Forgiveness of Sins
Saint Aloysius Church, Columbus, Ohio, 1927

My dear friends,

Psalm 51 is a cry from the heart of King David, who has tasted the bitterness of his own moral failure and longs to return to the embrace of divine mercy. On the Bodhisattva path, this yearning is transformed into mahakaruna, the "great compassion" that seeks freedom from suffering for all beings. Let us contemplate this psalm as a sacred text of purification, humility, and the turning of the heart toward the Way.

The Psalmist's lament is the voice of the deluded mind awakening to its karmic inheritance. Just as a practitioner on the Bodhisattva path engages in daily reflection on actions of body, speech, and mind, so does the psalm teach us to recognize the truth of our condition. This is not the hopeless guilt of the ego, but the sober recognition that afflictive emotions have shaped our lives. To say "against you only have I sinned" is to realize the sacred nature of all existence, and that every act of ignorance offends the intrinsic Buddha-nature in oneself and others. In this realization, the mind turns to the four powers of purification: reliance on the divine, regret for wrongdoing, the resolve not to repeat it, and the practice of virtuous deeds.

The "secret heart" is that innermost chamber where the Holy Spirit, or bodhicitta, abides as potential. The wisdom the Psalmist requests is the prajñā that sees things as they truly are: impermanent, interdependent, and empty of inherent existence. To be "washed clean" symbolizes the removal of the obscurations that veil our awakened nature. The crushed bones signify ego's collapse, and from this collapse arises the joy of seeing that the self was never solid, and that liberation is possible.

To ask for a clean heart is to request the arising of bodhicitta, the mind of compassion and wisdom that sees all beings as worthy of freedom from suffering. The "right spirit" is the balance of ethics, concentration, and insight. This is not given from outside, but awakened within by grace and practice. In the Christian tongue, the "Holy Spirit" is the presence of divine love; in the Dharma, it is the uncontrived compassion that flows from understanding emptiness. This joy of salvation is the joy of liberation from self-clinging, the taste of freedom that sustains us on the long path to Buddhahood.

The Bodhisattva vow is here proclaimed: having been delivered from delusion, we dedicate our life to awakening others. The Psalmist's resolve to teach and praise echoes Shantideva's aspiration: "May I be a bridge, a lamp, a boat... for those who seek the other shore." Deliverance from bloodshed is the purification of negative karma and the embrace of non-harming. Praise is not flattery of the Divine, but the spontaneous joy of Dharma that overflows into speech. The open lips of the Psalmist are like the lion's roar of the Buddha—truth proclaimed for the benefit of all beings.

The outer rites are meaningless without inner transformation. The "broken spirit" is not despair but the humbling of pride and self-righteousness—the same mind that bows in prostration before the altar and before every being as a potential Buddha. In this, the Psalmist has grasped the essence of the Dharma: it is not our offerings but our sincerity, not our rituals but our renunciation of ego, that pleases the Divine. This contrition is itself sacred, a gateway to the path of awakening.

Thus Psalm 51 becomes for us a text of profound transformation. From recognition of our karma, through purification, to the arising of bodhicitta and the vow to aid others—this is the path of the Bodhisattva. May we, like the Psalmist, be broken open by mercy and reconstituted in compassion. May our hearts be clean, our lips proclaim truth, and our lives be offerings to the liberation of all beings.