+The Psalms as the Prayer of the Whole Christ Chapter, Sun. Sep. 17th, 2017
Let me begin with a saying, that some attribute to St Theresa of Avila:
“Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”
St Augustine gives great emphasis in his understanding and experience of the psalms on how they are the prayer of the whole Christ, of Head and members. Rowan Williams whom I quoted last week, draws our attention to a key text in Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 140, writing that:
Augustine identifies two texts fundamental for all Christian hermeneutics [or interpretation of the Scriptures]—Jesus’ question to Paul on the Damascus Road (“Why are you persecuting me?”) and the parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25, where Jesus identifies himself with “the least of the brethren.” Both of these assert the unity of the head and the Body in the church: Jesus speaks in the voice of the suffering Christian. This principle is of particular significance where texts in the Psalter express spiritual desolation and struggle: The Psalms are the words of Jesus, the Word who speaks in all Scripture. But how can we understand words that imply alienation from God when they occur on the lips of Jesus? Only by reading them as spoken by the whole Christ, that is Christ with all the members of his Body. He speaks for us, makes his own the protesting or troubled cry of the human being, so that his own proper and perfect prayer to the Father may become ours.”
The psalms open up for us when we understand them as the prayer of the whole Christ and what a gift it is for us as a monastic community to enter into the cry, the experience of all Christ’s members through them. When we stand or sit in choir to sing and recite the psalms we become one with all struggling humanity, one with all the joy, the pain and wonder of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Just as Jesus has identified himself with the least of his brothers and sisters, especially with those who are being persecuted for their faith as St Paul was doing before his conversion, so we too become one with them in our own time, in our own world today. Is this not the great ministry of the monk, the way we make our own the deep longing and cry of all those most in need. We become the living voice of Christ’s own prayer in them.
Rowan Williams goes on to say that:
“In the state of spiritual darkness, we are tempted to think that God is absent, yet when we hear Christ speaking ‘our’ words of anguish, we know that this cannot be so. His humanity is inseparably united with God so that, if he gives voice to our suffering, we know that such suffering does not silence God… The opening of Psalm 21 is central, and Augustine reverts to it many times: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ is a kind of paradigm of how Christ as Head speaks for the Body. There is also an interesting phrase in the Enarrationes [or Commentary] on Psalm 65, where Augustine describes the cry as ‘God appealing to God for mercy. It is as if we have an anticipation of the twentieth-century theology of Christ’s dereliction developed by Hans Urs von Balthasar. The eternal difference in Trinitarian life between Father and Son is what makes possible the identification of the Son with even the most radical state of ‘otherness’ from God or separation from God.”
So often we may ask where is God at this stage of our lives, what seems to be happening to us is making little or no sense. This may well be in fact, one of the most fruitful times of spiritual growth but we experience it as something beneath our dignity, as an apparent emptiness and meaninglessness. St Bernard was fond of speaking of the comings and goings of the Bridegroom in our lives, of times when we experience God so near to us and then as distant and remote. He tells of how it is then that we learn true longing and are drawn into the great mystery of God’s very own love, free of all self-centeredness. Communing with Christ takes us into new waters, along unexpected paths, all of which help us to grow in the life of the Spirit where God can do with us whatever he will.
In Fr Elias’ recent note about the General Chapter, he told of how five youngish superiors have been invited to speak about how they see monastic life in our own time. There are many currents of thought in our society today, a lot of influences that come to bear on the young men and women called to enter our way of life. More than ever, it is important that we be sensitive to these currents and influences so as to discern what is authentic for ourselves and those in early formation. It is for us to discern the loving will of God amid them all so as open ourselves to union with the living God whom we are always seeking in this life. The psalms, it seems to me, are a great means for this very kind of insight and discernment. Daily, they bring the living Word of God to bear on what is going on in our hearts, our thinking and subtle desires.
The psalms leave no movement of the human heart untouched since by reason of the Incarnation, God has made all these movements his own. The psalms enable us to direct them all as means of divine praise, enable us to let them become the very voice of the Holy Spirit in us, crying out to God with unspeakable groanings. May we be given the grace to fully appreciate what they are inspired to do all day long.