HOMILY 29
HOMILY 29
ON PSALM 102 (103)
1m LESS THE Lord, 0 my soul; and all my being, bless his 13'\\ holy name.' Another of the psalms says: 'Know that the Lord is God';1 this one: 'And all my being, bless
His holy name.' If we say: 'Bless the Lord, 0 my soul,' and the Lord is 'Lord,' what name of the Lord is the psalmist thinking of here? If the Lord is called by name Lord, what does 'and all my being, bless His holy name' mean? Simply this, the advent of the Son implies the name of Father. Before the coming of Christ, God was known, but the Father unknown. Furthermore, He says Himself in the Gospel: 'Father,
I have manifested thy name to men.'2 -VVe cannot pause over every versicle for the psalm is long; but we ought to select individual versicles for a brief comment, and in doing so bring out their meaning rather than display rhetoric.
'Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits.'
Many benefits has the Lord bestowed upon us.
He has granted us great favors: He has made heaven; He has made earth; He has made all the elements for us. The sun itself and the moon and the stars and all the elements occur and recur for our sake. 0 sorry creatures that we are! The elements minister to us and we do not serve the Lord. Grand it is, indeed, that God made for us everything that we behold.
One does not build a house except for the sake of its occupant.
If we are the inhabitants of the world, then the world is the 1 Ps.99.3.
2 Cf. John 17.6; d. Homily 8 on Ps. 74, p. 60.
SAINT JEROME
house of mankind; the house has been made, moreover, for the benefit of its occupant.
Magnificent it is, I say, that all that we see, God made for us; that He fashioned us to be born, to live, to be capable of motion, to know our Creator; that He distinguished us from beasts of burden; that He made them bent over to look upon the ground, but us He made erect to gaze into the heavens. Great, indeed, is all of this; but greater still that He was born for us! 'Who though he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave ... becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross.'3 Because we were mortals subject to death on account of our sin, He deigned to die for mortals, that we might regain life through Him.
'He heals all your ills.' Our soul has many ills. There are as many diseases of the soul as there are sins. There is for our instruction that woman in the Gospel: 'who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent over and utterly unable to look upwards. . . .'4 Grasp the significance of what the Gospel says.
When anyone has a sickness caused by a spirit, he is bent over, he looks downward, he gazes at the ground, he is unable to look up at the sky.
'He redeems your life from destruction.' 'You have been bought with a price; do not become the slaves of men.'5 What greater price is there than that the Creator shed His blood for the creature?
'He crowns you with kindness and compassion.' 'He crowns you'; inasmuch as He has redeemed you, even so He crowns you. He bestows a crown, moreover, not on account of your merits, but because of His compassionate kindness. '0 Lord,
3 Phil. 2.6-8.
4 Luke 13.11; d. Letter 147.9, PL 22-1202 (1092).
5 1 Cor. 7.23.
HOMILY 29
you have crowned us with the shield of your good will.'s Mark what it says: Lord, You have crowned us as with the shield of Your good will. Does anyone really crown with a shield, you ask? Surely, he who crowns, crowns with flowers, or with gold, or with other crowns. Now how does one crown with a shield? But the Lord's shield is a crown, for He surrounds us with His protection and defends us and so crowns us. Compassion and kindness denote, therefore, in this psalm, what shield designates in the other psalm; and the shield as it surrounds and protects us is His loving kindness.
6 Cf. Ps. 5.13; d. Homily 2 on Ps. 5, p. 15; 20 on Ps. 90, p. 156; cf Against the Pelagians 3.1, PL 23.596 (781).