The responsory which today, at the prophet's entreaty, we have sung—opportune to the season, suited to the present evils—your affection both approves and recognizes with me. Lord, he says, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your fury (Ps. 6). And does God swell with anger?
Does he grow hot with fury? Far be it, brethren. God is neither subject to passion, nor kindled with anger, nor troubled with fury; but the anger of God is the punishment of transgressors, the fury of God is the chastisement of sinners. Brethren, we who are compounded of dust, formed of clay, are trodden down by vices, subjected to transgressions, worn out by cares, withered in our members, dissolved by death, made to shudder at fetid tombs, and so are found unfit for virtues, fit for vices. The prophet therefore, mindful of human frailty and conscious of his fleshly substance, because he did not trust in his own merits, fled to the help of mercy, so that God's judgment concerning him might be established out of compassion, not out of severity. Lord, rebuke me not in your anger. This is to say: rebuke me, but not in anger; chasten me, but not in fury:
rebuke me as a father, not as a judge; correct me not as a lord, but as a parent; rebuke me, not that you may destroy, but that you may correct; chasten me, not that you may slay, but that you may amend. And why this? Because I am weak. Have mercy on me, he says, Lord, for I am weak. What is weaker than man, whom sense deceives, ignorance beguiles, judgment surrounds, pomp injures, time forsakes, age changes, infancy dulls, youth casts headlong, old age breaks? For God to be angry at such a one in anger, and to be indignant in fury, belongs not to a loving Creator, but to a most severe examiner. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak. And what do you wish? Heal me, Lord.
This man feels the wounds of his condition, feels the bite of the ancient serpent, feels the ruin of the first parent, acknowledges that he came to these infirmities by being born, acknowledges that he came to death by nature: and because human art could not remove death, he is compelled to seek divine medicine; and that he may the more easily obtain the cure of his sickness, he lays open the causes of the sickness itself, tells its qualities, unfolds its magnitude, expresses the force of his pain. Heal me, Lord. Why? Because my bones are troubled. The bones bear the whole structure of the body; and if the bones are troubled, what firmness is there of the members? what strength of the sinews?
where then is the pitiable substance of the flesh? The bones are troubled, brethren, by the weight of sins, by the fear of death, by the terror of judgment. Hear him saying this same thing elsewhere: There is, he says, no health in my flesh because of the face of your anger; there is no peace for my bones because of the face of my sins (Ps. 37). And afterward: My soul is filled with illusions, and there is no health in my flesh. Deservedly therefore he adds: And my soul is troubled exceedingly.
Between God's commandments and the passions of the heart, between virtues and vices, between adversity and prosperity, between punishments and rewards, between life and death, standing in the battle-line, sustaining wars, receiving wounds, rarely standing, sinking down in sense, the soul is troubled—troubled exceedingly, because, hindered by the weights of the flesh, before it can come to the virtues it is first made captive of the vices. These wars the Apostle describes, when he says: The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things that you wish (Gal. 5). And elsewhere: I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive under the law of sin (Rom. 7).
Alleging therefore these infirmities, these wars, these troublings of the soul, the blessed prophet approaches God with such a voice: And you, Lord, how long? This is to say: how long do you suffer it? how long do you dissemble? how long do you not come to aid? how long do you permit your work to be scattered, your image to be blotted out, your creature to perish before you? Where is your Christ, so often announced through the law, through us, so manifoldly promised through the prophets? Let him come, let him come, before, with the world perishing, he finds in the world nothing that he may save afresh.
Let him come, let him come, that he may repair the flesh, renew the soul, and change nature itself into a heavenly substance. Let him come that he may take away sin, destroy death, break down hell, restore life, grant heaven, that no earthly stain may any longer be found in us to destroy. That the prophet asks this, the following words show: Turn, O Lord. Does man speak thus to God, the guilty to the judge, the condemned to his examiner? Turn, O Lord. Man sins, and God turns? Yes, brethren, because according to the prophet: He bears our sins, and grieves for us (Isa. 53, according to the Septuagint). And blessed John: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1). He took upon himself sin, that he might take away sin, not that he might have it. Turn, O Lord. From where? Whither?
From God to man, from lord to servant, from judge to father, that conversion may show you tender whom power threatens as terrible. Turn, O Lord; deliver my soul—from the lower hell. Save me for your mercy's sake. Not for my merit's sake, whom toil afflicts, groaning wounds, tears dissolve, anger troubles, the enemy assails. But that this may be clear, let the prophet's own prayer be sung out. Save me for your mercy's sake. Why? Because in death there is no one who is mindful of you; and in hell who shall confess to you? I have labored in my groaning; I will wash my bed every night; I will water my couch with my tears. This said holy David, set upon the royal summit:
he who so exercised the sovereignty of human power that he preserved in himself the holiness of the Spirit and the grace of a prophet—and we, set wholly under God's anger, do not know how to say: Lord, rebuke me not in your fury. The earth denies its fruits, the heaven its mildness, the air its wholesomeness: hence pestilence, spread everywhere through cities and fields, consumes the whole race of mortals by various kinds of diseases, and yet we do not say: Lord, rebuke us not in your fury, nor chasten us in your anger. He, after his triumphs, spent nights in groanings and days in tears; we, lying beneath the enemy's sword, give no times to God, pour out to God not even for an hour any tears;
but continually we surrender and give ourselves over to plunderings, frauds, perjuries, deceits, and slanders, so that more and more we stir up the anger of God against us by the fuel of our crimes. Come, brethren, come with the prophet: Come, let us adore and fall down before him, and let us weep before the Lord who made us (Ps. 94); come, let us say: Lord, rebuke us not in your anger, nor chasten us in your fury. That, mindful of his mercy, he may change his anger into mercy, restore what is lost, free the captives; and that he may now grant us to serve him with gladness—he who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.