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<spirituality theme="Psalm of Father Franco">
<para>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.</para>
<para>
  <quote>
    <text>How great and wonderful are all your works,</text>
    <text>Lord God Almighty,</text>
    <text>just and true are all your ways,</text>
    <text>King of nations.</text>
    <text>Who would not revere and praise your name, O Lord?</text>
    <text>You alone are holy,</text>
    <text>and all the pagans will come and adore you,</text>
    <text>for the many acts of justice you have shown. (Rev 15:3-4)</text>
  </quote>
</para>
<para>
  <list>
    <item>Who is like you, O God, or who and what does not have life in you?</item>
    <item>You alone existed before ever there was any creature which you formed with your mighty word.</item>
    <item>The beauty of the work of your hands emanated from the eternal design of your intellect: you spoke and all was as you willed.</item>
    <item>You formed man from the earth's clay. Lord God Yahweh: you gave him life with your breath and created him in your image.</item>
    <item>You gifted him with a soul: with the intellect to know, the judgment to discern, the free will to choose.</item>
    <item>You endowed him with your grace that he may worthily adore you: you endowed him with immortality.</item>
    <item>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.</item>
    <item>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.</item>
    <item>Who is the man that gazes at his hands and does not declare that he depends on the Omnipotent Benefactor?</item>
    <item>Justly, you ordered him to love you with all his heart, and to love his neighbour as himself.</item>
    <item>And justly did you dispossess him in the Day of Trial: you humiliated him with animals' hide for clothing; you sent him into exile.</item>
    <item>For he did not keep to your word, deceived as he was by the envy of your enemy of old.</item>
    <item>Your mercy intervened to atone your justice thus insulted by his sin.</item>
    <item>And so it was that you, in a great marvellous move, promised a Saviour, alone able and becoming.</item>
    <item>You promised a Redeemer: who came in your appointed time to lift up man from his fallen state.</item>
    <item>The Word of God became flesh and He shed his blood that worthily satisfied your infinite justice.</item>
    <item>Lord God of Mercy, how could your enemy of old ever imagine that you could heal such an irreparable harm!</item>
    <item>For he thought that everyone, Adam and all his line, would irretrievably remain his slaves.</item>
    <item>He knew well that no creature was so much worthy as to be able to atone an offence to the Infmite Creator.</item>
    <item>And so he trembled, astounded before the only victim worthy of you, God Almighty!</item>
    <item>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.</item>
    <item>Your love for mankind is the wonder of all your wonders.</item>
    <item>You are love, and those who know you become so enflamed with it that they remain in you and you in them.</item>
    <item>True and pure Love; Love eternal who alone is life!</item>
  </list>
</para>
</spirituality>

