St. Augustine and Psalm 51

Last night, as part of our nightly devotional, my wife and I read the selection on Psalm 51 found in the Praying the Psalms with the Early Christians book which I highlighted a few weeks ago. As I mentioned there, this fine devotional focuses on 34 particular Psalms, including various selections from the Early Church Fathers. Last night, we read the entry on the very famous Psalm 51. It is one of the main penitential Psalms of the Church, most notably read every Friday morning in the Liturgy of the Hours.

Here it is, in the RSV-CE:





Psalm 51
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in thy sight,
so that thou art justified in thy sentence
and blameless in thy judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness;
let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors thy ways,
and sinners will return to thee.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
thou God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance.
O Lord, open thou my lips,
and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
For thou hast no delight in sacrifice;
were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Do good to Zion in thy good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
then wilt thou delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on thy altar.

After reading through this Psalm, we were treated with three short reflections from the Church Fathers, including Clement of Rome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. Although fairly short, Augustine's reflection on Psalm 51 is very poignant, since it helped me to look at Psalm 51 from a different vantage point. So, I want to share that reflection with you know, which comes from his Exposition of the Psalms, which I copied and pasted from, the helpful and inexpensive, The Faith Database. I hope you enjoy it!

"To thee Nathan the prophet hath not been sent, David himself hath been sent to thee Hear him crying, and with him cry: hear him groaning, and with him groan; hear him weeping, and mingle tears; hear him amended, and with him rejoice. If from thee sin could not be excluded, be not hope of pardon excluded. There was sent to that man Nathan the prophet, observe the king's humility. He rejected not the words of him giving admonition, he said not, Darest thou speak to me, a king? An exited king heard a prophet, let His humble people hear Christ."

Amen!

Merry Christmas!

"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God....
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth." --John 1

Merry Christmas to you all. Thanks for stopping by over the past year. I look forward to discussing, debating, and analyzing all things Catholic Bibles with you in 2010.

Peter Kreeft on Christmas

Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft has a fine article on Christmas posted at the following site: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0008.html. Check it out!

Catholic Bible Hopes for 2010

Having already begun a new liturgical year with the first week of Advent, we will soon be entering into the calendar year 2010. I don't know about you, but boy does time fly! The upcoming new year got me thinking about what I would, realistically, like to see happen in the world of Catholic Bibles. So, I decided to list a few of them below. While there are a ton of things I could list, keep in mind that I tried to be as realistic as possible, recognizing the realities of the issues we have discussed on this blog concerning Catholic Bibles.

So here we go:

1) Continued Release of Quality Catholic Bible Study Tools
Over the past few years, the amount of quality Bible study material for Catholics has dramatically increased. Just looking back this past year, we have seen the release of Hahn's Catholic Bible Dictionary, Emmaus Road's The Catholic Bible Concordance, as well as additional Catholic Bible commentaries including the Navarre New Testament, The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture's "Ephesians" and "2 Corinthians", and the final volumes of the Ignatius Study Bible New Testament. There are others which I could mention, like the Faith Database, but I think you get the idea.

What can we look to in 2010? Well, Ignatius Press will be releasing the one-volume Ignatius Study Bible New Testament. It is scheduled to be released in early Spring, with the first editions of the Old Testament coming soon after. I would hope that the Old Testament volumes would come out at a much quicker pace than the New Testament ones. (It would be nice, if this blog still exists in 2019, that one of my hopes for 2020 would not be the "upcoming release" of the complete 1 volume Ignatius Study Bible.) There will also be additional volumes in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture released as well. I am also interested in checking out the 4th Edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which will be released in February 2010.

2) The Publication of the Revised/Re-Revised NAB
This has only taken almost twenty years to complete. The Revised NAB NT was completed in 1986, with the dreadful revised Psalms in 1991. Since then, we have been stuck with a rather inconsistently translated American Catholic Bible for almost two full decades. Yet, there is some hope, with the NAB OT revised and approved and a re-revised Psalms in the works. If the revised OT and Psalms match the NT, I think it will be a decent translation overall. This would bring the entire NAB into the more formal category, slightly behind the RSV and NRSV. Also, it wouldn't be a bad thing either if they could incorporate some of the differences between the NAB we hear read at Mass into the one we read at home or in Bible study. Being able to read "Rejoice/Hail full of grace" in Luke 1:28 would be delightful!

A couple other thoughts that come to mind concerning the NAB. Whenever the revision is completed, it would be nice to see the USCCB/CBA shell out some minor funds to set up a respectable website that could promote the NAB. (Ignatius Press should do the same for their RSV-2CE as well!) The USCCB site just doesn't cut it for me, and there are plenty of other Bible translations that have fantastic sites in which to compare. (The NRSV site is not one of them!) Also, would it be too much for the NAB to come in different page layouts and formats? If you have seen one NAB, you have seen them all. Perhaps allowing a major publishing house to produce the NAB would be a good idea. Maybe the NAB could be made in a genuine leather cover too! Oooo......

