PSALM 39 – EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI

CHRIST’S COMING, AND REDEEMING MANKIND

Unto the end, a psalm for David himself.

With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me.

And he heard my prayers, and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs.

And he set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps.

And he put a new canticle into my mouth, a song to our God.

Many shall see, and shall fear: and they shall hope in the Lord.

Blessed is the man whose trust is in the name of the Lord; and who hath not had regard to vanities, and lying follies.

Thou hast multiplied thy wonderful works, O Lord my God: and in thy thoughts there is none like to thee.

I have declared and I have spoken, they are multiplied in number.

Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; but thou hast pierced ears for me.

Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require: then said I, Behold I come.

In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will: O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart.

I have declared thy justice in a great church, lo, I will not restrain my lips: O Lord, thou knowest it.

I have not his thy justice within my heart: I have declared thy truth and thy salvation.

I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council.

Withhold not thou, O Lord, thy tender mercies from me: thy mercy and thy truth have always upheld me.

For evils without number have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I was not able to see.

They are multiplied above the hairs of my head: and my heart hath forsaken me.

Be pleased, O Lord to deliver me: look down, O Lord, to help me.

Let them be confounded and ashamed together, that seek after my soul to take it away.

Let them be turned backward and be ashamed that desire evils to me.

Let them immediately bear their confusion, that say to me: ‘T is well, ‘t is well.

Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say always: The Lord be magnified.

But I am a beggar and poor: the Lord is careful for me.

Thou art my helper and my protector: O my God, be not slack.

Psalm 39:13. “My iniquities.” That is, the sins of all mankind, which I have taken upon me. Verse 16. “‘T is well”. The Hebrew here is an interjection of insult and derision, like the “Vah” (Mt27:49).

 

THE SINGULAR POWER OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

For the previous chapter, please click here.

It is this peculiar and singular power of Holy Scripture, arising from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which gives authority to the sacred orator, fills him with apostolic liberty of speech, and communicates force and power to his eloquence.

For those who infuse into their efforts the spirit and strength of the Word of God, speak “not in word only but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fullness.” [1 Thess 1:5].

Hence those preachers are foolish and improvident who, in speaking of religion and proclaiming the things of God, use no words but those of human science and human prudence, trusting to their own reasonings rather than those of God. Their discourses may be brilliant and fine, but they must be feeble and they must be cold, for they are without the fire of the utterance of God [Jerem 23:29] and they must fall short of that mighty power which the speech of God processes: “for the Word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than a two-edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit.” [Hebr 4:12].

But, indeed, all those who have a right to speak are agreed that there is in the Holy Scripture an eloquence that is wonderfully varied and rich, and worthy of great themes. This St Augustine thoroughly understood and has abundantly set forth. This also is confirmed by the best preachers of all ages, who have gratefully acknowledged that they owed their repute chiefly to the assiduous use of the Bible, and to devout meditation on its pages.

– From: Providentissimus Deus, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the Study of Holy Scripture, Rome, 1893

 

WHAT WAS DONE IN THE FLESH IS ACCOMPLISHED DAILY IN THE CONVERSION OF BELIEVERS (LK 11:14-23)

Homily of St Bede the Venerable on Luke 11:14-23

This man possessed with a devil was, according to Matthew, not only dumb but also blind; and he was cured by the Lord, we are told, so that he both spoke and saw.

Three miracles

Three miracles, therefore, were wrought upon this one man at one and the same time: blind, he saw; dumb, he spoke; possessed, he was delivered from the devil.

What was done according to the flesh is accomplished daily in the conversion of believers; in the first place, the devil is driven out and they behold the light of faith; then their mouths, which before were dumb, are set free to sing the praises of God.

But some of them said: “He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.” This was not said by any among the multitude, but it was the Scribes and Pharisees who maligned him, as the other Evangelists bear witness.

