Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

Coventry Patmore, a 19th-century English poet, in a poem (“The Toys”) refers to having slapped his little son: "Having my law the seventh time disobeyed, / I struck him, and dismissed / with hard words and unkissed, / his mother, who was patient, being dead." Later, sorry and penitent, the poet stops by the boy’s bed, sees his lashes still wet from sobbing and that he has arranged some toys by his bed. Touched, Patmore prays to God that when we lie dying God will remember "of what toys we made our joys" and will say of us, “I will be sorry for their childishness.” In other words: I’ll forgive, take into consideration the toys and distractions, not all so innocent, that so often have taken up their time.

Patmore echoes some comforting lines in Psalm 130: “If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive? But with you there is forgiveness” (3,3.) We may judge each other harshly at times but because “our ways are not God’s ways” we can trust God who knows us more profoundly to be more lenient.

"To know all is to forgive all" as has been said may put it too extremely, but. . . . Certainly, there are some tougher words about sin. But Psalm 130 deserves to be kept in mind. Appropriately we often use this Psalm at funerals: “If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive?”

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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