Bellarmine on Psalm 122 : Verse 4

Verse 4

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: for we are greatly filled with contempt.

Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri, quia multum repleti sumus despectione;

Not content with having implored for mercy by fixing his eyes on God, he calls out with the voice of his heart and body on behalf of himself and his fellow travellers, saying: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.”And truly, he who rightly notices and attentively considers what then follows: “for we are greatly filled with contempt,” will understand clearly that our wretchedness is so great that it is not possible to cease crying out in this way. For man, created in the image of God, and set over all the works of the Lord, even frequently adopted by this same God as a son, and predestined for the kingdom of heaven, this man on his (earthly) journey is despised not only by the demons and wicked men, but also by animals, even by the smallest ones, and is greatly troubled by them, so that the Prophet says most truthfully, that we are not only despised, but that “we are greatly filled with contempt,” not merely filled but greatly filled. For what is there that does not look down upon man, even a just and holy man, in this valley of tears? But the principal contempt about which the Prophet speaks in this context is what the good suffer from the wicked, the just from the iniquitous. Most truthful and universal is that saying of the Apostle: “And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution;”[1] note too the words of the Lord: “ If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”[2] The reason is simple, because good and evil are opposites, and opposites can have no peace with each other. Since the just are patient and meek, and have learned from the Lord not to resist evil, and to turn the other cheek to someone striking them, they are in consequence proudly held in contempt, despised and persecuted by the wicked.

[1] And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. Et omnes, qui pie volunt vivere in Christo Jesu, persecutionem patientur. [I Tim. iii. 12]

[2] If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Si de mundo fuissetis, mundus quod suum erat diligeret : quia vero de mundo non estis, sed ego elegi vos de mundo, propterea odit vos mundus. [John xv 19]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.