Psalm 34:7

For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction: without cause they have upbraided my soul. (Psalm 34:7 DR)

Thy mystery of evil and suffering is great, and we are not readily adequated to bear it with much fortitude beyond that which is necessary. Our Lord says to rejoice when we suffer persecution (cf. Matthew 5:10-12), which seems outlandish when we find it difficult to not even raise our voices in complaint, let alone lash out in anger. We have a difficult enough time suffering the just or natural results of our wrongdoings and errors, and manage to convince ourselves that we will never suffer for doing what is right. Thus, when this invariably comes, the injustice almost feels worse, since obviously the universe is supposed to align with our desires at all times.

However, St. Peter notes that virtue is found especially in bearing unjust suffering, for in doing so we are being conformed into the likeness of Christ and sharing in His sufferings:

For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if committing sin, and being buffeted for it, you endure? But if doing well you suffer patiently; this is thankworthy before God. For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not: but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly. (1 Peter 2:19-23 DR)

As the Psalmist continues he turns now to the cause of his prayer, the unjust persecution that his enemies bring against him. They have hidden a net for him without cause; that is, they are deliberately trying to ensnare him even though he has done nothing to provoke this evil. It is not that they are plotting revenge or retaliating for some wrong done to them; in fact, as was seen in the previous passages, the Psalmist even prays that they may be converted from their wickedness.

The Vulgate has quoniam gratis absconderunt mihi interitum laquei sui, and here gratis is rendered in the Douay-Rheims as without cause. The English cognate has the sense of for free, and that idea is not altogether absent here. The image is ultimately of recompense for an act or the lack thereof, and here the hiding of the net is not a payment or recompense for any action on the Psalmist’s part. His enemies are—as it were—doing this out of the overflow of their hearts; that is, because they desire it. When we do something gratis for someone, it generally has a positive connotation; we might even say that we do it out of the goodness of our hearts. In this sense then the evil done gratis by his enemies is the mirror image of this, arising from the evil of their hearts:

For gratuitously they have hidden from me their net unto destruction: to no purpose they have upbraided my soul. Gratuitously indeed, for He had done them no evil. This figure is called syncrisis, when by a kind of comparison we show that our case is juster than that of our opponent. We say that a thing is gratuitous when it is not offered to counterbalance anything. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 7, Ancient Christian Writers.)

There is a slight variant here between the Vulgate and the Old Latin that St. Augustine used, in that he has quoniam gratis absconderunt mihi muscipulae suae corruptionem, which in English is for without cause have they hid for me the corruption of their trap. The Vulgate’s reading of unto destruction speaks to the end result of the trap—that is, that the Psalmist may be brought to destruction—whereas the reading of corruption of their trap looks more at the evil of the trap itself. Both, of course, ultimately coalesce in the same snare that is laid without cause. However, St. Augustine sees in this trap of corruption an allusion or prophecy of those who sought to ensnare our Lord Jesus Christ:

For without cause have they hid for me the corruption of their trap. For Him that is our Head, observe, the Jews did this: they hid the corruption of their trap. For whom hid they their trap? For Him who saw the hearts of those that hid. But yet was He among them like one ignorant, as though He were deceived, whereas they were in that deceived, that they thought Him to be deceived. For therefore was He as though deceived, living among them, because we among such as they were so to live, as to be without doubt deceived. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 10.)

The depths of sin and the manner in which it darkens the intellect is fully revealed here in the great irony St. Augustine draws out. For they sought to deceive our Lord by hiding these snares for Him, as is often mentioned in the Gospels when they try to trap Him in His words, such as the question about paying taxes to Caesar:

Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech. And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what dost thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the coin of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? They say to him: Caesar’s. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s. And hearing this they wondered, and leaving him, went their ways. (Matthew 22:15-22 DR)

They could have asked this question sincerely, as it is a question worth both asking and having answered, but they were not interested in the answer. Rather, they were interested in an answer, but only the one they already had in mind, which they purposed to use against Him. They thus laid this interrogatory trap for Him, hoping to catch Him either in treason towards Caesar by rejecting the paying of taxes, or in the rejection of God as King by acknowledging Caesar’s authority.

