Verses 33–40

The fifth octet is characterized by the letter “He”—“behold.”

“Behold”—we say this when we wish to express the definiteness, precision, and clarity of something, as though pointing: behold, look. In the present octet the holy Prophet expresses definitively wherein lies the whole matter of a saving, God-pleasing life. Calling to mind everything said up to this point, he speaks as though to say: behold, this is the matter! Everything is from God; seek from Him both the pattern of the good path (Ps. 118:33) and knowledge (Ps. 118:34) and strength (Ps. 118:35). But know that however much you ask, you will not receive if you too do not employ all your efforts; therefore seek (Ps. 118:33), keep (Ps. 118:34), desire (Ps. 118:35). Only the mutual union of freedom and grace gives life that is true and full of good fruit. What is from God is always ready: only do not slumber or give way to laziness. And while compelling yourself to every good, take care above all that your intentions be pure. Impure intentions destroy the goodness of good deeds. Therefore do not allow yourself to have self-serving motives in your doing of good (Ps. 118:36). Do not mix into it the attraction and delight of vanities (Ps. 118:37). Let the sole animating force in everything be the fear of God (Ps. 118:38). In all this, however, remember that however closely you watch yourself, self-abasing thoughts will creep in; repent of them, and since many of them go unnoticed and some even now—when your eye is directed into the heart—may be lurking there under the guise of some good thing, repent unceasingly. Let repentance be the background of your life (Ps. 118:39). Then, having committed yourself into God’s hands, say: with all my desire I wish to please You, O Lord (Ps. 118:40).

Ps. 118:33. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will keep it to the end.

“Appoint the law, teach me”—imprint it upon the conscience, clearly show me what I must do, so that I do not lose my way in guesses and conjectures but see everything plainly. In other psalms the prophet says: “Appoint a law for me, O Lord, in Your way” (Ps. 26:11), “Guide me, O Lord, in Your way, and I will walk in Your truth” (Ps. 85:11). Darkness and uncertainty are unbearable. Blessed Theodoret writes: “The prophet says that he always needs Your illumination and appointment of the law, so that he may know the way of Your righteousness and walk along it without hindrance.”

But perhaps, Bellarmine observes, the prophet is expressing here not so much the wish that the law be proclaimed to him as that it be received inwardly by all the powers of his being—that it might become the law for all the faculties of the soul, ruling over its manner of acting, both in general and in particulars.

When such clear vision of the law is given, and still more when such authority over the inner man is granted, then one who seeks to please God will naturally desire nothing other than to fulfill it at every moment and in every circumstance where the opportunity to apply it presents itself. The prophet adds: “and I will seek it continually”—my only care and effort will be to satisfy the law. “He asks one thing of God,” says Origen, “and promises to bring the other from himself. Do You, O Lord, appoint the way of Your righteousness for me, and I will devote all the time of my life to seeking it.”

Saint Ambrose presents this divine appointment of the law in a most vivid manner. “Soldiers on campaign do not arrange their march themselves, but receive from their king and commander a schedule of where and how to march, and they strictly observe it. Only in this way do they find everything prepared along the route. If one of them takes a different road, he will receive neither provisions nor quarters. The king commands all of this to be prepared on the road he has designated, and only for those who follow his instructions without turning to the right or to the left. He also fixes the stopping places: three days’ march, for example, followed by a day of rest. Moreover, cities are chosen that abound in water and all provisions, where the army is to halt for three, four, or more days. In this way the journey is accomplished without extreme exhaustion, until they reach the city where the weary soldiers are given full rest. Know, then, that in like manner Christ, the Leader of the saints, appoints the way of their march to the City of God. The prefigurement of this we see in the passage of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land. The encampments of this journey were described by Moses at God’s command. But consider who directed these encampments and the entire journey. God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, cooling those who marched, and by night in a pillar of fire, dispersing the darkness and lighting the way. The pillar, now of fire and now of cloud, was the lawgiver of the route; from the pillar God spoke to them. When the people needed to rest from the labor of the journey, the pillar stopped and moved no further. When it was time to march, the pillar rose and moved in the direction the people were to go. This pillar was a prefigurement of the Lord Jesus, who was to come (and did come) on a swift cloud, as Isaiah said (Is. 19:1)—that is, through the Incarnation from the Virgin Mary, who was light by reason of the purity of her virginity and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Let us also commit our way to the guidance of the Lord Jesus; let His commandments be the appointed law of our journey. Whoever follows the path of His commandments rests in the shadow of Christ. Of this the Bride sang in the Song: “I desired His shadow and sat down under it” (Song 2:3). Every soul may say this, as may also the whole assembly of Christians—the Church. He is our King, He is our Leader, and He has ordered everything beautifully in our way and our journey. If anything sorrowful or distressing happens along the way, something beyond our strength—He, as our Leader, sweetens the sorrow, widens the narrowness, gives strength and power to weakness. If an earthly king knows how to provide all that his soldiers need, how much more does the All-Good God know what His servants need and how to provide it? Thus every soul is refreshed in the shadow of Christ the Lord, singing with the bride of the Song: “I desired His shadow and sat down under it, and His fruit is sweet.” He pastures it in a place of green pastures, nourishes it by the water of rest—that is, by the grace of the Holy Sacraments. Going further along the true path, it enters the blessed encampment of love and confesses: “I am wounded with love” (Song 2:5). There are other encampments too, into which the soul journeying faithfully to its goal enters with love—the encampment of the cross and of burial. And the soul avoids the wicked encampments. “We will go by the king’s highway; we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed through your borders” (Num. 20:17)—thus spoke the envoys of Moses to the king of Edom, that is, the earthly, because everything earthly, both to the right and to the left, is bad: the encampment of foolishness is bad, the encampment of intemperance is bad. Israel had to pass through them without stopping, in order to reach wisdom and make camp there, for in wisdom’s right hand is life, and in her left hand riches and honor (Prov. 3:16). The prophet spoke well: “appoint the law”—that is, place the law within me, that it may remain fixed and firm in my heart; that no storm of this age may tear it away from love of it; that in this way it may itself be its own law, having the lawful ordinance written in my heart. “I will seek,” he says, “and continually.” And rightly so, because what is sought is no small thing—paradise, the Kingdom of God, fellowship with the angels, the eternally blessed dwelling places. Therefore one must seek not for a day or two or several months, but always and through all things, in order to gather more of what is worthy of reward.”

