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 51:17

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

But how shall a man find grace with God? How else, except by lowliness of mind? "For God," saith one, "resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble; and, the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit, and a heart that is brought low God will not despise." For if with men humility is so lovely, much more with God. …

Homilies On 1 Corinthians 1:4 ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"Because if Thou hadst willed sacrifice, I would have given it surely" (ver. 16). David was living at that time when sacrifices of victim animals were offered to God, and he saw these times that were to be. Do we not perceive ourselves in these words? Those sacrifices were figurative, foretelling the One Saving Sacrifice. Not even we have been left without a Sacrifice to offer to God. …

Exposition on Psalm 51 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Hence he adds, "A sacrifice to God," namely one that is acceptable, "is a contrite spirit." Augustine, in City of God 10: Every sacrifice that is offered externally is a sign of an interior sacrifice, in which one offers one's soul to God. But it should be known that the soul of a person is led into sin first through vain joy. Eccl. 2: "Laughter I considered an error, and to joy I said: Why are you vainly deceived?" that is, led into sin. Second, it is hardened against spiritual things through sin. Sir. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗

Bernard of Clairvaux

A soul entangled in many sins can prepare for itself a certain ointment once it begins to reflect on its behavior, and collects its many and manifold sins, hems them together and crushes them in the mortar of its conscience. It cooks them, as it were, within a breast that boils up like a pot over the fire of repentance and sorrow. Here then is one ointment which the sinful soul should provide at the beginning of its conversion and apply to its still smarting wounds, for the first sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. …

Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 10 ↗