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| Conti (c18th), The parable of the Good Samaritan |
Today's (Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost) Introit in the Extraordinary Form is verses from Psalm 69, but the sentiments and phrases are actually ones used in several other psalms as well. Psalm 69 actually more or less duplicates the second half of Psalm 39, and its sentiments appear in several other places as well:
Deus, in adjutórium meum inténde: Dómine, ad adjuvándum me festína: confundántur et revereántur inimíci mei, qui quærunt ánimam meam. Avertántur retrórsum et erubéscant: qui cógitant mihi mala.
or:
Incline unto my aid, O God: O Lord, make haste to help me: let my enemies be confounded and ashamed, who seek my soul. Let them be turned backward and blush for shame, who desire evils to me.
Let my enemies be confounded and ashamed!
The first verse of the Introit here is the familiar call for God's aid, a call that expresses our dependence on God in all circumstances. It is used at the start of each hour of the Office and in the Mass as a constant reminder that we can do nothing without God, and that nothing happens without God willing it or allowing it.
But the next sets of words are equally important to the Christian, for they are restatements of the prophecies of the Incarnation and of God's promises to us included especially in the Benedictus and Magnificat: of God's help to us in times of temptation, and his commitment that we will never be tempted beyond our ability to resist; of the final victory over the devil; and of the ultimate triumph of the poor in spirit over the proud and powerful.
On the one hand they are a restatement of Our Lord's victory over death and ultimate triumph over the devil; on the other hand they are an invitation to us: to be confounded but the realization of our sinful state, and thus to be ashamed; and to be converted. Only once we have come to this realization can we truly be said to be putting our trust in God's help.
In the Benedictine Office, these sentiments feature heavily in the psalms set for Monday (with Psalm 39), with similar phrases turning up not only at several psalms of Matins, but also closing off Prime (in Psalm 6) and Vespers (in Psalm 128).
But the sentiments are also a good fit to the themes of Wednesday Matins, where this version of the psalm appears, since that day deals with man's betrayal of God, and the election of the gentiles, for in the Gospel for this twelfth Sunday, with the story of the Good Samaritan. The Jews who would have walked past the man who had been robbed and beaten without helping him; but we are invited to be ashamed, repent, and help.
But the sentiments are also a good fit to the themes of Wednesday Matins, where this version of the psalm appears, since that day deals with man's betrayal of God, and the election of the gentiles, for in the Gospel for this twelfth Sunday, with the story of the Good Samaritan. The Jews who would have walked past the man who had been robbed and beaten without helping him; but we are invited to be ashamed, repent, and help.