The last thought—about the imprinting of the law in the heart—is developed with particular fullness by Blessed Augustine. “The apostle says that the law is not laid down for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient (1 Tim. 1:9–11). Was the one who says here, ‘appoint a law for me, O Lord,’ really of the same kind as those for whom, according to the apostle’s word, the law is laid down? No—for if he were, he would not have said above: ‘I ran the way of Your commandments.’ What then is the meaning of his prayer—that the law be appointed for him—when it is not appointed for a righteous man? It is not appointed for him in the same manner as it is laid down for a disobedient people, on tablets of stone, but on tablets of fleshly hearts (2 Cor. 3:3)—not according to the Old Covenant from Mount Sinai, ‘which gives birth to bondage’ (Gal. 4:24), but according to the New, of which the prophet Jeremiah writes: ’Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them upon their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people’ (Jer. 31:31–33). This is how he desires that the law be appointed for him by the Lord—not as it is appointed for the unrighteous and disobedient who belong to the Old Covenant, on tablets of stone; but as it is for holy children, free children, children of the Jerusalem that is above, written in the heart by the Holy Spirit as with a finger—not as something they merely retain in memory while despising it in their lives, but as something they know with understanding and fulfill with love, in the breadth of love and not in the narrowness of fear. Whoever does the work of the law for fear of punishment, and not out of love of righteousness, does it against his will; and whoever does the lawful deed unwillingly certainly harbors the desire that no such law existed. Thus he is not a friend of the law but rather an enemy of it, since he wishes it did not exist. The act does not make pure the one who is impure in his will. Such a person cannot say what was said before: ‘I ran the way of Your commandments when You did enlarge my heart’; for such an enlargement of the heart signifies love, which, according to the apostle, ‘is the fulfillment of the law’ (Rom. 13:10). Why then does he pray that the law be appointed for him, when, had it not been appointed, he would not have run the way of the commandments in the breadth of heart? He speaks thus because, striving for advancement, he believes that it is a gift of God. By placing this petition after the preceding one, what else is he asking for but to advance more and more toward a life according to the law? This law he here calls the way of righteousness; but the way of the commandments along which he has already set out, when love of the law widened his heart, is no different way. Thus he was already walking, and now he still desires to walk, always to walk, in order to attain the prize of the high calling of God. That is why he also added: ‘and I will seek it continually.’ How will he seek what he already has, if not in the sense that what he already has, he has because he does it, and what he will seek hereafter, he will seek by striving for perfection in the same kind of activity? But what does ‘continually’ mean? Surely seeking has no end? ‘Continually’—all the time we live here, for only until then is there advancement, and there the one who has advanced well here is fulfilled and sealed. Here the law is sought through advancement in its fulfillment, and there the fullness of enjoyment in it and because of it awaits, and nothing remains to be sought.”

Ps. 118:34. Give me understanding, and I will search out Your law and will keep it with my whole heart.

“In the preceding verse,” writes Zigabenus, “the prophet sought a general knowledge of the law and a general inclination toward it—toward all that is lawful, toward everything bearing the imprint of God’s will—he sought the quickening of conscience and the strengthening of its voice; now he seeks knowledge of the lawful manner of acting in particular cases, as if to say: give my mind such sharpness of spiritual sight that I may accurately determine each time how I must act, so that my deeds may be fully in accord with the Spirit of Your law, with Your will, with Your gracious purposes for me and for all people. And so the seeking of all that is lawful was promised generally before, while here the keeping or fulfilling of it in every case is promised. The sincerity of heart is the same in both. Only the heart can seek ‘continually’; that is why ‘with all my heart I will seek’ was not added there. Fulfilling the law, however, can be done without the heart; that is why ‘with all my heart I will keep’ is added here. Wholehearted sincerity is the entire value of keeping the law. But since the heart is blind, understanding is sought, so that the rays of rational light may illuminate the domain of the law and direct the heart in the course of purposeful striving. The prophet prays as if to say: ‘Give me, O Lord, understanding and enlightenment by Your Spirit, that with His help I may attentively and diligently search out Your law; and having grasped it precisely, I promise to fulfill it faithfully.’ ‘The Lord commanded us to search the Scriptures; but those who search need illumination from above both to find what they seek and to keep what they have found,’ observes Blessed Theodoret. ‘First,’ says Bellarmine, ‘he sought a disposition toward the law, and now he asks for its faithful and detailed knowledge—not out of curiosity, but for the keeping of what is known.’”

Saint Hilary surveys the entire structure of this verse thus: “Knowing that the first duty of wisdom is, when one does not know something, to turn for enlightenment to those who do, the prophet first asks for understanding, that he may comprehend what he does not yet understand; then, knowing that upon receiving the spirit of understanding one must exercise it in inquiry, he says: ‘and I will search out Your law’; knowing moreover that the rightful fruit of inquiry is the fulfillment in deed of what has been discovered and learned through that inquiry, he adds: ‘and I will keep it’; and understanding that active fulfillment of what is known gains its force and worth from the heart, he rounds out his whole discourse thus: ‘and I will keep it with my whole heart.’ But what precisely does the prophet ask to understand and to search out? — The spiritual meaning of all that is appointed by the law. For example, as the six working days recall the six days of creation, and the seventh recalls the day of rest—God’s rest after creation; as the new-moon feast prefigures, as in a mirror, the eternal celebration of the new life in heaven—so he prays to understand all the rest as well: what the seven-year jubilee and the fifty-year jubilee signify, what circumcision means, what the unleavened bread, what the Passover, what the very Land of Promise itself. He asks to understand all this, promising that, having understood it, he will plunge deeper into what he has understood through inquiry; and having plunged deeper, he will prize it; and prizing it, will keep it with his whole heart.”

Saint Ambrose carries this thought further, counseling a deeper entry into the understanding of godly action, following the interpretation of the works of the law given by the Lord. “We must walk in the spiritual law, or in the commandments of the Lord, which He spoke when He said: ‘It was said to them of old… but I say to you’ (Matt. 5). As there is a Holy Place and above it a Holy of Holies, so there is a commandment and a commandment of commandments. When you understand the law in this way—spiritually—then you will keep it with your heart. The Jew does not keep the law with his heart; he reads it with his lips but does not understand it with his mind and does not love it with his heart. Therefore he is reproved: ’This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me’ (Is. 29:13). How can one who is far from the Lawgiver contain the law?”

By delving thus into the law, appropriating its spiritual understanding and acting according to that understanding, “the true lover of the law reaches at last, in the words of Blessed Augustine, the heights of a holy and godly life, wherein he loves God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind, and his neighbor as himself; and in this consists all the law and the prophets.”

Is it not for this reason that the labors of many zealots of piety, even among Christians, often show no proper fruit—because they do not seek understanding and do not plunge more deeply into inquiry about what is the weightier matter of the law? Therefore they knock about in the vestibule without entering within. Christianity too has an outward order; no man can exist without it. But in Christianity it has an entirely different meaning than in the Old Testament ordering of faith. There everything was minutely inscribed by the finger of God, and one who deviated from those prescriptions sinned, even if they concerned only the outward form. The Church of Christ was not given such a written code, but was given the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which itself developed and clothed itself in all the wondrous splendor of the Church’s order. And as this spirit of life does not run dry, so the outward clothing of this spirit never ceases. It does not stiffen into one fixed form so as to become a yoke of legal bondage; it is always free to renew itself, as trees renew their garments each year from the abundance of inner life. The law is one: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40).

In this order, as it has come down to us, we are both nurtured and kindle in ourselves the spirit of life. All the power is in that spirit. As soon as it is not in motion—that is, when we move only within the well-ordered forms of the Church—we are in no way different from Jews circumcised without circumcision of the heart, who cleansed the outside of the cup without caring for inner purity, who said with their lips, “Lord, Lord!” while in their hearts they pursued primarily their own selfish ends. A Jew brought the appointed sacrifice and went home at peace. How does that differ from the one who, having outwardly stood through the church service with vain and passionate thoughts, returns home calmly, confident that he has done what was required, and in such an exemplary manner that nothing more is demanded of him? In nothing—he is a true Jew in spirit. On the same level stands also the one who at home reads through the appointed prayers and counts out his prostrations without caring about the prayerful disposition of mind and heart; yet, having performed this work of piety, holds it in mind and heart that he has no further obligation remaining, and need only await the crown of righteousness. The same is the worth of all acts of charity that proceed not from the spirit of life but are performed ex officio, prompted by an outward, so to speak, conscience, and accompanied by that same self-assurance that by reason of them we are righteous and nothing more can be demanded of us.

