Praying the Psalms in Christ

Laurence Kriegshauser

Description

Written centuries before Christ, the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible have been prayed by Christians since the founding of the Church. The early church fathers expounded the psalms in the light of the mystery of Christ, his death and resurrection, and his saving redemption. In this book, a Benedictine monk examines the Christian praying of the Psalms, taking into account modern and contemporary research on the Psalms. Working from the Hebrew text, Fr. Laurence Kriegshauser offers a verse-by-verse commentary on each of the one hundred and fifty psalms, highlighting poetic features such as imagery, rhythm, structure, and vocabulary, as well as theological and spiritual dimensions and the relation of psalms to each other in the smaller collections that make up the whole. The book attempts to integrate modern scholarship on the Psalms with the act of prayer and help Christians pray the psalms with greater understanding of their Christological meaning.

The book contains an introduction, a glossary of terms, an index of topics, a table of English renderings of selected Hebrew words, and an index of biblical citations.

Praying the Psalms in Christ will be welcomed by students of theology and liturgy, by priests, religious, and laypeople who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and by all Christians who seek to pray the Psalms with greater profit and fervor.

Sujets

• Biblical Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Devotional
• Devotion
• Liturgy of the Hours
• Benedictine
• Hebrew Bible
• General officer
• Spirituality
• Old Testament
• Religion
• General

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268084523
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

READING THE SCRIPTURES
Gary A. Anderson, Matthew Levering, and Robert Louis Wilken
series editors
PRAYING
the PSALMS
in CHRIST
LAURENCE KRIEGSHAUSER, O.S.B.
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2009 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu -->
All Rights Reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-268-08452-3
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] Manufactured in the United States of America --> Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data --> Kriegshauser, Laurence. --> Praying the Psalms in Christ / Laurence Kriegshauser. --> p. cm. — (Reading the Scriptures) --> Includes bibliographical references and indexes. --> ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03320-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) --> ISBN-10: 0-268-03320-X (pbk. : alk. paper) --> 1. Bible. O.T. Psalms—Devotional use. 2. Bible. O.T. Psalms—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Jesus Christ. I. Title. --> BS1430.54.K75 2009 --> 223'.207—dc22 --> 2009001154 --> ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. -->
To my mother and to Abbot Luke
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Psalms 1–150
Glossary of Terms
English Renderings of Selected Hebrew Words
Bibliography
Index of Biblical Books Other Than the Psalms
Index of Selected Topics
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the following who in various ways made this work possible: Abbot Thomas Frerking, O.S.B., Ralph Wright, O.S.B., Ambrose Bennett, O.S.B., the Passionist Nuns of Ellisville, Missouri, the Saint Anselm Parish prayer group, Dom Bernard McElligott of Ampleforth Abbey, Professor Frank O’Malley of the University of Notre Dame, Dominique Barthélemy, O.P., of the University of Fribourg, Katie Lehman and Barbara Hanrahan of the University of Notre Dame Press, Dr. Thomas Moran, Jordan Cherrick, Reverend Mr. Gerry Quinn, Nick White, and Joseph Marrs.
Psallite sapienter . Ps 47:8
INTRODUCTION

