Notre Dame Folk Choir – The Folk Choir serves the University of Notre Dame as one of the principal liturgical choirs, singing every Sunday during the academic year at the 11:45 A.M. Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

In this lament, the psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance from sin. Part of our Lenten journey is coming to understand the depths of our own sinfulness – not so that we might despair, but rather so that we turn to God with a penitential heart, begging for mercy and compassion. Only in and through God’s mercy can our offenses be blotted out and our hearts be made clean. We are undeserving of such grace, but the psalmist’s plea becomes our own as we grasp the ways in which sin has turned us away from God.

(Lyrics)
Have mercy on me, O God.
In your kindness, cleanse me from sin.

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion, blot out my offense.
Wash me more and more from my guilt,
and cleanse me from my sin.

Have mercy on me, O God.
In your kindness, cleanse me from sin.

My offenses, truly I know them.
My sin is always before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.

Have mercy on me, O God.
In your kindness, cleanse me from sin.

Indeed, you love truth in the heart.
In the secret of my heart, teach me wisdom.
Purify me and I shall be clean,
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

Have mercy on me, O God.
In your kindness, cleanse me from sin.

“Have Mercy on Me: Psalm 51” by Steven C. Warner.
Text © 1963, The Grail, England. GIA Publications, Inc., exclusive North American agent.
Music © 1990, World Library Publications, a division of GIA Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Image: Stations of the Cross, St. Joseph’s Lake

For more songs, please visit Songs of Notre Dame: A Lenten Offering