We have become so attached to outward form that we have forgotten its true value and meaning. Therefore, if anyone touches it in any point, there is at once a cry from all sides: “He does not keep the Sabbath!” (John 9:16). Should one begin to enter within and to clarify that this is essential while that, being outward, is not important, one will hear reproaches: “Illuminist! Mystic! Pneumatomachian!” How many are there who, while reverently observing and maintaining all the Church’s forms, at the same time hold the conviction that all such acts are in themselves nothing, and derive their entire worth from the spirit with which they are to be performed and received? Certainly, established forms must be honored with reverence, but not because they possess any power in themselves (apart from the Holy Sacraments), but because through them we serve God—in relation to Whom, if anyone does anything negligently, he is liable to condemnation not for this or that act, but for its irreverent performance. In this respect, in all the outward forms of the Church—great and small as they may appear—everything must be performed with full and wholehearted reverence, but not toward the outward act itself, but toward God, to Whom we relate through it. Every outward action can be replaced by dozens of others; but the spirit with which they are to be performed must always be one and the same, unchanging. If we lose sight of this, we will chain ourselves to one form and convince ourselves that it cannot be otherwise; then the outward will become a fetter, inspiring fear: “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” And this is the fearful bondage from which may the Lord deliver believers!

Ps. 118:35. Lead me into the path of Your commandments, for I have desired it.

He has asked for consent to the law, so that he might seek it; he has asked for understanding, so that he might truly comprehend what is lawful—what then remains? You desire it, you know it—well then, go. No, he says—lead me, guide me, accompany me, take me by the hand and lead me, as a guide leads the blind. There is here a measure of consciousness of weakness: in the spiritual order, with all one’s zeal for a life in it, there is a measure of consciousness of timidity or diffidence about stepping upon the unfamiliar path of the spiritual life, accustomed as one is to perceptible actions and tangible pursuits; there is a measure of consciousness of spiritual blindness, of uncertainty whether one is acting rightly in doing this or that—for final assurance on this point is acquired only through experience, and experience is not yet had until one has set foot on the path and traveled it far enough to become acquainted with spiritual experiences. With this petition the circle of extreme spiritual needs conditioning the saving manner of action is complete: appoint the law, give understanding, lead me. The last prayer places the seeker in the hands of the loving God, Who only awaits the moment when a man will finally surrender himself entirely to Him, so that He may act in him without hindrance, both inwardly and outwardly. And the ground of being heard is laid in a disposition of the same kind: lead me, he says, “along the path that I have desired.” We might answer thus: you may desire all sorts of things! But in the order of divine providence over rational and free creatures, it is only through such desire that room is opened for God’s free action within us toward our salvation. The goodness of God is already ready to stretch out to us with its gifts. If it is not poured out on all, it is only because not all desire and not all seek these gifts. Desire opens an entrance for them, as for example the expansion of the lungs opens an entrance to air, and the opening of a window opens an entrance to light in dark rooms. The prophet speaks as if to say: the matter depended on my willing; and now, by Your grace, I have willed it—lead me therefore. Blessed Theodoret writes: “He does not simply ask that the God of all become his guide on the way, but at the same time shows his own striving to walk that path.” But by this very fact he shows that his striving alone is insufficient to attain what he has sought. Blessed Augustine says: “Being unable of himself to fulfill what is commanded without the help of the One who commands, he prays: lead me. My willing is not enough if You Yourself do not lead me along that path upon which I desired to walk by Your prompting.” Saint Hilary writes: “He acknowledges the weakness of his nature and that he cannot without a special guide walk the path of the commandments. The guide of all who walk this path is God, as it is commanded: ’You shall walk after the Lord your God… and cleave to Him’ (Deut. 13:4). Our Guide is Christ the Lord, who said: ’If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’ (Matt. 16:24). He was the first to open the path of sufferings, for the sake of the Gospel.”

Is it not actually the case that we Christians need to pray not so much for guidance to be given as for knowledge and the ability to make use of the guidance already at hand, present in the person of the Lord Jesus? Saint Athanasius, as quoted by Zigabenus, says: “He who has no faithful guide cannot walk the path of the commandments. But we ought to be imitators of Christ the Lord—to take up His cross and follow Him.” Saint Ambrose explains this more fully: “Christ,” he says, “goes before—we follow. He was the first to open the way of New Testament life. If we fast—He fasted before us; if for the name of God we suffer insults—He endured them before us for our redemption: ’He gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to blows’ (Is. 50:6), and went up to the cross to teach us that, when standing for the truth, we must not fear even death.”

Why did holy David say “lead me into the path of the commandments”? — Because a path is called a narrow, not wide track; and such indeed is the way of the commandments. Narrow and afflicting is the path that leads to life, and this path is none other than the path of the commandments. Blessed Augustine says: “David here called the way of the commandments a path because the way that leads to life is narrow, though it must nevertheless be walked, and moreover with a willing heart.” Perhaps, says Zigabenus, “the way of the commandments is called a path because it is not new or unusual, but has long been frequented and worn down by the righteous who walked along it.” Saint Hilary writes: “A path is a worn, much-traveled track. Chosen men began to walk in God’s commandments from the beginning of the age. Abel walked this path; Seth followed it; walking it, Enoch pleased God; Noah was found worthy to be preserved from the flood; Melchizedek was privileged to bless the father of believers and to become a type of Christ; Abraham became the friend of God; Isaac the heir of great promises; Jacob—Israel, the bearer of the hope of the nations; Job triumphed over the adversary.”

And perhaps the way of the commandments is also a path—a narrow track—because the one who walks it usually walks alone. Many walk the path of the commandments, but each has his own track, and by following it alone can he reach where he is going. There are many counselors, many examples, many companions; but everyone takes his own steps and sets his own foot in his own place on his own path. The attentive wayfarer feels this solitude and remembers at every step that, besides himself who is walking, there is only God, “present everywhere and filling all things.” In this respect, those who truly walk the way of the commandments in a manner pleasing to God are, every last one of them, monks—for a monk is one who lives in such a way that in his consciousness only God is present, and he himself stands before Him in reverent attention, regardless of labors and much activity when that is encountered. And it must be acknowledged that only such an interior disposition produces true walkers along the path of the commandments, regardless of sex or outward distinctions of life.

The way of the commandments may also be called a path—a track—for yet another reason: it winds past precipices, sharp stones, and thorns. The path of the commandments is straight in itself and leads straight to its goal, but on account of adversities from without and disorders from within, it winds in various ways. And this is so necessary that the One who invisibly yet faithfully guides His fellow-travelers Himself intentionally turns the journey this way and that, as He sees most fitting and necessary for the one being guided. God’s permissions have the same necessity, but they consist only in the withdrawal of the leading and supporting hand. Direct interventions to change the course of life in the same person are changes in ascetic efforts and practices, both outward and inward, by which to a casual observer it may seem as though the same person has become entirely different. For example, a man who had labored as usual became a holy fool; a recluse became sociable and accessible to all; a strict faster became one of ordinary temperance; a lover of liturgical prayer became one who prays without books. The needs for which all this is accomplished cannot be described by anyone, nor can even the one who underwent them foretell them. These are the mysteries of those who live through them, and even the participants themselves recognize their moral aptness only for themselves; why and how all this is arranged they cannot explain to themselves; they only give thanks to the Lord, who orders all things for our good.