The excellence of Christian prayer lies in this, that it shares in the very love of the only-begotten Son for the Father and in that prayer which the Son put into words in his earthly life and which still continues unceasingly in the name of the whole human race and for its salvation, throughout the universal Church and in all its members. ( GILH 7)
With these words from the General Instruction for the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church proclaims the dignity of Christian prayer: it is a share in the prayer of the Incarnate Son of God himself. The Gospels show Christ frequently in prayer. He needed to commune with his heavenly Father to find wisdom and strength for his saving ministry and to entrust himself and his mission to the Father’s guidance. It was his prayer that animated his sacrificial offering of himself to the Father (Heb 5:7). But at an even deeper level, as the eternal Son of God he was always in intimate communion with the Father from whom he proceeded and whom he loved with an infinite love. The love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the Father is a third and distinct person, the Holy Spirit, who is the bond between the Father and the Son. The prayer of the Son on earth was a human participation in this trinitarian love, and the Church teaches that Christians who are baptized in Christ are drawn into this ineffable prayer of the Son to the Father: they are privileged to participate in it. Even when we cannot put this prayer into words or concepts, the Spirit of Christ is praying in us the prayer of the Son “with unutterable groanings” (Rom 8:26). It is the Christian’s task to allow the Spirit to produce this prayer in us, so that we say with Christ, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15–17).
E UCHARIST AND L ITURGY OF THE H OURS
The principal Christian prayer is the Eucharist, in which we are invited to offer to the Father the very sacrifice of the Son on Calvary. As Christ offers himself to the Father in our midst, we let ourselves be taken up into his offering, giving to the Father both the Sacred Body and Blood of his Son and our own selves incorporated into him. The single, once-for-all sacrifice of the Son on behalf of the whole human race is not repeated but is realized again, made present in our time and place. The offering of the Son to the Father did not cease at his death but endures forever: the Son continually offers to the Father the Body that was slain and is now risen. In the measure in which we can join in this truly cosmic sacrifice we are purified of sin and made holy. The Eucharist perfects our transformation in Christ.
From apostolic times Christians gathered for prayers outside the Eucharist as well. They practiced with new meaning the prayers offered in Judaism at certain times of the day. They prayed in the morning, seeing in the rising sun a symbol of the Lord who rose on Easter morning. They prayed in the evening, recalling the Lord’s Supper and his Crucifixion both of which occurred toward the end of the day. Prayers celebrated at regular hours became a kind of sacramental fulfilment of the Lord’s injunction to “Pray always” (Luke 18:1; cf. 1 Thess 5:17), and the common vocal prayer was meant to sustain an interior prayer that would continue through the whole of the day.
L ITURGY OF THE H OURS AND P SALMS
Where were the first disciples to find words to formulate the ineffable prayer of the Son to the Father? Christ himself gave the example in praying the psalms of Israel. On the cross he uttered both the psalmist’s cry, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matt 27:46 = Ps 22:2) and the prayer of trust, “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46 = Ps 31:6). He applied passages from the psalms to himself: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone” (Matt 21:42 = Ps 118:22); “The Lord’s revelation to my master: ‘Sit on my right. I will put your foes beneath your feet’” (Matt 22:43–45, 26:64 = Ps 110:1); “My friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has raised his heel against me” (John 13:18 = Ps 41:10); “Now my soul is troubled” (John 12:27 = Ps 42:7); “They hated me without cause” (John 15:25 = Ps 35:19, 69:5). After his resurrection he showed the apostles how the psalms were fulfilled in him, particularly in his suffering, death, and rising (cf. Luke 24:44–47).
The apostles and evangelists followed suit in finding Christ in the psalms. Particularly in the events of his Passion they found the psalms fulfilled: “They divide my clothing among them; they cast lots for my robe” (John 19:24 = Ps 22:19); “For food they gave me poison; in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Matt 27:34, 48 = Ps 69:22), and so forth. Saint Peter found a prophecy of his resurrection from the dead in Psalm 15: “Even my body will rest in safety, for you will not leave my soul among the dead nor let your beloved know decay. You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence, at your right hand happiness forever” (Acts 2:26–28, 31 = Ps 16:9–11). For Saint Paul Psalm 8:7, “You put all things under his feet,” was to be applied to Christ (1 Cor 15:26–28, Eph 1:22–23). Three times the author of Revelation applies to the risen Christ Psalm 2:9: “With a rod of iron you will break them” (Rev 2:27, 12:5, 19:15). Not only did Christians see Christ in the psalms; in praying the psalms they explicitly related certain verses to the events of his death and resurrection (see Acts 4:24–30 with respect to Ps 2:1–2). The psalms were as much part of early Christian prayer as they were part of the prayer of Jesus (cf. Mark 14:26, 1 Cor 14:26, Eph 5:19, Col 3:16, Jas 5:13).
By the beginning of the third century psalmody was a regular part of the daily hours of prayer. Psalms were commented on by bishops and catechists. Already Tertullian had heard in the psalms the voice of Christ: “Nearly all the psalms bear the person of Christ, that is, they represent Christ uttering words to the Father. Notice also the Spirit speaking as a third person about the Father and the Son.” 1 It was Saint Augustine who most consistently propounded the Christian application of the psalms. For him the psalm was the “voice of the whole Christ, head and members,” that is, the prayer of Christ in his Body the Church. His vision is magisterially expressed in the great beginning of the exposition on Psalm 85:

God could have granted no greater gift to human beings than to cause his Word, through whom he created all things, to be their head, and to fit them to him as his members. He was thus to be both Son of God and Son of Man, one God with the Father, one human being with us. The consequence is that when we speak to God in prayer we do not separate the Son from God and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself. The one sole savior of his body is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, prays in us, and is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, and he is prayed to by us as our God. Accordingly we must recognize our voices in him, and his accents in ourselves. . . .
He further counsels his listeners, “Say nothing apart from [Christ], as he says nothing apart from you.” 2 And so if the psalm prays, “Out of the depths I call to you, O Lord,” it is Christ in his Passion praying along with Christ in his suffering members throughout the world right now. If it prays, “I will praise you among the nations,” it is the risen Christ praising the Father in the Church spread throughout the world. In the words of Jean C