3) Publication of Quality/Premium Editions of Catholic Bibles
This may well be a pipe dream, particularly with the state of the economy. However, the recent release of the Saint Benedict Press Douay-Rheims and RSV-CE does provide some hope. These new editions were not only published in multiple cover options, but also in attractive page layouts with accompanying study/prayer helps. In addition, the Little Rock Scripture Study's The Four Gospels, utilizing the NAB, also was encouraging in it's use of a single column format and informative in-text boxes which supplemented the NAB footnotes. And of course there is HarperCollins/Catholic/One who continues to publish the NRSV in different, often attractive editions. Although there always seems to be something lacking in their NRSV editions, like cross-references, I appreciate the effort. So there is some hope I think, although I am not going to wait around for the "perfect" edition to be made. (More on that in the coming weeks!)

So what are you hoping for in 2010?

ROME REPORTS TV News Agency - General Audience: How faith and reason collaborates

As reported earlier this year, The Catholic Faith & Family Bible will be released in early January 2010. It utilizes the NRSV-CE translation and is now available for pre-order at the HarperCollins website. For those interested, you can stop by the Center for Ministry Development website for more info on this new Bible edition. The site includes sample pages and additional material to use with the Bible. As of now, The Catholic Faith & Family Bible comes in paperback and hardcover editions.

Here is a little more info on this Bible, from the HarperCollins website:

Newly available from Our Sunday Visitor and the Center for Ministry Development comes The Catholic Faith and Family Bible. Never before has a study Bible been designed specifically for Catholic families; this version includes introductions to each book of the Bible written specifically for Catholic families, including helpful tips for parents; over 1,000 notes and reflection lines to help families apply Scripture to daily living; an index to guide families to important parts of the Bible that offer especial connection to the Catholic faith; and the NRSV Catholic Edition text approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. A Bible unlike any other, The Catholic Faith and Family Bible offers encouragement and inspiration for Catholic families in every aspect of their lives.

There is a growing desire among Catholics to read the Bible and to find inspiration and wisdom for their daily lives. Yet there is no Bible that brings Catholic families and the Bible together. Developed in partnership with the Center for Ministry Development and Our Sunday Visitor, recognized leaders in Catholic youth and family ministry, The Catholic Faith and Family Bible is designed to make the Bible easier to read and understand for the everyday Catholic family, helping parents and children grow in faith together. This message is brought to life through more than a thousand notes and articles such as:

Act On It!—encourages families to engage in something active that the biblical passage may inspire, such as works of mercy and justice.

Make the Connection—offers important facts about the Bible and shows how the Bible is relevant to Catholic family life today.

Meet the People—introduces the main characters of the Bible.

Pray the Word—offers simple prayers for the family to pray together.

Take It to Heart—invites families to reflect on a biblical passage and discover God's message for their lives.

Additional features include book introductions, helpful articles and Bible reading plans for the family, parenting tips on how to share scripture with children, cultural and ethnic perspectives on the Catholic faith, inspiring articles written specifically for Catholic teens, and a topical index to help families connect their faith to everyday events.

The Catholic Faith and Family Bible is sure to become a welcome part of your family life and a cherished keepsake for years to come.

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Catholic Edition is fully approved for study by Catholics by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and is recognized in scholarly circles as the most accurate translation to English from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. In the tradition of its predecessors, the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version, the NRSV was designed to be the standard version for English-speaking people across all denominations. The NRSV is the most trusted, most accepted, and most accurate English translation of the Bible available today.

RSV-CE vs. RSV-2CE Redux

Over the weekend I had a few spare minutes and decided to count the number of changes between the RSV-CE and the RSV-2CE. Using the Emmaus Road Publishing Catholic Bible Concordance: Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition, I came up with well over 2500 changes between the original and the updated. In all actuality, it may be closer to 2800, but I can't confirm that I always hit the right button on the computer when adding it all up. :) Safe to say, however, the number of changes are significant.

Keep in mind, this does not include the changes made to the archaic language in the original RSV-CE, like the "thees" and "thous". So, overall, that is a pretty hefty number in my book. Certainly worth giving the RSV-2CE a second look.

I wonder how this would compare to the ESV?

Update: A few years back a guy, mmortal03, on the Catholic Answers forums tabulated some of the changes in the new RSV-2CE. This was well before the Emmaus Road Catholic Bible Concordance was released and which documented all of the changes. However, his list remains helpful, in particular when comparing the RSV-2CE to the the original 1966 edition of the RSV-CE and the subsequent updates done by Oxford University Press. So check it out!