How far from the truth, then, are those who set as the norm of life a life according to a sense of duty, and define duty by the directives of outward relationships and the orders of life! This is as far from the truth as the hardened bark of a tree is from the sources of the life by which it is nourished.

Ps. 118:36. Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.

The three following verses (Ps. 118:36, 37, 38) correspond to the three preceding ones in this octet. There (Ps. 118:33)—“appoint the law… I will seek”; here (Ps. 118:36)—grant that I may seek nothing else alongside this, except You and Your law. There (Ps. 118:34)—“give understanding… I will keep”; here (Ps. 118:37)—make it so that my heart finds delight only in Your law and does not turn to whatever human vanity is accustomed to find delight in. There (Ps. 118:35)—“lead me… I have desired”; here (Ps. 118:38)—set the fear of You within me as the guardian and keeper of my good desire. This is how Bellarmine understands this correspondence. We shall quote his words in the appropriate place under each verse.

It is evident that here the correct feelings and intentions that ought to guide one in fulfilling God’s will are indicated, by the rejection of incorrect feelings and intentions. Right action is adorned by right intention, just as ill intention deforms it—not always before the eyes of men, but always before the eyes of the all-seeing God and the conscience enlightened by Him.

The direct thought in this verse concerns the exclusive love of God’s will, with the rejection of covetousness—the greediness of acquisition. Look around and you will see that men’s chief concern is to have more, and the more one has, the more one desires to have. This is the disease which the prophet here names—the greed to have ever more and more. Since it, taking hold of a man, occupies all the powers of his soul so that there is no time even to think of God and His holy will, let alone to “seek” Him “continually” (Ps. 104:4), the prophet prays for his heart to be turned away from such a ruinous seeking and inclined toward God’s testimonies—to be made such that it is concerned only with presenting the man as blameless in all God’s testimonies, and finds itself content only when the man is such, and not when he receives some gain in worldly affairs.

One cannot avoid having things, because food is needed, clothing is needed, shelter is needed; one must provide for all of this so as not to be a burden to anyone. Even desert hermits applied themselves diligently to the labors of handicraft, in order both to sustain themselves and to share with others when needed. The holy prophet is not speaking here about having nothing, but about not being sick with covetousness—the thirst to have ever more and more, with an attachment to what one already has. He speaks as if to say: make it so that, even while possessing things, I am as one who possesses nothing—that my heart be empty of the things I have and be wholly and entirely attached to Your testimonies alone.

Bellarmine says: “This verse corresponds to the first in this octet (Ps. 118:33). There the prophet prayed for the imprinting of the law in his heart, and here he prays for the turning of his heart away from covetousness, which more than anything else hinders the fulfillment of the law. Pour into my heart, he says, an overflowing grace, by which it may be inclined toward keeping Your commandments and not be overcome by covetousness.” “Turn, O Lord,” explains Zigabenus, “my heart to love for Your commandments; help by Your grace my free will and do not permit it to incline toward a love of having much and to be overcome by the goods of this world.”

But here it is less a rule of life than a pointer to the lawful purpose to have in mind when fulfilling the law. The prophet prays: grant me, while remaining faithful to Your law, to have no selfish aim in view; grant me to love Your law not only when I am in abundance, but even if You should take everything from me—grant my heart to be inclined toward Your law alone, for the reason that in it is Your good will. Saint Ambrose writes: “The saint seeks no personal advantage but, counting all things as refuse that he may gain Christ, asks that his heart also be so disposed, for he knows that what interests the flesh is harmful to the soul, since it harms virtue.” Blessed Augustine says: “God requires that we honor Him and remain faithful to His testimonies freely, without any self-interested motives, for in self-interest lies the root of all evils. In Greek the word here is covetousness—the passion to have more than we have. It is the root of all evil. The first people would not have been deceived by the enemy and would not have fallen, if they had not desired to have more than they received, and to become greater than they were created. The enemy promised them: ’You shall be as gods’ (Gen. 3:5)—and the desire to have more cast them down. Desiring to have more than they had received, they lost even what they had. The enemy said of Job: ’Does Job fear God for nothing?’ (Job 1:10). The enemy supposed that this righteous man, in his God-fearing piety, had his heart inclined toward covetousness and was serving God as a hireling, for the sake of the temporal blessings with which God enriched him. But how disinterested his service to God was—this the very temptation showed. Thus, when the heart is not inclined to covetousness, we honor God for God’s sake, that God may be the very reward for honoring Him. Let us therefore love God (and His law) for His own sake; and in ourselves let us love Him, and also in our neighbors.”

For the wealthy who hold to piety it is difficult to distinguish for whose sake they are pious—for the Lord’s sake and His law, or for the sake of their own comfort. In times of abundance they themselves cannot determine this with precision, because of the deceitfulness of the heart, which, even while striving to do everything for the Lord’s sake, may secretly harbor a reliance on that comfort. This is revealed only by deprivations, and the wider those deprivations, the more decisive the assurance that if love for God does not cease even then, it means that it was not previously contingent on what was possessed and has now been lost. In the ordinary course of affairs, the wealthy, to avoid covetousness, must kindle in their hearts such a disposition, mentally placing themselves in various situations of deprivation and restoring a peaceful interior even in those imagined circumstances. By this they can imprint upon the soul such a resolution that, even if everything should be taken away and they should be left with nothing, they are ready for this at any moment. Being disposed in this way, they, even while possessing, will be as though possessing nothing—which, according to the apostle, is the ultimate limit of perfection in this respect for those who live in the world and cannot be without possessions.

There is also a spiritual self-interest, when one labors in the fulfillment of the law in the hope of receiving spiritual benefits either here or in the future life. This is a subtle kind of self-interest, not easy to define or discern. Generally speaking, one must say: as soon as there is any aim in view in the labors of a pious life other than God, pleasing Him, and submission to His will—there is already self-interest. What exactly one may have in view other than God, even in the spiritual order of things—let each person determine in himself, looking more strictly into his own heart; and when he notices it, let him pray no less than the wealthy of this age: “Incline, O Lord, my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.” This discovery should be a cause of grief for them; but for their consolation one may say that no one can ascend at once to the heights of spiritual purity: time, effort, and gradualness are needed. And this impurity is not discoverable at once; but once noticed, it seems to cost little to tear away what is wrong. God is the Orderer of salvation. He will bring one to this too—that is, both to seeing and to correcting.

