Psalm 129:1

merciful depth charges

Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: (Psalm 129:1 DR)

The incipit of Psalm 129—De profundis clamavis—is perhaps one of the more well known in the entire Psalter and has given rise to numerous musical works throughout history given the cri de coeur of this Psalm. In the Divine Office it is recited at Vespers on Wednesdays and in the Office of the Dead given its penitential nature.

The Psalmist speaks of depths in the plural, which indicates not only the condition of the soul in distress but also the causes of that distress. We often colloquially speak of the “depths of despair” just to mean the intensity of grief or distress, but here the Psalmist speaks to something far deeper, pun intended.

The penitential aspect of this Psalm draws this out, which is beautifully captured in lines from the Salve Regina:

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,
To thee do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

The first depth from which we cry to God in penance is that of our fallen and sinful condition, our helplessness against sin and our enmity towards God without the help of His grace. We are banished on account of Original Sin (i.e., children of Eve) and require the remedy of grace to bring us back into friendship with God.

This leads—as a cause—to the second depth, which is the exile of this life in this vale of tears, as it is called. Once again the Salve Regina expresses this succinctly:

And after this, our exile,
Show unto us the Blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

This vale of tears is an exile due to the sin of our first parents that we are born into, but every subsequent actual sin on our part confirms us in that, as it were, in a diabolical inversion of the sacrament of Confirmation. The more we align our will with sin the more we choose this exiled world over that for which we were created and to which in the Salve Regina we plead with the Blessed Virgin to show unto us, which is our very Lord and Savior.

This is why the Psalmist cries out from the depths; without the help of grace he is lost and drowning in sin. Both St. Augustine and St. Bellarmine use Jonah as a type of the Psalmist who is in the depths of both the waves and the belly of the beast. The point, however, is not to highlight the depths per se but rather the surpassing grace of God which is present even in such straits to hear the prayer from the depths:

He was not only beneath the waves, but also in the entrails of the beast; nevertheless, those waves and that body prevented not his prayer from reaching God, and the beast's belly could not contain the voice of his prayer It penetrated all things, it burst through all things, it reached the ears of God: if indeed we ought to say that, bursting through all things, it reached the ears of God, since the ears of God were in the heart of him who prayed. For where has not he God present, whose voice is faithful? (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 129, 1.)

The reason that this prayer is heard is not because of the quality or intensity of the emotional distress but rather because it arises from true contrition that has abandoned it pretensions to self-sufficiency or illusions of self-righteousness. It admits its helpless state and the true condition of its soul, that it has willingly chosen the exile of this world in which it inhabits, and has banished itself from God in its pride and willful sin, now hoping and trusting only in God’s surpassingly great mercy which is deeper than the depths from which it arises.

It is the state of true contrition that God will never despise (cf. Psalm 50:19), but a proud heart despises God and finds itself in an even deeper depth:

For they are very deep in the deep, who do not even cry from the deep. The Scripture says, “When the wicked has reached the depth of evils, he despises.” [Proverbs 18:3] Now consider, brethren, what sort of deep that is, where God is despised. When each man sees himself overwhelmed with daily sins, pressed down by heaps and weights, so to speak, of iniquities: if it be said to him, Pray unto God, he laughs. In what manner? He first says, If crimes were displeasing unto God, should I live? If God regarded human affairs, considering the great crimes which I have committed, should I not only live, but be prosperous? For this is wont to happen to those who are far in the deep, and are prosperous in their iniquities: and they are the more plunged in the deep, in proportion as they seem to be more happy; for a deceitful happiness is itself a greater unhappiness. (ibid.)

Pride is thus one of the most deadly of the deadly sins, for it can harden the heart and deaden the conscience so that we mistake God’s leniency towards our sin as approbation or weakness. In this state we can also mistake temporal happiness for virtue or God’s blessing, the self-deception of which can make it very difficult to ever surface again. Our Lord speaks of this heart in the parable of the rich fool:

And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer. But God said to him: Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God. (Luke 12:19-21 DR)

Attachments to the things of this world become like weights attached our ankles which drag us even deeper into the sea of our exile in this life and the misery of our sin. Contrition severs those entanglements and allows our prayers to reach God’s ears, so to speak. This was the severe yet bountiful mercy of the Lord towards Jonah when he was cast into the depths, for in that moment his pride was as nothing and all his plans and will had come to not. In the depths he cried out to the Lord and was heard.

Sometimes God brings us to these depths precisely because of His mercy, that His grace may break through the hardness of our pride and lift us out of the deep. The many sorrows and sufferings of this life should cause us not to cast our eyes down into the murky depths but rather lift them to Heaven to the One from whence our help comes (cf. Psalm 120:1) and Who can raise us out of the pit of misery (cf. Psalm 39:3):

But whoever will, on profound reflection, feel that he is an exile, a pilgrim, and in great danger of never arriving at his country; and what is infinitely worse, that though he is not just now in the lowest depths of hell, he deserves to be there by reason of his sins, it is impossible for such a one not to be thoroughly frightened and horrified, or to avoid calling out with all his might to him who alone can rescue him from such a dreadful depth, and extend a hand to him to get up. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 129, 1.)

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I had the idea of someone drowning or sinking in the sea for this animation. I began by drawing this character and rigging up the limbs so as to animate it a little more smoothly. I then precomped the character and used it as a matte for a nice texture which I kept static because I thought it might be interesting that way.

The background was a combination things, starting with an abstract texture that I applied Stretch to so as to get some of the moving streakiness. I then drew some simply rectangles and blended them into the background using various colors and opacities and animated them moving from side to side to simulate light rays.

I finally added in some particles using Trapcode Particular for some rising bubbles and then added in the text and some color correction.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: