Born more than two thousand years ago in Israel, the poetic songs known as the psalms are still alive today in the prayers of the world.
CHRISTIANS have become increasingly aware of the psalms since Vatican II, when their translation into English and other vernacular languages was begun. Cries, pleas, prayers, songs of praise and thanksgiving... In the Bible, the faithful find a never-ending source of nourishment in the psalms.
LIKE SO MANY MIRRORS
Historians believe that most of the psalms share very old origins, some possibly even pagan. They were modified over time, reflecting the faith of Israel. Many psalms were spontaneously made up by believers and then adopted by the community to express their faith and fidelity to God. The authors were soon forgotten. At other times, psalms were intentionally revised to accommodate the community's worship needs. David, the renowned Hebrew king, organized Israel's liturgy, and is credited with the composition of many psalms. Not just a poet, the Bible shows us he was also a gifted musician who played the cithara, a lyre-like instrument.
The 150 psalms are gathered into a book called the Psalter, and reflect true humanity, full of tears and joys, like so many mirrors of defiance and faithfulness, despair and redemption, yesterday and today.
PSALMS OR POEMS?
You can't just plough through the psalms! You need to approach them with care, and become familiar with them. It's like breaking through the bark of a tree to extract the sweet sap from it. It takes effort and patience. If you're looking for pious and edifying poetry in the psalms, you may at first be disappointed. Joseph Gelineau, the French Jesuit, and pioneer of liturgical music and psalms in French, explains that the poetry of the psalms won't be found in subjective feelings. It lies in a completely objective linguistic pattern: alternating between moments that speak and moments that don't speak. The person who cries out does not form sentences. He squeezes his message into a few syllables. The words are full of sound and emotion.
For the poet, the literary device of alternating speech is his art form: he breaks up ordinary speech and recomposes it so that, in the new form that he has created, the words fill us with new senses and tastes, ideas and emotions yet unspoken and unheard.
THE HERITAGE OF THE PSALMS
Not all psalms have the same spiritual quality. Some sing of the beauty of Creation or celebrate the glory of the Creator. Others express humanity's confidence and implore God's pity. Many are calls for help, cries of distress or humble requests. Still others give thanks to God for his kindness and mercy. Some psalms are actually meditations on the human condition or efforts to teach from the wisdom of experience.
Jesus prayed the psalms, as did Mary, the apostles, and the first Christian communities. That's why they became official prayers of the Church and why they're found in all Christian liturgies.
THE PRAYER OF THE WORLD
Since the psalms express all human feelings, it may be difficult to make a private and personal interpretation of them. These moving prayers, poured from the cup of human suffering, especially from oppression and injustice, take on a deeper meaning when interpreted universally. For me,, confides Michel Hubaut, a French priest, praying the psalms means attaching my little history onto a History of the People of God, a History that concerns us all. It's discovering that there is, in the end, only one People that sings, stumbles, moves forward, falls back, and starts over again.
Therefore, the psalms can be prayed by each of us individually and, at the same time, by the community that recites or sings them. However, through every person who prays the psalms, the petitions and hopes of all the poor and oppressed throughout the world are heard. It is Jesus himself, always identified with the hungry and homeless, the destitute and humble, who raises his prayer and his plea.
The psalms that Jesus prayed also formed his dialogue with his Father. Therefore, praying the psalms joins us with the great voice of Christ, that of the Church and that of all people. No one prays alone... with the psalms.
A LIVING TRADITION
How do we explain that for nearly three thousand years, millions of men and women have read these poems over and over again throughout their lives and that the spiritual sense that they find there never stops growing? Are the psalms filled by a Presence?
The Jews, who composed and prayed the psalms, lived their individual lives and the events of their history in faith. When praying today, by repeating these words, they still find in them the expression of their misery, their search for God, and their praise. Once absorbed and reflected upon, these poems change our hearts and our perceptions.
We can also do a Christian reading of the psalms. Jesus of Nazareth, who frequently prayed these hymns of Israel, is also the Messiah whose arrival, death and resurrection were foretold in the psalms. To pray the psalms is therefore to pray with Him. We Christians, who recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah promised by God, believe that His Spirit lives within these Jewish prayers. Through Him, we understand them, appreciate them, are nourished and satisfied by them.
Translated into every language, sung in Gregorian chant or in styles specific to various cultures, interpreted by a number of classical musicians (César Frank, Mozart, Palestrina) and by many contemporary artists, the psalms continue to express the prayer of the world and remain poems that reflect all aspects of humanity.
Paulette Gagné, m.i.c.
MIC MISSION NEWS
January-February-March 2006