Fathers

Psalms 51

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Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me. Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge. Behold, I was born in iniquity. My mother conceived me in sin. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Don’t throw me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Lord, open my lips. My mouth will declare your praise. For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart. Do well in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings. Then they will offer bulls on your altar.

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 51:12

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"Give back to me the exultation of Your salvation" [Psalm 51:12]. "Give back" what I had; what by sinning I had lost: to wit, of Your Christ. For who without Him can be made whole? Because even before that He was Son of Mary, "In the beginning He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" [John 1:1] and so, by the holy fathers a future dispensation of flesh taken upon Him, was looked for; as is believed by us to have been done. Times are changed, not faith. …

Exposition on Psalm 51 ↗

Jerome

"The one who says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God has been truly perfected. By this we know that we are in him; he who says that he abides in him ought himself also to walk as he walked." My reason for telling you, little children, that everyone who is born of God does not sin, is that you should not sin and that you should know that as long as you do not sin you abide in the birth that God has given you. …

Against Jovinianus 2.2 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

"Restore to me": for grace does two things in a person. One is in respect to higher things, namely, it gives delight, because he who has grace has charity, and he who has charity loves God and possesses him; and he who possesses what he loves rejoices. Therefore, where there is charity, there is joy. Rom. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