The prophet asks for his heart to be “inclined.” But what can he himself do? What is to be done with the heart when it does not always cleave to what the necessity of cleaving to has been recognized? The necessity of walking in God’s testimonies is recognized, yet the heart does not adhere to them. Hence the prayer: “Incline, O Lord.” However, this does not mean that one may remain inactive oneself—no: one must both pray to God for the inclination of the heart toward the commandments, and oneself compel it toward such inclination insofar as this lies within our power and strength. When one’s own strength is exhausted, God’s help will come and supply what is lacking in one’s efforts and labors. Blessed Theodoret writes: “Water naturally runs downhill and, as soon as it finds an outlet somewhere, flows there entirely. So, after the devil opened the way to sin, human nature rushed toward the worse. Therefore the prophet very aptly entreats that his heart be inclined toward God’s testimonies and escape the occasion of experiencing a downward rush toward something else.” Saint Hilary explains this thus: “The prophet refers everything to God’s gift—the appointment of the way of righteousness, the giving of understanding, the guidance, and finally the inclination of the heart toward the testimonies. Perhaps on account of such reverent humility some impious person will dare to say: if everything is from God, if a man can have nothing except what he receives from God as a gift, then human ignorance and sinfulness bear no guilt. To think so is impious, and the prophet immediately forestalls any occasion for such a thought. He prays, performing the work proper to the infirm; but immediately he adds what labor of godliness he must bring from himself. When he says: ‘Appoint a law for me, O Lord, the way of righteousness,’ he shows that the appointment of the law, sought by humble prayer, is from God. When he adds: ‘and I will seek it continually,’ he indicates what his own duty of piety requires of him. In the other verses also he joins both together. He says, for example: ‘Lead me into the path of Your commandments,’ and immediately adds: ‘for I have desired it.’ First he instructs us piously to seek what comes from God, and then he designates what a man must also bring from himself with a sense of duty and humility. He prays that God may grant; the initiative, therefore, is from us, if we pray that the gift may come from Him; and if the gift is from Him at our initiative, then our part is to seek, to ask, to knock, and then to keep and put to use what has been received.”

Blessed Augustine gives this interpretation of the prayer: “What does it mean to have one’s heart inclined toward something, if not to will it? Thus he prays to will the testimonies; yet he has already willed them, as he expressed in the preceding verse: ‘for I have desired it’—he has already desired, and he prays to desire, showing thereby that he wishes to advance in the very act of willing.”

Saint Ambrose gives this lesson at this point: “Oh, would that we too, following the prayer of the saint, might both pray about the same things he prayed about and also fulfill in deed what we pray for! What good is it to pray to God to turn the heart from self-interest, while oneself caring day and night about gain? Let us therefore make it so that the soul is in sympathy with what we pray for with the tongue. The Lord looks at where the heart inclines. If the heart is not in accord with the tongue, He does not listen to the one who is praying. That is why one who desired to pray well says: ’I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also’ (1 Cor. 14:15).”

Ps. 118:37. Turn away mine eyes, that they behold not vanity; and quicken me in Your way.

This verse answers the second in this octet, Ps. 118:34. There the prophet asks for the gift of understanding in order to search out the law; here he asks that the eyes of the mind not turn away to vanities: “that they behold not vanity”—that is, that the mind not be occupied with thoughts about temporal things; make it so that I am wholly immersed in Your law. “In Your way”—that is, as I walk Your way and keep Your law—“quicken” me, renew, preserve, strengthen me. So Bellarmine interprets it.

Vanity is everything that is contrived and done not out of need and benefit but for the gratification of one’s senses and one’s passions. The world is crammed with such things and customs. One who lives amid this spins round and round without the possibility of coming to his senses—always chasing after something, yet this something always flees from him and slips from his hands just when it seems he has all but laid hold of it. In this respect vanity means bustle without purpose or profit. The prophet prays for his eyes to be turned away from such vanity, because it, for all its emptiness, is attractive: just look—and it will draw you and pull you; be not on guard—and it will sweep you away and drag you off. But how is one to “turn away”? Don’t look yourself; after all, no one forces you. That is true enough; but living amid vanity, one cannot help glancing at it—this is only possible in an uninhabited desert. And yet that glancing excites the hidden cravings of the heart, and excited cravings evoke sympathy and consent, closely bordering on being swept away and spinning about in vanity. When cravings are excited, the eyes involuntarily turn to the things that excite them and excite them all the more. By then they are riveted to these things, and through them the soul drinks a sweetness that stupefies and kills its rational nature. “Turn away mine eyes” will have this meaning: do not let me, by gazing at vain things, be swept away by vanity and snared by them with my attention and sympathy, for that is death to me. Keep me rather on the path of Your commandments, for in this is life. Grant that I may dwell in them with all my heart and attention, and find in that dwelling both life and the sweetness of life—an enlivening and stimulating energy to run ever faster along that same path of Your.

Blessed Anthimus writes: “He who turns his eyes to vanity walks the path of death and moves away from the life of God. The same happens to him as to Lot’s wife, who turned to look back. But he who turns his eyes away ‘from beholding vanity’ is delivered from death, as Lot was delivered. Such a person performs his task well and brings it to completion, like one who, having put his hand to the plow, does not look back.”

Saint Athanasius understands vanity more broadly, subsuming under it everything that does not pertain to pleasing God and salvation. “Vanity,” he says, “is the frenzied passion for spectacles, the plunging of the mind into improper and unseemly imaginings. This very thing the apostle explains: ’in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God’ (Eph. 4:17–18). The vanity of the mind consists in this: when one who has a mind does not use it to discern the true, but delivers it up to the binding adversary. Therefore the Psalmist, praying that no such misfortune befall him, says: ‘Turn away mine eyes, that they behold not vanity,’ for this too is a grace of God. The prophet also calls vanity what is beautiful in the body and what appears fine to fleshly eyes.” The last thought is elaborated more fully by Blessed Theodoret: “What is profitless and serves nothing is vain; and such are the seeming pleasures of life. So the Wise Man also names them: ’Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ (Eccl. 1:2). And after recounting how he had built houses, planted gardens, made reservoirs, he adds: ’and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit’ (Eccl. 2:11). Therefore the prophet entreats that the eyes of his mind be turned to another contemplation and not be deceived by the vanity of the present.”

“What are these eyes, and from what vanity does the prophet pray to turn them away?” asks Saint Hilary, and answers: “The eyes of soul and body… from all that men value highly but that is in itself worthless and perishable. Such are theatrical spectacles, contests in circuses, costly garments, gold, jewels, and the like. What is the fruit of turning one’s eyes away from such vanity? — Spiritual life.”

“Since we are weak,” writes Saint Ambrose, “even with the best desire not to be carried away by covetousness, we are often wounded by it through seeing another’s outwardly bright estate—their condition, house, dress, and the like—and begin to desire the same vanities. Therefore the prophet adds: ‘Turn away mine eyes…’ for it is also God’s gift that our eye should be turned from the vain goods of this age. All blessedness is in the Lord. That is why it is said: ’Blessed is the man whose hope is in the name of the Lord, who has not looked upon vanities and foolish delusions’ (Ps. 39:5).”

