives to the glory of God and to our intercessor Jesus Christ, God’s Son and our Lord. We need have no fear because our champion and high priest has gone before us to the throne of God the Father and, nevertheless, is with us now as the mediator of the new covenant.