Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the memory of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council!

Today let us continue our discussion from the previous two weeks and turn our attention to the final psalm of the First Hour, the 100th (101), ‘I will sing of mercy and judgment.’ This spiritual hymn of the Holy Prophet of God David is clearly and beautifully translated into English. In it King David does not pray to God for anything, but instead, makes a promise to Him to live perfectly, to set up in his own house and in his kingdom a blameless way of life, to banish far from himself the sinful, and instead, to have the saints close by. In the final verse, David asserts that he will “cut off all wicked doers” from Jerusalem.

This psalm is well-suited to the First Hour, that is, to morning prayer, for in it we read the words “I will early destroy all the wicked of the land” (or in another translation: “Morning by morning I will destroy…”). This psalm is also read during the blessing of a new house because of the following words: “I will walk within my house with a perfect heart,” as well as “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house.” For some of you it may be interesting to know that ‘I will sing of mercy and judgment’ was sung at the beginning of the coronation of the Holy Tsar Martyr Nicholas, while he and his wife Alexandra entered the Dormition Cathedral. There is nothing accidental here either, for it is as if before beginning his reign, through the words of King David, the Russian Emperor was making a promise to rule in a holy manner.

As is evident from what was said above, the words of the 100th psalm can be applied to many different situations. They are good for a monastic hermit, for a king or ruler, as well as for families. For people living in families it is not sufficient to take care of only oneself. Instead, such people must care for all the members of the family and nurture the children in a Christian spirit. The best method of doing this is to provide a good example of holiness, or, as David expresses this idea, to “walk within my house with a perfect heart.” The words “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight” highlight the importance of shielding members of our family from all that is sinful. Although few of us lead open sinners into our homes, unfortunately it seems to me that through the internet, television, and the screens of our telephones we are as if inviting precisely such people into our homes. Of course, there are many good and useful things on the internet; therefore, let us try to remember the 6th and 7th verses of today’s psalm: “Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight,” not only when we converse with real living people, but also when we find ourselves in the virtual world.

Today let us pray to the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, who zealously cleansed the house of the Church from vile heretics, the iconoclasts, so that the words of the 100th psalm become for each of us a guiding light in all aspects of our lives.

priest Alexis