From this point of view, this verse already contains a rule of life. Blessed Augustine points out in it a lesson about the purpose of good action, and sets forth his thought on the matter at length. “What does it mean,” he says, “‘turn away mine eyes, that they behold not vanity’? Can we, while we live in this world, truly behold no vanity? Is it not in the sense in which the apostle commands: ’Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God?’ (Col. 3:1–3). One may understand these words in this way too; but there is another thought here that seems to me more fitting to this place. The Lord says in the Gospel: ’If your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light; but if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness’ (Matt. 6:22–23). Therefore, when we do something good, what we have in view is very important. Our fidelity to duty is assessed not only by the performance of it but also by the purpose with which it is performed. And in doing anything, we must attend not only to whether the intended action is good, but above all to whether what we wish to do it for is good. And these are precisely the eyes—the eyes with which we look at why we do what we do—that the prophet asks to be turned away, lest they behold vanity, that is, so that in doing something we do not have vanity in view and do not do it for vanity’s sake. In this vanity, love of human glory occupies the foremost place—for its sake much and great things were done by men called great in this age and much praised by the people, men who sought glory not from God but from men, and having received it, received their reward, the vain their vain reward. Wishing to turn the eyes of His disciples away from this vanity, the Lord exhorts them that they do no good deeds ‘to be seen of men’; otherwise they will have no reward from the Heavenly Father. Then, when He began to give them commandments about good works in detail—about alms, prayer, fasting—He urged everywhere that none of this be done for human glory, saying that those who do it with such a purpose have already received their reward (Matt. 6:1–23)—that is, not the eternal reward laid up for the saints with the Heavenly Father, but the temporal reward sought by those who, in their deeds, have vain human glory in view. To do anything good for the sake of this praise is to have eyes turned toward vanity. Not human praise itself is blameworthy—for people cannot help praising the good—but it is blameworthy to be drawn away by it and to do anything for its sake. Even when people render praise to some righteous person (apart from his seeking it), even then he must not linger upon it or gaze at it, but refer even that to the glory of God, for whose sake alone the truly good do every good thing; for from Him, and not from themselves, they are good. The Lord says in the same discourse: ’Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven’ (Matt. 5:16). Toward the ultimate end He has set there we must look in doing anything good—that is, toward the glory of God—while at the same time turning our eyes away from human vanity. Furthermore—if it is vain to do good for human glory, how much more vain is it to do it for the acquisition or increase of money, or any other temporal advantages coming from without? All is vanity! We must not do good deeds for temporal salvation, but for the salvation hoped for in eternity, where we shall enjoy unchanging blessedness, which will be granted to us by God—or rather, which is God Himself for us. If the saints, in doing good, had temporal salvation in view, the holy martyrs, for whom the loss of such salvation was inevitable, would never have performed the good deed of confession. They received help in their torments without having temporal salvation in view, because ’vain is the salvation of man’ (Ps. 59:13). They did not desire ’the day of man’ (Jer. 17:16), because ’man is like to vanity; his days pass away like a shadow’ (Ps. 143:4). One must not lose sight here of the fact that if even what appears to be within our own power (turning away the eyes) is urged to be asked from God, this confirms the necessity of grace for absolutely everything. Some have not turned their eyes away from vanity because they supposed they could become righteous and holy by themselves, and loved human glory more than the glory of God, thinking highly of themselves and relying too much on the strength of their own will—and therefore they fell.”

Ps. 118:38. Establish Your word to Your servant, who is devoted to Your fear.

Word here means the same as the law and the commandments. To establish them in the fear of God means to fortify the binding force of their obligation upon the conscience by the fear of God—that is, to make it so that a man, as soon as he recognizes that God’s direct will, expressed in His word, pertains to this or that, immediately hastens with fear to fulfill it, regardless of any sacrifices. The prophet asks God to send forth the power that moves and inspires the fulfillment of the commandments by filling the heart with fear of Him. As in civil life the royal decrees are backed by the force of the law, so that those who receive them leave all other matters and hasten to carry them out as quickly as possible; so also in moral and religious life the fear of God moves and compels one to fulfill the will of God with all energy, as soon as it is recognized in anything. Saint Athanasius in this regard calls the fear of God the guardian of God’s commandments; and Blessed Theodoret paraphrases the content of this verse thus: “Make me firm in Your words, unchangingly guarding me by Your fear; that is, let Your fear be upon me, holding me in awe and not allowing me to deviate from Your words.”

This verse, according to Bellarmine, answers the third in this octet—Ps. 118:35. “There the prophet asked for the grace of fulfilling the law, and here he asks for inconstancy to be removed and the grace of unwavering and unshakeable perseverance in the law to be given. He speaks as if to say: make it so that by the power of Your fear Your law is rooted in me, and I may abide in it without wavering.”

Thus, the fear of God is the stimulus and guardian of zeal in fulfilling God’s commandments and living faithfully by them. No one is excepted from this. If even in a great prophet it had such a meaning, how much more must it have such in each of us. The distinguishing mark and reliable sign of whether a man stands on the right path is godly fear. If you have it, you are in a good state; if you do not have it, you are in a bad state—even if no evil deeds are visible in your conduct.

One must, however, distinguish fear from fear. “Fear is of two kinds,” writes Blessed Anthimus: “one is slavish, the kind a servant has who does not love his master and does not value his will, yet does not transgress it for fear of punishment—this is the fear of the imperfect; the other is the fear of a friend, who is afraid of losing the love of the one who loves him—this is the fear of the perfect. It is precisely this second kind of fear that the prophet asks for himself, that it may establish the word of God in his heart and keep him steadfast before the temptations and disturbances of this world.”

Blessed Augustine writes to the same effect: “The word of God does not stand in one who displaces it within himself (from its foundations, or from the place due it), by doing what is contrary to it; but it stands in one who remains in it unmoved. God establishes His word in those to whom He gives the spirit of His fear — ’not the spirit of bondage again to fear’ (Rom. 8:15), which is cast out by perfect love, but the spirit of that fear of which he speaks—a pure fear that endures for ever—a fear by which one fears to grieve the Beloved.”

Everyone knows this distinction between the kinds of fear in theory, but in practice one often confuses them and takes one for the other. One would not want to admit that—if not always, then at times—we are guided by slavish fear. But it is better to admit this than to conceal it, so that one may then think about changing such fear. No one becomes perfect all at once. Fear is at first slavish, then mercenary, and finally it becomes filial. Even the first kind is good in its proper time; but it is not good to remain at it—one must move ever higher until one reaches filial feelings, whose degrees have no end.

True godly fear is always accompanied by zeal for God; but just as this zeal can be “not according to knowledge,” so too the fear of God can be without knowledge. A God-fearing heart is zealous to give force to God’s commandments both within itself and outwardly, in the circle of people among whom it moves. In both cases, lack of wisdom can produce much that is unhelpful. One may exhaust oneself, rushing from one thing to another without considering whether it is fitting or within one’s powers; or one may harm oneself by directing zeal not to the essential but to the secondary and incidental. And one may harm others too, by inserting one’s own zeal everywhere without considering whether one’s busyness is appropriate to the place and the persons. Saint Ambrose speaks at length about such manifestations of the fear of God. “Consider,” he says, “how God can turn the eyes of one He favors from vanity: He establishes His word in him in fear. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But the very fear of God, if it lacks wisdom, will bring no benefit but will rather cause harm. The Jews, having such fear, have also zeal; but since they have it not according to knowledge, by that very zeal and fear they bring upon themselves yet greater wrath from God… By circumcising their children and keeping the Sabbaths they show that they have the fear of God; but since they do not understand that the law is spiritual, they circumcise only the body, not the heart. They fear to kindle a fire on the Sabbath, while the law properly forbids kindling on that holy day the fire of passion. But why do I speak of the Jews? There are also among us such strict rules that a man is not able to bear them. Fear of God appears in them in the fact that they impose discipline, striving to exalt virtue; while their lack of wisdom lies in the fact that they do not co-suffer with weakness and do not weigh possibility. Let our fear then not be unwise! As true wisdom begins from the fear of God and there is no spiritual wisdom that is alien to this fear, so also fear must not be without wisdom. Holy fear is, as it were, a pedestal for the word of wisdom. As a statue is placed upon a pedestal and gains greater grace when placed so as to stand firmly, so the word of God—or God’s rational principle—is beautifully placed upon holy fear and is more firmly rooted in the heart that fears God, lest the word fall out of a man’s heart, lest birds come and snatch it from the careless and insincere heart. But fear of God itself must be established by the word of God and be more fruitfully applied to life, lest it be without wisdom—just as the pedestal, having received the statue upon it, is not without the grace of the statue. Read Isaiah and see how many virtues he has subordinated to fear, in order to make it good and blameless: ’the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord’ (Is. 11:2–4). What a range of virtues must one pass through to attain the proper fear of God! It is taught by wisdom, disposed by understanding, directed by counsel, established by might, regulated by knowledge, adorned by piety. Take all this away from the fear of God, and it will remain irrational, senseless—one of those fears in which there is ’without were fightings, within were fears’ (2 Cor. 7:5) by which Paul too would have been overcome if he had not had within himself the consoling and instructing Lord. Do not pass over without attention what is said in Proverbs: ‘then shall you understand the fear of the Lord.’ But when is this ‘then’? — When ’you call to wisdom, and lift up your voice for understanding, and seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasure; then shall you understand the fear of the Lord’ (Prov. 2:3–5).”

