Taste and See

“Taste and see how good the LORD is...”
—Psalm 34:9

This psalm inspired one of my favorite contemporary Catholic hymns. I love the exquisitely sensual image of God’s goodness revealed through the experience of taste. We Catholics believe in the sacramental nature of reality. The physical world is the medium by which we encounter the divine. Eating, which can be a very mundane, ordinary physical activity, can also be the gateway to the holy, as revealed in the delight we take in food, and in the company of others with whom we share it. The Eucharistic meal perhaps best illustrates this “communion” of God and humankind.

The context of this phrase in the psalm is not really about the act of eating, however, as meaningful and true as that image can be. The psalm, attributed to David, is a triumphant hymn of praise to the God who has answered his prayers, delivered him from fear and danger and filled his heart with overflowing joy. It is an invitation for others to join the psalmist in his adoration of the Lord. It is a lover’s outpouring of breathless devotion.

“Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame,” David gushes, and then exclaims, “Taste and see how good the Lord is!” In some translations, the word taste is rendered as “savor,” a word that is even more sensual in its implication of relishing the experience of God’s intimacy with complete exhilaration and bliss.

We are embarrassed by public expressions of affection. But David feels no shame, and invites us to join in his wild love affair with the Lord. Can we too give way to God’s relentless passion? Can we too embrace God with our whole souls and bodies, with all our senses? Can we savor what the Lord has done for us, in our hearts, with our tongues, in our bones?

Beloved, your desire for me overwhelms my defenses! Let the boundaries I have made between us fall. Let me unabashedly return your embrace. Let me savor you and your goodness with my whole being and reveal to me the intimacy my heart was made for. Amen.