Psalm of Father Franco

Fr Franco is the name assumed by Fr George Preca when he was enrolled as a Carmelite Tertiary. The above is an excerpt from the Psalm.

How great and wonderful are all your works,
Lord God Almighty,
just and true are all your ways,
King of nations.
Who would not revere and praise your name, O Lord?
You alone are holy,
and all the pagans will come and adore you,
for the many acts of justice you have shown. (Rev 15:3-4)

   1. Who is like you, O God, or who and what does not have life in you?
   2. You alone existed before ever there was any creature which you formed with your mighty word.
   3. The beauty of the work of your hands emanated from the eternal design of your intellect: you spoke and all was as you willed.
   4. You formed man from the earth's clay. Lord God Yahweh: you gave him life with your breath and created him in your image.
   5. You gifted him with a soul: with the intellect to know, the judgment to discern, the free will to choose.
   6. You endowed him with your grace that he may worthily adore you: you endowed him with immortality.
   7. You made him master of the birds, of the fish, of the animals: you engraved in him the inner law with which you tied him to you.
   8. You held him to you with the law for your own glory for you created everything for yourself: and also for his own good, for you wanted him to partake of your joy in abundant peace.
   9. Who is the man that gazes at his hands and does not declare that he depends on the Omnipotent Benefactor?
  10. Justly, you ordered him to love you with all his heart, and to love his neighbour as himself.
  11. And justly did you dispossess him in the Day of Trial: you humiliated him with animals' hide for clothing; you sent him into exile.
  12. For he did not keep to your word, deceived as he was by the envy of your enemy of old.
  13. Your mercy intervened to atone your justice thus insulted by his sin.
  14. And so it was that you, in a great marvellous move, promised a Saviour, alone able and becoming.
  15. You promised a Redeemer: who came in your appointed time to lift up man from his fallen state.
  16. The Word of God became flesh and He shed his blood that worthily satisfied your infinite justice.
  17. Lord God of Mercy, how could your enemy of old ever imagine that you could heal such an irreparable harm!
  18. For he thought that everyone, Adam and all his line, would irretrievably remain his slaves.
  19. He knew well that no creature was so much worthy as to be able to atone an offence to the Infmite Creator.
  20. And so he trembled, astounded before the only victim worthy of you, God Almighty!
  21. Adorable Victim that took away the sin of the world: that endowed man ' s soul with grace: that made him pass from death to life eternal.
  22. Your love for mankind is the wonder of all your wonders.
  23. You are love, and those who know you become so enflamed with it that they remain in you and you in them.
  24. True and pure Love; Love eternal who alone is life!