Fragmenda

Scripture

Psalms 76–77

Psalms 76

Voce mea. The faithful have recourse to God in trouble of mind, with confidence in his mercy and power.

1 

Unto the end, for Idithun, a psalm of Asaph.

2 

I cried to the Lord with my voice; to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

3 

In the day of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted:

4 

I remembered God, and was delighted, and was exercised, and my spirit swooned away.

5 

My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not.

6 

I thought upon the days of old: and I had in my mind the eternal years.

7 

And I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercised and I swept my spirit.

8 

Will God then cast off for ever? or will he never be more favourable again?

9 

Or will he cut off his mercy for ever, from generation to generation?

10 

Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies?

11 

And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High.

12 

I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning.

13 

And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions.

14 

Thy way, O God, is in the holy place: who is the great God like our God?

15 

Thou art the God that dost wonders. Thou hast made thy power known among the nations:

16 

With thy arm thou hast redeemed thy people the children of Jacob and of Joseph.

17 

The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee: and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled.

18 

Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass:

19 

The voice of thy thunder in a wheel. Thy lightnings enlightened the world: the earth shook and trembled.

20 

Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths in many waters: and thy footsteps shall not be known.

21 

Thou hast conducted thy people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.


Psalms 77

Attendite. God’s great benefits to the people of Israel, notwithstanding their ingratitude.

1 

Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2 

I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

3 

How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

4 

They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done.

5 

And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:

6 

That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.

7 

That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.

8 

That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9 

The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle.

10 

They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk.

11 

And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.

12 

Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.

13 

He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel.

14 

And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire.

15 

He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep.

16 

He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers.

17 

And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water.

18 

And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires.

19 

And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

20 

Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people?

21 

Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry: and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and wrath came up against Israel.

22 

Because they believed not in God: and trusted not in his salvation.

23 

And he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of heaven.

24 

And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven.

25 

Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance.

26 

He removed the south wind from heaven: and by his power brought in the south-west wind.

27 

And he rained upon them flesh as dust: and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea.

28 

And they fell in the midst of their camp, round about their pavilions.

29 

So they did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and he gave them their desire:

30 

they were not defrauded of that which they craved. As yet their meat was in their mouth:

31 

And the wrath of God came upon them. And he slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel.

32 

In all these things they sinned still: and they believed not for his wondrous works.

33 

And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years in haste.

34 

When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned, and came to him early in the morning.

35 

And they remembered that God was their helper: and the most high God their redeemer.

36 

And they loved him with their mouth: and with their tongue they lied unto him:

37 

But their heart was not right with him: nor were they counted faithful in his covenant.

38 

But he is merciful, and will forgive their sins: and will not destroy them. And many a time did he turn away his anger: and did not kindle all his wrath.

39 

And he remembered that they are flesh: a wind that goeth and returneth not.

40 

How often did they provoke him in the desert: and move him to wrath in the place without water?

41 

And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel.

42 

They remembered not his hand, in the day that he redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them:

43 

How he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanis.

44 

And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers that they might not drink.

45 

He sent amongst them divers sorts of flies, which devoured them: and frogs which destroyed them.

46 

And he gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust.

47 

And he destroyed their vineyards with hail, and their mulberry trees with hoarfrost.

48 

And he gave up their cattle to the hail, and their stock to the fire.

49 

And he sent upon them the wrath of his indignation: indignation and wrath and trouble, which he sent by evil angels.

50 

He made a way for a path to his anger: he spared not their souls from death, and their cattle he shut up in death.

51 

And he killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: the firstfruits of all their labour in the tabernacles of Cham.

52 

And he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

53 

And he brought them out in hope and they feared not: and the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

54 

And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary: the mountain which his right hand had purchased. And he cast out the Gentiles before them: and by lot divided to them their land by a line of distribution.

55 

And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tabernacles.

56 

Yet they tempted, and provoked the most high God: and they kept not his testimonies.

57 

And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.

58 

They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things.

59 

God heard, and despised them, and he reduced Israel exceedingly as it were to nothing.

60 

And he put away the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men.

61 

And he delivered their strength into captivity: and their beauty into the hands of the enemy.

62 

And he shut up his people under the sword: and he despised his inheritance.

63 

Fire consumed their young men: and their maidens were not lamented.

64 

Their priests fell by the sword: and their widows did not mourn.

65 

And the Lord was awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that hath been surfeited with wine.

66 

And he smote his enemies on the hinder parts: he put them to an everlasting reproach.

67 

And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph: and chose not the tribe of Ephraim:

68 

But he chose the tribe of Juda, mount Sion which he loved.

69 

And he built his sanctuary as of unicorns, in the land which he founded for ever.

70 

And he chose his servant David, and took him from the flocks of sheep: he brought him from following the ewes great with young,

71 

To feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance.

72 

And he fed them in the innocence of his heart: and conducted them by the skilfulness of his hands.

Catechism

An Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Lesson 20, Questions 228-230

228 Q. What should we do after telling our sins?

A. After telling our sins we should listen with attention to the advice which the confessor may think proper to give.

The priest in the confessional acts as judge, father, teacher, and physician. As judge he listens to your accusations against yourself, and passes sentence according to your guilt or innocence. As a father and teacher he loves you, and tries to protect you from your enemies by warning you against them, and teaching you the means to overcome them. But above all, he is a physician, who will treat your soul for its ills and restore it to spiritual health. He examines the sins you have committed, discovers their causes, and then prescribes the remedies to be used in overcoming them. When anything goes amiss with our bodily health we speedily have recourse to the physician, listen anxiously to what he has to say, and use the remedies prescribed. In the very same way we must follow the priest's advice if we wish our souls to be cured of their maladies. Just as a person who is unwell would not go one day to one physician and the next day to another, so a penitent should not change confessors without a good reason; and if you have any choice to make let it be made in the beginning, and let it rest on worthy motives. In a short time your confessor will understand the state of your soul, as the physician who frequently examines you does the state of your body. He will know all the temptations, trials, and difficulties with which you have to contend. He will see whether you are becoming better or worse; whether you are resisting your bad habits or falling more deeply into them; also, whether the remedies given are suited to you, and whether you are using them properly. All this your confessor will know, and it will save you the trouble of always repeating, and him the trouble of always asking. Thus the better your confessor knows you and all the circumstances of your life, the more will he be able to help you; for besides the forgiveness of your sins there are many other benefits derived from the Sacrament of Penance.

But if at any time there should be danger of your making a bad confession to your own confessor—on account of some feeling of false shame—then go to any confessor you please; for it is a thousand times better to seek another confessor than run the risk of making a sacrilegious confession.

Never be so much attached to any one confessor that you would remain away from the Sacraments a long time rather than go to another in his absence.

You should not consider the person in the confessional, but the power he exercises. You should be anxious concerning only this fact: Is there a priest there who was sent by Our Lord? Is there a minister of Christ there who has power to pardon my sins? If so, I will humbly go to him, no matter who he is or what his dispositions.

229 Q. How should we end our confession?

A. We should end our confession by saying, "I also accuse myself of all the sins of my past life," telling, if we choose, one or several of our past sins.

230 Q. What should we do while the priest is giving us absolution?

A. While the priest is giving us absolution, we should from our heart renew the Act of Contrition.

All, especially children, should know this act well before going to confession.