– St Bede the Venerable, Bk. 4. Ch. 48, on Luke, Ch. 11, from: An Approved English Translation of the Breviarium Romanum, Burns & Oates, London, 1964

 

ALL WISDOM IS FROM THE LORD (ECCLESIASTICUS 1-10)

All wisdom is from God, and is given to them that fear and love God.

All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him, and is before all time.

Who hath numbered the sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world? Who hath measured the height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss?

Who hath searched out the wisdom of God that forth before all things?

Wisdom hath been created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting.

The word of God on high is the foundation of wisdom, and her ways are everlasting commandments.

To whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed, and who hath known her wise counsels?

To whom hath the discipline of wisdom been revealed and made manifest? and who hath understood the multiplicity of her steps?

There is one most high Creator Almighty, and a powerful king, and greatly to be feared, who sitteth upon his throne, and is the God of dominion.

He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her.

And he poured her out upon all his works, and upon all flesh according to his gift, and he hath given her to them that love him.

 

THEY DENY THAT THERE IS ANY SUCH THING AS HOLY SCRIPTURE, THEY SEE ONLY THE FORGERIES OF MEN

“We must now, Venerable Brethren, as Our purpose demands, impart to you such counsels as seem best suited for carrying on successfully the study of biblical science.

What are the opponents’ tactics and weapons?

But first it must be clearly understood whom we have to oppose and contend against, and what are their tactics and their arms. In earlier times the contest was chiefly with those who, relying on private judgment and repudiating the divine traditions and teaching office of the Church, held the Scriptures to be the one source of revelation and the final appeal in matters of Faith.

Rejecting even scraps and remnants of Christian belief

Now, we have to meet the Rationalists, true children and inheritors of the older heretics, who, trusting in their turn to their own way of thinking, have rejected even the scraps and remnants of Christian belief which had been handed down to them.

To them, the miracles and wonders of God’s power are not what they are

They deny that there is any such thing as revelation or inspiration, or Holy Scripture at all; they see, instead, only the forgeries and the falsehoods of men. They set down the Scripture narratives as stupid fables and lying stories: the prophecies and the oracles of God are to them either predictions made up after the event or forecasts formed by the light of nature; the miracles and the wonders of God’s power are not what they are said to be, but the startling effects of natural law, or else mere tricks and myths; and the apostolic Gospels and writings not the work of the Apostles at all.

Human attempts to take God out of the equation

These detestable errors, whereby they think they destroy the truth of the divine Books, are obtruded on the world as the peremptory pronouncements of a certain newly-invented ‘free science;’ a science, however, which is so far from final that they are perpetually modifying and supplementing it.

Man-made “free science”, so far from final that it gets changed constantly

And there are some of them who, notwithstanding their impious opinions and utterances about God, and Christ, the Gospels and the rest of Holy Scripture, would fain be considered theologians and Christians and men of the Gospel, and who attempt to disguise by such honourable names their rashness and their pride. To them we must add not a few professors of other sciences who approve their views and give them assistance, and are urged to attack the Bible by a similar intolerance of revelation.

Disguising rashness and pride; striving for human acclaim

And it is deplorable to see these attacks growing every day more numerous and more severe. It is sometimes men of learning and judgment who are assailed; but these have little difficulty in defending themselves from evil consequences. The efforts and the arts of the enemy are chiefly directed against the more ignorant masses of the people.

The spread of the deadly poison

They diffuse their deadly poison by means of books, pamphlets, and newspapers; they spread it by addresses and by conversation; they are found everywhere; and they are in possession of numerous schools, taken by violence from the Church, in which, by ridicule and scurrilous jesting, they pervert the credulous and unformed minds of the young to the contempt of Holy Scripture.

Champions that are needed in this momentous battle 

Should not these things, Venerable Brethren, stir up and set on fire the heart of every Pastor, so that to this ‘knowledge, falsely so called’ may be opposed the ancient and true science which the Church, through the Apostles, has received from Christ, and that Holy Scripture may find the champions that are needed in so momentous a battle?”

– From the Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus, 18th November 1893 (Pope Leo XIII) [headings in bold added afterwards]