April 16: Psalm 25
A psalm of prayerful trust
Short meter 66.86 Terra Beata (This is My Father’s World), p. 10
St. Thomas (I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord), p. 19
St. Michael (Stand up and Bless the Lord)
To Thee I lift my soul, O Lord; I trust in Thee,
My God; let me not be ashamed nor foes exult o’er me.
Yea, none that wait on Thee shall be ashamed at all;
But those that willingly transgress, upon them shame shall fall.
Show me Thy ways, O Lord; Thy paths, O teach Thou me,
And do Thou lead me in Thy truth; therein my teacher be.
For Thou art God that dost to me salvation send,
And I upon Thee all the day expecting do attend.
Thy tender mercies, Lord, to mind do Thou recall,
And lovingkindnesses, for they have been through ages all.
My sins of youth, my faults, do Thou, O Lord, forget;
In lovingkindness think on me and for Thy goodness great.
The Lord is good and just; the way He’ll sinners show;
The meek in judgment He will guide and make His path to know.
All pathways of the Lord are truth and mercy sure,
To such as keep His covenant and testimonies pure.
Now for Thine own name’s sake, O Lord, I Thee entreat
To pardon my iniquity, for it is very great.
Who fears the Lord is taught the way to understand;
His soul shall ever dwell at ease, his seed possess the land.
The secret of the Lord shall all who fear Him know;
The knowledge of His covenant He unto them will show.
My eyes upon the Lord continually are set;
For He it is that shall bring forth my feet out of the net.
O turn to me Thy face; to me Thy mercy show;
For I am very desolate, and brought exceeding low.
My griefs of heart abound; my sore distress relieve.
See my affliction and my pain, and all my sins forgive.
Consider Thou my foes because they many are;
A cruel hatred, fierce it is, which they against me bear.
O do Thou keep my soul; do Thou deliver me;
And let me not be put to shame because I trust in Thee.
Because I wait for Thee let truth and right defend;
Redemption, Lord. to Is-ra-el from all his troubles send.
(Repeat the last half of the tune if using Terra Beata)
This is another acrostic psalm in the Hebrew. “To You, O Lord,” it says, “I lift up my soul; in You, my God, I put my trust.” Truly, the rest of this psalm, concerned entirely with prayerful trust, may be read simply as commentary on the first verse. Psalm 25 begins with such a “lifting up” of our inner being to God, and we commence our labor each day by raising our hearts and mind to God. If we want to “pray always,” as Holy Scripture tells us to do, it is important to raise our souls to God right away as we face the day’s labor. Otherwise, there is great likelihood that our occupations will involve us in endless distractions that blind us to the thought of God’s presence. If this is a good psalm with which to commence the activities of the day, nonetheless, it is also an excellent psalm with which to close them. In this respect, several lines of Psalm 25 beseech the mercy of God for those many sins and failings with which our conscience is invariably stricken as we look back over the previous activities of the day. Mindful of our numerous offenses, we pray at nightfall, “Remember Your compassion, O Lord, and Your mercy, for they are eternal…Guard my soul and deliver me.” Thus our psalm ends, “Redeem Israel, O God, from all his afflictions.” (Reardon, p. 47-48)