+St. Bernardine of Siena, Confessor+
Introduction
In one of his lesser works, St. Thomas Aquinas mentions that the following (Psalm 82) was written to be said by the faithful in the end times. Calling down justice on our leaders seems in these days to be the only recourse given their lawlessness, deceit and frightening disregard for those they govern. In the second Scripture reading from Isaias, we see how God turns a deaf ear to those who sin with impunity and will not hear their prayers. This is how Israel must have felt before the coming of the Redeemer. It does seem we live in darkness at times, like dead men. Truth has been forgotten, and we are the prey of our enemies. We do our best to patiently await God’s judgment. Ezekiel warns those who present as little tin gods what will happen to them; how they shall forfeit their kingdoms, be they kings of nations or those reigning unjustly during an interregnum. Let us hope we are not those slain “in the heart of the sea” the prophet mentions in these verses, although we know that our country cannot survive much longer as things stand today. We pray, we watch and beg for God’s mercy.
Deus, quis similis. A prayer against the enemies of God’s Church.
“A canticle of a psalm for Asaph.
“O God, who shall be like to thee? hold not thy peace, neither be thou still, O God. For lo, thy enemies have made a noise: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken a malicious counsel against thy people, and have consulted against thy saints. They have said: Come and let us destroy them, so that they be not a nation: and let the name of Israel be remembered no more.
“For they have contrived with one consent: they have made a covenant together against thee. The tabernacles of the Edomites, and the Ismahelites: Moab, and the Agarens, Gebal, and Ammon and Amalec: the Philistines, with the inhabitants of Tyre. Yea, and the Assyrian also is joined with them: they are come to the aid of the sons of Lot. Do to them as thou didst to Madian and to Sisara: as to Jabin at the brook of Cisson.
“Who perished at Endor: and became as dung for the earth. Make their princes like Oreb, and Zeb, and Zebee, and Salmana. All their princes, Who have said: Let us possess the sanctuary of God for an inheritance. O my God, make them like a wheel; and as stubble before the wind. As fire which burneth the wood: and as a flame burning mountains:
“So shalt thou pursue them with thy tempest: and shalt trouble them in thy wrath. Fill their faces with shame; and they shall seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and troubled for ever and ever: and let them be confounded and perish. And let them know that the Lord is thy name: thou alone art the most High over all the earth.”
Isaias 59: 2-21
The dreadful evil of sin is displayed, as the great obstacle to all good from God: yet he will send a Redeemer, and make an everlasting covenant with his church.
“Behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity. There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity. They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the webs of spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk.
Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and destruction are in their ways. They have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that treadeth in them, knoweth no peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have walked in the dark. We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places as dead men.
“We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us. For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and we have known our iniquities: In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood far off: because truth hath fallen down in the street, and equity could not come in. And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed from evil, lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his eyes, because there is no judgment.
“And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own justice supported him. He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak. As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his adversaries, and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands. And they from the west, shall fear the name of the Lord: and they from the rising of the sun, his glory: when he shall come as a violent stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on: And there shall come a redeemer to Sion, and to them that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord.
“This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever.
Ezekiel 28 — warning to the King of Tyre
“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am God, and I sit in the chair of God in the heart of the sea: whereas thou art a man, and not God: and hast set thy heart as if it were the heart of God.
“Behold thou art wiser than Daniel: no secret is hid from thee. In thy wisdom and thy understanding thou hast made thyself strong: and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By the greatness of thy wisdom, and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy strength: and thy heart is lifted up with thy strength.
“Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up as the heart of God: Therefore behold, I will bring upon thee strangers, the strongest of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy beauty.
“They shall kill thee, and bring thee down: and thou shalt die the death of them that are slain in the heart of the sea. Wilt thou yet say before them that slay thee: I am God; whereas thou art a man, and not God, in the hand of them that slay thee?
“Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.”
And this one is my favorite, from the book of Daniel, who foretold what we suffer today:
Daniel 9: 3-20
“And I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and I made my confession, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord God, great and terrible, who keepest the covenant, and mercy to them that love thee, and keep thy commandments. We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly, and have revolted: and we have gone aside from thy commandments, and thy judgments.
“We have not hearkened to thy servants the prophets, that have spoken in thy name to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To thee, O Lord, justice: but to us confusion of face, as at this day to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel to them that are near, and to them that are far off in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, for their iniquities by which they have sinned against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our princes, and to our fathers that have sinned. But to thee, the Lord our God, mercy and forgiveness, for we have departed from thee: And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his law, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
“And all Israel have transgressed thy law, and have turned away from hearing thy voice, and the malediction, and the curse, which is written in the book of Moses the servant of God, is fallen upon us, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words which he spoke against us, and against our princes that judged us, that he would bring in upon us a great evil, such as never was under all the heaven, according to that which hath been done in Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: and we entreated not thy face, O Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and think on thy truth. And the Lord hath watched upon the evil, and hath brought it upon us: the Lord our God is just in all his works which he hath done: for we have not hearkened to his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who hast brought forth thy people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name as at this day: we have sinned, we have committed iniquity,
“O Lord, against all thy justice: let thy wrath and thy indignation be turned away, I beseech thee, from thy city Jerusalem, and from thy holy mountain. For by reason of our sins, and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem, and thy people are a reproach to all that are round about us. Now therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of thy servant, and his prayers: and shew thy face upon thy sanctuary which is desolate, for thy own sake. Incline, O my God, thy ear, and hear: open thy eyes, and see our desolation, and the city upon which thy name is called: for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before thy face, but for the multitude of thy tender mercies. O Lord, hear: O Lord, be appeased: hearken and do: delay not for thy own sake, O my God: because thy name is invocated upon thy city, and upon thy people.”
It was Daniel who told us the Holy Sacrifice would betaken away because of sins. The curses of Moses in many ways foretell what will happen to a sinful people and a sinful nation when God’s laws are trodden underfoot and His teachings ignored. It is our hope that readers will meditate on these Scripture verses as they make preparation for the feast of Pentecost.
