Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee: have mercy on me and hear me. (Psalm 26:7 DR)
In English we have the excellent term “vicious cycle,” by which we mean a series of self-reinforcing events or decisions that lead to deleterious ends, which in turn provoke the same events or decisions again as a response, ad infinitum. And while this does not necessarily involve vice per se, the root of the word vicious—the Latin vitiosus, full of vice, corrupt—at the very least signals actions that do not lead to good outcomes. The vicious cycle is also known as a vicious circle, as it can be visualized as a series of decisions or events that lead perpetually in a circle to begin again, although generally present within the nature of entropy—both physical and moral—is a worsening from cycle to cycle, such that the cycle or circle functions more or less as a spiral.
The vicious cycle creates what we might call a doom loop, for it cannot be escaped from within; the very premises on which it is based and which perpetuate the cycle cannot also be used to break out of it, but will at the very least perpetuate it, if not accelerate it. There has to be some external force or premise brought to bear upon the cycle to end or redirect it out of the doom loop; otherwise it will persist until the system destroys itself.
However, if there are vicious cycles, could there also be virtuous cycles? Such that good events or decisions provoke the same decisions to be made in the future and which create a virtuous feedback loop? Can there be a doom loop of virtue?
The Psalmist has—thus far in this Psalm—spoken of his relationship to God in the third person:
The Lord is his light and salvation
The Lord protects his life
The Psalmist desires to dwell in the Lord’s house and see His delight
The Lord has hidden and protected the Psalmist in His tabernacle
The Lord has exalted him and lifted him up
The Psalmist will sacrifice to the Lord and sing and recite a psalm to Him.
But now the Psalmist dramatically shifts both the tone and the voice of this Psalm, for having spoken in the third person of the Lord, he now shifts to the second person, directly addressing God in his prayer. The content of this prayer is now that God will hear my voice, with which I have cried to Thee: have mercy on me and hear me. The Vulgate and Old Latin have qua clamavi ad te, the word clamavi being in the perfect tense, describing an action that has been completed in the past. Thus the Douay-Rheims renders this as I have cried. The sense is thus that the Psalmist has lifted up his prayer to the Lord and now waits to be answered. To be sure, this could be—from the human perspective—more or less instantaneous, as he voices the prayer and waits, so in terms of time maybe a few seconds. Nor does it preclude the possibility of further prayer. But the idea is that the prayer has been made and now it is God’s part to respond.
In St. Jerome’s Hebrew translation the phrase is simply invocantis, which means “of one calling” or “as I call.” The whole phrase would be “Hear, O Lord, my voice as I call.” The word invocantis is a present active participle, modifying my voice, which is the direct object of the verb Hear. Thus the Psalmist’s prayer is—in this rendering—something that is presently happening, rather than something that has already been completed in the past.
In a sense both point to the same reality from different temporal points of view. In the Vulgate’s rendering the Psalmist presently comes before the Lord with a prayer that has been made, whereas in the Hebrew he looks forward to the future that God will hear what he is presently praying. From God’s perspective, of course, there is no now or then or will be, but only the continual present. The Psalmist’s prayer being made in the past or in the present or in the future are all eternally present to God’s omniscience.
