of St. Andrew of Crete hammers over and over again this refrain:
"Have mercy on me, O God! Have mercy on me!"
Those words and that melody have very much been with me today.
And these words: "When I think of the many evil things I have done..."
Something Dr. Korby pointed out that I had never thought through: the Miscerere (Psalm 51) was written AFTER Nathan confronted David and absolved him. It's a prayer about the battle of absolution against the vivid memory of sin in the conscience - maybe composed as his child lay dying. Our sins have long shadows and consequences for others as well as ourselves. We have such a hard time believing the damage sin does to us and others. We lie to ourselves, deceive ourselves that it's no big deal. Satan is a master of treachery who minimizes the sin to us when he entices us to commit it and then maximizes it afterward.
Yet that too can be for us a moment of grace when God allows the terror of our sins to confront us - and in those moments we flee to the only place we can: to His arms, which are open wide, ready and waiting for us. That's, after all, what the Cross is all about.
Indeed, "have mercy on me, O God! Have mercy on me!"
As He holds us He whispers: "I have, dear one. I have and I will."
6 comments:
What's this? Where did you hear it?
I have a beautiful recording done by a friend of mine from St. Peter's in the Loop in Chicago - J. Michael Thompson. It was in a peculiar form of Carpatho-Russian chant - antiphonal and truly haunting.
By the way, it's not an Orthodox but a Roman Catholic setting - prays for the Pope and all. Eastern Rite Catholic.
Yep I remember him saying, "Psalm 51 is the prayer of an absolved man."
I have not heard Psalm 51 presented in that way - as being written after absolution. How is it we come to this conclusion?
Dear Mike, it's in the superscription to the Psalm. "AFTER Nathan had come to David."
Post a Comment