The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^2. Let him add poverty then to poverty: let Him transfigure unto Himself our humble body: let Him be our Head, we His limbs, let there be two in one flesh....For He has deigned to hold even us as His limbs. The penitent also are among His limbs. For they are not shut out, nor separated from His Church: nor would He make the Church His spouse, unless by words like these: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Let us then hear what the head and the body prays, the bridegroom and bride, Christ and the Church, both one Person; but the Word and the flesh are not both one thing; the Father and the Word are both one thing; Christ and the Church are both one Person, one perfect man in the form of His own fullness....Let us hear therefore Christ, poor within us and with us, and for our sakes. For the title itself indicates the poor one. Lastly, remember that I conjectured who that poor one was: let us hear His prayer, and recognise His Person; and mistake not, when you shall have heard anything that cannot apply to His Head; it was for this reason that I have prefaced as I have, that whatever you shall hear of this description, you may understand as sounding from the weakness of the body, and recognise the voice of the members in the head. The title is, “A Prayer of the afflicted, when he was tormented, and poured out his prayer before the Lord.” It is the same poor one who elsewhere says: “From the ends of the earth will I call upon You, when my heart is in heaviness.” He is afflicted because He is also Christ; who in the Prophet's words calls Himself both Bridegroom and Bride: “He has bound on me the diadem as on a bridegroom, and as a bride has adorned me with an ornament.” He called Himself Bridegroom, He called Himself Bride; wherefore this, unless Bridegroom applies to the Head, Bride to the body? They are one voice then, because they are one flesh. Let us hear, and recognise ourselves in these words; and if we see that we are without, let us labour to be there.

3. “Hear my prayer, O Lord: and let my crying come unto You”. “Hear my prayer, O Lord,” is the same as, “Let my crying come unto You:” the feeling of the suppliant is shown by the repetition. “Turn not Your face away from me.” When did God turn away His Face from His Son? When did the Father turn away His Face from Christ? But for the sake of the poverty of my members, “Turn not away Your face from me: whatsoever day I am troubled, incline Your ear unto me”....You are in trouble this day, I am in trouble; another is in trouble tomorrow, I am in trouble; after this generation other descendants, who succeed your descendants, are in trouble, I am in trouble; down to the end of the world, whoever are in trouble in My body, I am in trouble....Peter prayed, Paul prayed, the rest of the Apostles prayed; the faithful prayed in those times, the faithful prayed in the following times, the faithful prayed in the times of the Martyrs, the faithful pray in our times, the faithful will pray in the times of our descendants. “Right soon:” for I now ask that which You are willing to grant. I ask not earthly things, as an earthly man; but redeemed at last from my former captivity, I long for the kingdom of heaven; “Hear me right soon:” for it is only to such a longing that You have said, “Even while You are speaking, I will say, Here I am.” Wherefore do you call? In what tribulation? In what want? O poor one, before the gate of God all-rich, in what longing do you beg? From what destitution do you ask relief? From what want do you knock, that it may be opened unto you?

4. “For my days are consumed away like smoke”. O days! If days: for where day is heard of, light is understood. “My days,” my times; wherefore, “like smoke,” unless from the puffing up of pride?...See smoke, like pride, ascending, swelling, vanishing: deservedly therefore failing, and not steadfast. “And my bones are scorched up as it were in an oven.” Both my bones, and my strength, not without tribulation, not without burning. The bones of the body of Christ, the strength of His body, is it anywhere greater than in the Holy Apostles? And yet see that the bones are scorched. “Who is offended, and I burn not?” They are brave, faithful, able interpreters and preachers of the word, living as they speak, speaking as they hear; they are clearly brave, yet all who suffer offenses, are an oven to them. For there is love there, and more so in the bones. The bones are within all the flesh, and support all the flesh. But if any man suffer any offense, and endanger his soul; the bone is scorched in proportion as it loves....