It need not even be mentioned that, just as in the two preceding verses one may see a pointer to the purposes that should be had in mind in doing good, so the same may be seen in this verse. There it was indicated what purposes one should not have in view; here—what purpose one should have. The prophet prays that God would teach him and dispose his heart to do everything solely for the pleasing of Him alone—to do good not merely from a sense of duty, not merely from the demands of the moral dignity of a rational creature, but especially because it is the will of God, holy and well-pleasing, because God so wills. Pagan wisdom did not rise above the earth, and sought within man himself and around him the purposes and motives for doing good; Christianity, however, has opened heaven, has made man at home with it, and disposes him to do everything to please the All-seeing and All-ruling King of the visible and invisible world, impressing upon him that whatever anyone does in this spirit will not escape the attention of the One to Whom it is done to please, even if it visibly yields nothing and promises nothing.

Ps. 118:39. Turn away my reproach which I fear, for Your judgments are good.

“Reproach, says Blessed Anthimus, is of two kinds: one is false accusation, when one is unjustly reproached—as, for example, unbelievers reproached believers; from this reproach we not only do not flee but seek it, as a source of glory and honor; the other follows upon our sins and will especially cover the unrepentant on the day of judgment. It is this latter that the prophet begs God to take away, for by His good judgments He decrees forgiveness and grants the cleansing of sins to repentant sinners.”

Sin promises pleasure without the addition of honor in the circle proper to it; yet in reality it is accompanied by bitterness and shame—not always visibly, but always essentially. About a man who has done something improper in civic and domestic life one commonly says: “He has fallen flat on his face in the mud”—and just as surely does a sinner fall flat on his face in the mud in the spiritual realm, before the All-seeing God, before the angels and the saints, before his own conscience—before the entire world of goodness and light. A sinner who is coming to awareness perceives this shame in himself first of all, grieves and reproaches himself, and yearns to be delivered as quickly as possible from such reproach. But while he still perceives himself as being here, in the ordinary course of life, this reproach does not press upon him so heavily; but when his thought is transported to the awesome Judgment of God, then horror seizes all his members at the thought of how he will stand with such shame before the assembly of all God’s most pure creatures and before God Himself. Therefore he cries out: “Take away my reproach”—that there may be no trace in me of this convicting shame of sin. “The prophet,” says Saint Athanasius, “having sinned as a man, sees that reproach will follow him to the divine judgment-seat at the resurrection, and therefore he prays and utters the verse before us.”

“Take away the reproach”—not merely forgive, but cleanse essentially—tear away and cast off, so that I may remain in my pure nature as You did originally create me in Your image, without the clinging of these foul sins with which I have covered myself. The remission of sins is granted immediately upon repentance; but the cleansing of the soul from sins is not accomplished all at once—it requires labor, as for example the washing of linen. Of course, God, by His special mercies, can at once whiten the soul and refine it as gold in a furnace in a single moment; but this is an extraordinary grace—and who would dare to ask for it from God?

The sinful shame whose removal the prophet prays for here is more precisely defined by the words: “which I fear.” “To fear” here means to think, to suppose. The thought comes out as follows: even though I see no manifest sins upon myself, I cannot think that I am without shame. Sinful shame may be in me at a depth beyond my consciousness. Supposing this to be so, I pray: cleanse me also from this shame invisible to me. “In praying for the removal of reproach,” says Saint Hilary, “the prophet prays for the removal of sins, because reproach follows upon sins. But it is evident that he is not confessing here some particular sin committed in deed, but one which he only suspects in himself, on account of the weakness of the flesh; for he does not say: take away the reproach that is in me, but that which I fear, suppose, suspect—showing thereby that, acknowledging his weakness, he cannot but acknowledge his reproach as well.”

Setting forth a similar thought, Saint Ambrose hints at the possibility of this meaning in the prophet’s words as well: take away the shame which I have brought upon myself by planning to commit a sin, even though I did not commit it in deed. Under this may be understood all sins of thought—impure thoughts, sympathy with them, consent to them, and involuntary sinful impulses. The prophet’s prayer here is the same as elsewhere: ’Cleanse me from my secret sins’ (Ps. 18:13). “This place,” says Saint Ambrose, “is somewhat obscure, but it is clarified by the apostle: ’I know nothing against myself,’ he says, ’yet am I not thereby justified’ (1 Cor. 4:4). He knew that he was a man; as much as he could, he was on guard against sinning after receiving the sacrament of baptism, and although he was not aware of any manifest sin in himself, yet, as a man, he confessed himself a sinner, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ alone ’did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth’ (1 Pet. 2:22). Similarly, the prophet, though he himself strove in every way to turn away from sin, yet desired God to be the repeller of every sin from him. Although reproach had already been taken from him by repentance, he thought—might it not still remain, hidden from himself? Therefore he besought the Lord Himself, Who alone knows what even the one who acted may not know, to take it away. Perhaps ‘I fear’ means ‘I had been planning,’ and the prophet prays: take away the sin which I had contemplated, or in which I had taken pleasure in my heart and thoughts, but which I did not commit in deed.”

On what ground does the prophet base his hope that it will be as he prays? — On the sole boundless goodness of God. Manifest sins are forgiven by goodness, and hidden ones are also removed by the same goodness. What can one give in ransom for the shame of sin? Nothing. Even if you have done countless good deeds, they are all merely duties, bearing the single inscription: ’We have done what we were obligated to do’ (Luke 17:10); your sins all remain sins and stand in the same place in your life where you set them, like graven images. Who will remove them from the line of your life? Only the goodness of God, through the death of the Son of God, who took our sins upon Himself on the cross and tore there the bond of guilt—the goodness that entreats the righteousness of God to clear this shame from the road of our life. Kindle this faith as warmly as you can and by it draw down that goodness; together with it call upon righteousness, bring it to the place of your sins, and pray for it to consume them all in the fire drawn from the cross of the Lord by your faith. “Neither is there salvation in any other name under heaven… whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

“We,” writes Blessed Augustine, “have fallen not into one sin but into many; we have been covered with reproach and shame. But we came to baptism—and every sin was taken away by it, and with sin every reproach. The Lord Jesus took away my reproach by His own reproach, when He was crucified on the cross: ’for as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death’ (Rom. 6:3), so there remained nothing in me about which I would need to pray for it to be taken away. But after baptism I have again fallen into reproach and must bring repentance and pray for this reproach to be taken away from me. One refuge has remained for me—repentance; and if I do not offer it, I will thereby increase the reproach of sin in myself. Why be afraid to confess, or to speak of one’s sins? Why fear to reveal one’s reproach before the One whose judgments are good? — What is bitter in others is sweet and pleasant in Christ, for He Himself is most sweet. ’Taste and see that the Lord is good’ (Ps. 33:9). God’s judgments are sweet to the one who confesses, for God Himself says: ’I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance: let us plead together; declare you, that you may be justified’ (Is. 43:25–26). God’s judgments are sweet not only to the penitent, but to all of heaven, for the Lord said: ’There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents’ (Luke 15:7). If God’s judgments are thus sweet, let us make the effort and labor to taste of this sweet fruit.”