What is more important is what the Psalmist desires—that God both hear and have mercy. In fact, the first clause uses the term exaudi—hear—in respect to the Psalmist’s action of prayer, and exaudi again of God’s action in having mercy in the second clause. That is, God doesn’t hear twice as if God’s action in listening to prayer can be quantified; rather, it is the quality of God’s mercy towards the Psalmist that leads to God hearing his prayer in the first place. Since God just is merciful, this creates the conditions of the Psalmist’s confidence that God will hear him. God has mercy on him, therefore, that his prayer may be heard, and his prayer is heard that God may have mercy on him:
But what now? Hear my voice, O Lord. Let us groan now, let us pray now. Groaning belongs not but to the miserable, prayer belongs not but to the necessitous. Prayer shall pass away, praise shall take its place; tears shall pass away, joy shall take their place. Now in the meanwhile, whilst we are in the days of our evils, let not our prayer to God cease, from Whom we ask that one petition; and from this petition let us not desist, until by His gift and guidance we attain unto it. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 26, Exposition 2, 14)
Thus the “virtuous cycle” is begun, for all the goodness of the Lord towards the Psalmist gives him hope and confidence in God’s mercy towards him. And as we can can see from his prayer, God’s goodness that he has received does not puff him up in pride or make him think he can do without the Lord’s mercy; rather, it increases his humility. In the prior verses of this Psalm he speaks of God’s goodness towards him in the third person, in a somewhat detached manner—this is what God has done, this is why I hope in the Lord, and so forth. But when he considers all these things and all of God’s mercy towards him, he then turns to God in prayer in deep humility, such that when he does address the Lord in the second person he does so with humility and reverence, asking not for more of the good things he has received for their own sake, but rather that God will hear him and have mercy on him. The one thing he asked of the Lord is made present in his prayer, and he makes good on his expressed desire:
He reverts to “One thing I have asked of the Lord,” which one petition he asks may be granted, burning as he is with a vehement desire of beholding his beloved. “Hear, O Lord, my voice with which I have cried to thee;” namely, when I asked for the “One thing.” “Have mercy on me,” suffering as I am in my exile, “and hear me.” (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 26, 7)
It is not because of a lack of faith that he brings his prayer again to the Lord, for even though he has received mercy and goodness from God as he has already described, he recognizes that the one thing he longs for is not something he can obtain on his own. And given the nature of human weakness, were God to withdraw His mercy, that one thing would immediately cease to be possessed. The prayer of humility before the Lord is to not only make one’s prayer in the past and wait for the Lord—clamavi ad te—but also to continually entreat God at all times and in all moments—invocantis—that He be merciful and hear.
Nor is this dynamic present only in this Psalm. The virtuous cycle of experiencing God’s goodness, meditating upon that goodness and then returning to the Lord anew in prayer for mercy, is a common theme throughout the Psalms, such as in psalm 76:
Or will God forget to shew mercy? or will he in his anger shut up his mercies? And I said, Now have I begun: this is the change of the right hand of the most High. I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of thy wonders from the beginning. And I will meditate on all thy works: and will be employed in thy inventions. (Psalm 76:10-13 DR)
It is precisely because of our limited and temporal nature—combined with our natural human weakness—that creates the necessity of this dynamic, that we continually remember the goodness of the Lord and return to Him to entreat His mercy. This is not a servile or infantile helplessness but rather the action of humility in recognizing our reliance on God’s grace. The Lord never tires of us asking for His mercy, but rather is well-pleased when we come to Him with humble and contrite hearts. The Psalmist immediately prior to this speaks of offering up the sacrifice of jubilation, and elsewhere precisely describes the nature of this sacrifice:
A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Psalm 50:19 DR)
As the Psalmist experiences God’s mercy and the hearing of his prayer, he tastes of the goodness of the Lord which fulfills the one thing he desired. In our natural selves this one thing often can be replaced by lesser things which we think will satisfy our deepest longings, and often we deceive ourselves with the pleasures of this world. The one thing that the Psalmist desires is—as it were—an acquired taste, the fruit of knowing and loving God, of cooperating with His grace, or seeking after the things of heaven over the things of this world, of having God’s charity poured into his soul. The more we grow in virtue, the more we taste of the heavenly gift of God’s mercy and charity, the more our soul’s palate grows accustomed to its delights and subtleties and such. And just as in the natural world common or lesser foods become bland or unpalatable after one comes to experience foods that are of a higher quality, so the soul which increases in virtue will find the attractions of this life to grow bland and inedible in comparison to the delights of the goodness of God:
He does not yet satisfy his longing unless he makes this request with repeated supplication, doubtless because he cannot have enough of things divine, but the more the Lord is tasted the sweeter is our seeking Him. As he says in another psalm: Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 26, 7)
This was a pretty simple animation. I found this vintage illustration from some public domain archives and isolated it in Photoshop. In After Edfects I brought in some background textures and applied Stretch to them to create the background movement, and then a little wiggle hold on the Position of the figure and some texture overlays. I finally added in the text with Shadow Studio applied and then come overall color correction.
Enjoy.
Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee: have mercy on me and hear me. (Psalm 26:7 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here:
