Praise the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, thou art become exceeding glorious; thou art clothed with majesty and honour.
Thou deckest thyself with light as it were with a garment 
 and spreadest out the heavens like a curtain.
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters
 and maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.
He maketh his angels spirits
 and his ministers a flaming fire.

This is from one of the several psalms read at the Easter vigil, to which I'll be going in a few hours. A blessed and joyful Easter to all. 

Here endeth the posting of Coverdale psalms. 

Into thy hands I commend my spirit,
 for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth.

(Coverdale)

What reward shall I give unto the Lord 
 for all the benefits that he hath done unto me?
I will receive the cup of salvation
 and call upon the Name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows now in the presence of all His people;
 right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Behold, O Lord, how that I am thy servant;
 I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid; thou hast broken my bonds in sunder.

(Coverdale)

In more recent translations, "right dear" is "precious." I rather like "right dear."

Save me, O God,
 for the waters are come in, even unto my soul.
I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is;
 I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me.

And why? for thy sake have I suffered reproof;
 shame hath covered my face.
I am become a stranger unto my brethren,
 even an alien unto my mother’s children.
For the zeal of thine house hath even eaten me
 and the rebukes of them that rebuked thee are fallen upon me.

(Coverdale)

The first two verses are not included in today's Mass reading. I just like them. This is one of the imprecatory psalms, full of curses for the psalmist's enemies, and God's. Verse 23 has some relevance for our society.

Let their table be made a snare to take themselves withal 
 and let the things that should have been for their wealth be unto them an occasion of falling.

In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion,
 but rid me, and deliver me, in thy righteousness; incline thine ear unto me, and save me.
Be thou my strong hold, whereunto I may alway resort;
 thou hast promised to help me, for thou art my house of defence, and my castle.

(C0verdale)

I'm just finishing up A Retreat for Lay People, which I planned to read over Lent, and have actually followed through on that plan. There's a lot of really good stuff here, a lot of quotable stuff. The next-to-last chapter is about Mary Magdalene, and this seems a good note for what will most likely be my last post, apart from the psalms, until Easter Monday. 

...for her, the interior virtues. She is the heroine of contrition; and contrition does not, of itself, alter the external fact of our sins; it only alters our attitude towards them. She is the heroine of resignation, and resignation does not help us to do anything; it only helps us to suffer, with patience, those bad times which will come to us whether we are patient over them or no. She is the heroine of hope; and hope does not change the course of the world's history; it only enables us to look forward, in a dark hour, to God's promise that the course of history will yet be changed.

The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
 The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
When the wicked, even mine enemies, and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh,
 they stumbled and fell.

(Coverdale)

For many dogs are come about me,
 and the council of the wicked layeth siege against me.
They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones;
 they stand staring and looking upon me.

(Coverdale)

The opening of this psalm is surely one of the most important for Christians. Usually it's not too far from what I grew up with in the King James:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Though I don't recall hearing the words that follow:

why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

"Roaring" sounds pretty odd to our ears, and presumably had different connotations at the time. I think I'd remember it if it had been widely quoted. 

New American:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?

But Coverdale adds something noticeably different:

My God, my God, look upon me; why hast thou forsaken me,
and art so far from my health, and from the words of my complaint?

I wonder what his warrant for "look upon me" was. 

The responsorial reading is from Jeremiah. 

But here is some penitential music, from Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen, which I wrote about here several years ago.

I have declared thy righteousness in the great congregation;
 lo, I will not refrain my lips, O Lord, and that thou knowest.
I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart;
 my talk hath been of thy truth, and of thy salvation.
I have not kept back thy loving mercy and truth
 from the great congregation.

(Coverdale)