These thoughts, in relation to the subjects of the present octet, clearly indicate how one is ultimately to cleanse one’s life. Let us suppose one strives with all one’s might for godly living, trusting in the all-efficacious, ever-ready, and manifold grace of God; let us suppose that in the labors of doing good and ascetic endeavor one does not pursue wicked ends but directs everything to the glory of God under the action of the fear of God. To put it briefly and precisely: be thus, and you will be saved. But against such a resolution the resolution of the conscience of those being saved militates—who, with all their striving, see themselves falling not once a day but seven times every hour. For everything indicated up to this point one thing is lacking, therefore—one means by which all such falls might be cleansed. It is proposed in the present verse: this is unceasing repentance. As soon as you perceive some failing or impurity within yourself, hasten to repentance and pray with contrition: take away, O Lord, this shame, according to Your goodness! This is the broom that sweeps every bit of rubbish from the road of life. With this rule the entire union of rules is brought to completion. Of one who has put on this armor it may be said that he has now put on the whole armor of God… Equally, of one in whom it is lacking, one must say: his armament is unreliable; he is missing a very important weapon, without which all the others will not bring him to victory.

Ps. 118:40. Behold, I have longed for Your commandments; quicken me in Your righteousness.

Throughout this entire octet, that law of spiritual life is clarified from various sides: that seeking and labor—to the limit of one’s strength—belong to man, while the actual work of life is accomplished and brought to fruition by the grace of God. Having clarified everything pertaining to this, the prophet makes a general conclusion with respect to himself: “behold, I have longed,” he says, and presents what is required of me—with all my soul I desire and seek it; grant You in turn what depends on Your grace—quicken me, as Your righteousness has ordained to quicken us; give understanding, kindle sympathy and energy, give strength and patience to proceed along the way of a life pleasing to You without stopping and with success. I do not specify what to give me and when: You, the only All-righteous One, know fully the way of righteousness: “by whatever means You know, save me.” Blessed Augustine writes: “With all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind I have desired to love You and my neighbor as myself, for in this is the whole sum of the commandments. Not by my own righteousness, but by Your, quicken me—that is, fill me with that love which I have desired; help me to fulfill what You command; grant Yourself what You do command. In myself I have only that by which to die; but that by which to live, I can find nowhere except in You alone—quicken me therefore by Your righteousness.”

Why then did he speak of such a disposition not at the beginning but at the end? — Because it comes itself not at the beginning, but after all one’s own means and efforts are exhausted. From the outset of one’s conversion, even though the convert says “Lord, help!” he secretly expects much from his own efforts and strenuous seeking. And the progress granted to him is only that by this means he acquires familiarity with all the forms of a godly life; but he cannot advance further on his own. Meanwhile, along with that familiarity, in the one who pays attention to himself, an awareness of the essential demands of such a life also opens up. Once the familiarity is established, the attention and effort that until then were directed at it are set free. In those in whom an awareness of the essential in spiritual life has not opened up, these fall asleep, and the work of life stagnates; but in those in whom it has opened up, they are directed toward this side, and the higher the goal now, the more strained they become. But what cannot be attained by one’s own efforts cannot be attained by them, no matter how hard one strives. Experiential confirmation of this begins together with the directing of one’s own efforts toward the acquisition of the recognized features of spiritual life. When all approaches have been tried and there is still no progress, there remains only one thing—to lay down one’s tools and cry out: “By whatever means You know, save me”; I desire, I seek, but only You are able to quicken me by Your righteousness.

In the ordinary experience of a pious life, this is confirmed to the point of obviousness in the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Its words are few, but they contain everything. From ancient times it has been recognized that, having acquired the habit of praying with this prayer, one may replace all other prayers with it. Is there anyone among those zealous for salvation who is not familiar with this practice? Great is the power of this prayer, as the holy Fathers describe it; yet in practice we see that not all who have the habit of it partake of this power, not all taste its fruits. Why is this? — Because they themselves wish to take possession of what belongs to God’s gift and is the work of the Lord’s grace. To begin repeating this prayer morning and evening, walking and lying down, at work and at leisure—this is our business: it requires no special help from God. Laboring in the same order, one may reach on one’s own a point where the tongue, even without one’s awareness, will keep repeating this prayer. A certain quieting of thoughts may follow from this, and even a kind of warmth of heart; but all this, as the monk Nicephorus notes in the Philokalia, will be the work and fruit of our own efforts. To stop at this is the same as being satisfied with a parrot’s ability to pronounce certain words, even such words as “Lord, have mercy.” The fruit from this is: you will think you have something, when you have absolutely nothing. This is what happens to those who, in the course of acquiring the habit of this prayer—insofar as it depends on us—do not develop an awareness of what constitutes its essence. Not being aware of it, they content themselves with the aforesaid natural beginnings of its effects and cease seeking. But in those in whom that awareness opens up, seeking will not cease; and seeing that however much one strives to act according to the directions of the elders, the expected fruit still does not appear, one cuts off all expectation of fruit from one’s own effort and places all hope in God. When this takes shape, the possibility of grace’s working is opened: grace comes in a moment known to it alone, and grafts that prayer onto the heart. Then, as the elders say, everything will be the same outwardly, but not the same in inner power.

What has been said about this prayer is applicable to every manifestation of spiritual life. Take a quick-tempered man and suppose that he has become zealous to extinguish irritability and to acquire meekness. In the books on asceticism there are instructions on how to govern oneself in order to achieve this. He takes all of this in and begins to act according to the directions he has read. How far, however, will he get by his own efforts? — No further than to a silencing of the lips when angry, with some curbing of the irritation itself; but for anger to be entirely quenched and meekness to take up its dwelling in the heart—to this he will never come on his own. This happens only when grace comes and grafts meekness onto the heart.

So it is with everything. Whatever fruit of spiritual life you may seek—seek it with all your might, but do not expect the fruit from your seeking and your efforts; rather, “cast your burden upon the Lord” (Ps. 54:23), without reserving any portion as your own share, “and He shall sustain you” (Ps. 36:5). Pray: I desire, I seek; but quicken me You, by Your righteousness. The Lord has decreed: “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). And this law is fulfilled in spiritual life with a precision that does not deviate by a hair’s breadth from what is ordained. When people ask: what must I do to acquire this or that virtue? — one may answer all alike: turn to the Lord, and He will give it to you; there is no other way to obtain what is sought. Saint Athanasius writes on this verse: “See—he both kept the commandments and was well-disposed toward them and fulfilled them for their own sake, and yet asks God for a righteous and virtuous life so that it might flow from the heart. Only one who desires to live in the Son can say this, believing that life is in Him alone.” Blessed Augustine expresses the prophet’s thought thus: “Quicken me by Your righteousness—that is, by Christ, for He ‘is made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord’” (1 Cor. 1:30–31).