Bellarmine on Psalm 142: Verses 7-9

We continue with St Robert Bellarmine's commentary on Psalm 142, the last of the Seven Penitential Psalms.

Where footnotes are included, the text follows each section.

The Latin is reproduced courtesy of the Digital Collection site  - UANL and is accompanied by my fairly literal translation. The Scripture excerpts (Douay Rheims/Vulgate) are taken from the DRBO site but the verse numbering follows that of Bellarmine’s Latin text.

Verse 7

Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath fainted away.

Velociter exaudi me, Domine; defecit spiritus meus. 

The turpitude of his sin, which he acknowledges, and the desire for grace, impel the penitent’s soul so that he cannot endure any delay in reconciliation. It is a mark of true contrition when the sinner does not put off confession and other remedies from day to day but quickly runs to the soul’s physician, like a sick man in danger quickly summons the presence[1] of a physician, or a thirsty man quickly runs to waters. “Hear me,” he says, “speedily;” I can  no longer support my turpitude, wash me quickly of my iniquity, heal speedily my illness, because “my spirit hath fainted away,” that is, I am at my last extremity, I can scarcely draw breath: he uses the past tense for the present, increasing the grace.

[1]  accersiri: seems to be a misprint for arcessiri, present passive infinitive of arcessiō, or arcesso: arcessō, īvī, ītus, 3, a.: to cause to come; send for, summon.

Verse 8

Turn not away thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

Non avertas faciem tuam a me, et similis ero descendentibus in lacum.

He seeks the same using different words: “Turn not away thy face from me,” that is, do not refuse to be reconciled to me, do not be unrelenting, turn the face of Thy kindness so as to look mercifully upon me, lest I become as those who perish and go down into the deepest pit of hell. For God does not pardon these, neither does he give them the life of grace; they are lost eternally. The et / and [translated in Douay Rheims as lest] may be taken for quia / because as we have often noted, and the sense is: “Turn not away thy face from me,” because if Thou dost turn away, “I shall be like unto them that go down into the pit."

Verse 9

Cause me to hear thy mercy in the morning; for in thee have I hoped.

 

Auditam fac mihi mane misericordiam tuam, quia in te speravi.

He returns to the same subject but in another manner: “Cause me to hear ... in the morning,” that is, quickly, speedily, at the beginning of the day, “thy mercy;” or by in the morning he understands the light of grace which dawns in reconciliation after the dark night of sin, as though he might say: I have been too long in the dark night of sin, angering Thee; may Thy mercy make grace to dawn, and may I hear in my heart Thy voice telling me: “I am thy salvation.”[1] “For in thee have I hoped,” that is, may the grace of hope, which I have already received, merit the grace of forgiveness; for although a sinner may not in his own behalf merit anything from God, yet grace itself can merit being increased, so that, being increased, it may merit being perfected, as St. Augustine says in his Epistle 106; and with regard to this text, St. Augustine says that justification is obtained through faith and the same can be said of hope, which obtains justification.

[1]  Bring out the sword, and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul: I am thy salvation. Effunde frameam, et conclude adversus eos qui persequuntur me; dic animae meae : Salus tua ego sum. [Ps. Xxxiv. 3]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.