But—as St. Augustine notes—our Lord knew the purposes of their hearts and how they were hiding their trap of corruption. However, their own sin and malice blinded them to the truth of Who He was, and in their attempts to deceive Him they were themselves deceived, for they thought Him a mere man Who could be trapped in His words as not knowing what their devices against Him were. The corruption of their trap thus arises from the corruption of their own hearts, and though they meant it to be a trap for Him unto destruction, it instead ensnared them unto their own destruction. This dynamic is also borne out in the case of Judas:

He saw His betrayer, and chose him the more to a necessary work. By his evil He wrought a great good: and yet among the twelve was he chosen, lest even the small number of twelve should be without one evil. This was an example of patience to us, because it was necessary that we should live among the evil: it was necessary that we should endure the evil, either knowing them or knowing them not: an example of patience He gave you lest you should fail, when you have begun to live among the evil. And because that School of Christ in the twelve failed not, how much more ought we to be firm, when in the great Church is fulfilled what was predicted of the mixture of the evil. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 10.)

This great good of which St. Augustine speaks is of course the Passion and Death of our Lord upon the cross by which He wrought salvation in offering Himself as a pleasing sacrifice to the Father. It also serves as an apologia, as it were, for the evils that are often seen in the Church. For if our Lord chose Judas as one of His disciples knowing that he would betray Him, then the various trials and tribulations of the Body of Christ which arise from those within are not to be a cause of scandal or loss of faith:

For neither did the same School see rendered to the Seed of Abraham what had been promised, and that very threshing floor, whence the grain that shall fill the garner must proceed. Wherefore then, when the threshing is, is not the chaff justly endured therein, until it be purged by the last winnowing ? For this will surely come upon the evil, which ye have heard. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 10.)

The parable of our Lord about the wheat and the chaff is one that St. Augustine often uses as an explanation for the presence of evil men within the Church, for just as in the parable the enemies of the king sowed weeds into his fields, so the devil sows wicked men into the Church. Yet the judgment is reserved until the harvest; that is, until the final judgment, when the wheat will be separated from the chaff. There is an excellent parallel here with the previous verse about the wicked being like dust before the wind, as dust and chaff are often used interchangeably:

Therefore they shall be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the dust that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. (Hosea 13:3 DR)

The floor here in Hosea is the threshing floor, of which the prophet St. John the Baptist speaks concerning our Lord:

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Luke 3:17 DR)

In this respect the evils that befall the Church are to be expected, for the enemies of the Church will seek to destroy her in any way possible, even from within. But just as trying to uproot the weeds before the harvest might uproot the wheat in the process, so these evils must be endured until the final judgment. As noted earlier, our Lord provides the model for this patience, as He endured unjust suffering and punishment for the sake of His bride, the Church.

For, as the Psalmist continues, it was also without cause that they upbraided His soul. The Vulgate uses the word supervaccuæ here, which the Douay-Rheims translates as without cause. Supervaccuæ carries the sense of superfluous or needless; the English term vacuous is derived from vacuus, itself meaning empty, vacant. Thus this could literally be rendered as really needless or, in the current vernacular, super unnecessary. St. Jerome’s Hebrew translation uses sine causa—without cause—which is probably why the Douay-Rheims doubles up on rendering this as without cause.

The Old Latin renders this using vane, which is vainly or without purpose, which perhaps again underscores the manner in which sin darkens the intellect and corrupts the soul. For not only is there no cause for the evil which is done, but it doesn’t even have the effect it is intended to have. It is done in vain; that is, it is confounded in its exercise. However, the perversion is this—they hide their traps in spite of its lack of efficacy. Thus, they wish to do the evil for the sake of doing evil, because they love it, as our Lord says:

And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. (John 3:19-20 DR)

It is the magnificent providence of God that thus turns evil towards good, for evil in itself is at root non-being, the privation of good. But since God is author of all life and being, He works in and through the midst of the fallenness of this world and especially within His Church to sanctify her and her members within. This is in fact the cause for which our Lord was delivered over to the evil designs of those who without cause put Him to death, so that we might be brought to life and sanctified in being united to Him in His mystical Body:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27 DR)

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I isolated a photo of a crucifix and brought it into After Effects and applied Shadow Studio 3 to it, linking the source point to a Null to control the shadow. I found a nice landscape image and applied some Turbulent Displace to that to make it more abstract and animated the evolution to get the seamless loop. I also added in a couple moving shapes for visual interest and finished up with some color correction.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: