Every Friday Psalm 51 is the Church’s morning prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. “Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness. In your compassion wipe out my offense.” It’s one of the most important prayers we say.  A good prayer to accompany our readings from the Letter to the Romans.

Unfortunately, we can be so convinced we’re living a good life that we become blind to our own faults, St. Augustine says in his comments on this psalm. In our blindness we’re quicker to see the faults of others rather than our own. There’s evil in life, so if it’s not in us it must be out there in others. 

King David, who is closely associated with this psalm, was quick to see the man the Prophet Nathan described to him as worthy of death. He didn’t see he was the guilty one.

Psalm 51 reminds us we’re sinners and we should know our sins and not forget them. “My offenses truly I know them, and my sin is always before me.” 

Only God can bring about the knowledge of our sins, our psalm says.. We can’t know ourselves and our sins completely on our own, however honest and thorough we may try to be. Only God can bring us knowledge of ourselves. 

In their commentaries on this psalm, scholars point out there’s no list of sins for us to check out. The psalm is mostly concerned with asking God’s help. “You love truth in the heart, then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.”

We ask Godd to create a pure heart and a steadfast spirit in us, to wash us and sprinkle us with hyssop that we may be clean. St. Augustine says that hyssop is a plant that clings to rocks; it knows hard places, like the human heart. 

We ask for a ‘spirit of joy”, a “spirit of fervor” to do what we’re called to do in this life, and it’s not just for ourselves we pray. The walls of Jerusalem, the world around us, are waiting to be rebuilt and we’re asking God to rebuild them.

Take a look at the church’s morning and evening prayers here