A Thinking Reed

Merton on the Psalms

Written by

Lee M.

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This is from Thomas Merton’s little book (and I do mean little; it clocks in at under 50 pages) Praying the Psalms, which I’ve been reading:

If there is one theme that is certainly to be found implicitly or explicitly in all the Psalms, it is the motif of Psalm One: “Blessed is the man who follows not the counsel of the ungodly…but his delight is in the law of the Lord.” If there is one “experience” to which the Psalms all lead in one way or another, it is precisely this: delight in the law of the Lord, peace in the will of God. This is the foundation on which the Psalmists build their edifice of praise. (pp. 25-26)

Merton follows St. Augustine in seeing the Psalms as a way of training us in the way of praising God:

St. Augustine adds that God has taught us to praise Him, in the Psalms, not in order that He may get something out of this praise, but in order that we may be made better by it. Praising God in the words of the Psalms, we can come to know Him better. Knowing Him better we love Him better, loving Him better we find our happiness in Him. … In them we learn to know God, not by analyzing various concepts of His divinity, but by praising and loving Him. … Hence, St. Augustine concludes, our eternal life of praise must begin here on earth in time. All our thoughts, our “meditation” in this life should center on the praise of God “because the eternal exultation of our future life will be the praise of God, and no one can be fitted for that future life who has not exercised himself in praise in this present life.” (pp. 12-14)

Merton says the layman may actually have an advantage over the priest who is obliged to pray the Office. While the latter may feel like he has to rush through the Psalter to fulfill his obligation, the layperson can take one or two Psalms each day and slowly and meditatively recite them, entering into their meaning.

Comments

3 responses to “Merton on the Psalms”

  1. Maurice Frontz

    Re: “the layperson may have an advantage:”

    At last September’s General Retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity, we were privileged to hear Patrick Henry Reardon of Touchstone magazine speak on the Psalms. He said that when he was a younger priest, he had a two-week cycle of the psalms down. But, he said, this probably kept him back from memorizing the Psalter at an earlier age. He recommended to us first memorizing the Psalter over a period of time rather than trying to follow a schedule where one prays the whole thing in a month, a week, etc. Once the Psalter is memorized, one can then pray it according to a schedule.

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  2. Chris T.

    I think Merton is very right about this. Following Luther’s lectionary, I read a Psalm a day and have been struck by the depth of the Psalmist’s trust in God. I used to be very put off by how vengeful the language about “enemies” was, but I have been paying more and more attention to the fact that the Psalmist always asks God to repay his enemies. He seems to restrict his own activity to praising God and trying to live out God’s law.

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  3. Eric Lee

    Very cool. Emphasizing the ‘doxological’ life!

    It looks like this would tie well into Luigi Giussani’s work on the Psalms as well.

    The Benedictine monks also pray the psalms every day, per the Rule of St. Benedict.

    Chris, a common way that Don Giussani (as well as others) pursues concerning the enemies in the Psalms are that the enemies are found within the selves. What we often find as the troublesome Psalm concerning dashing the babies’ heads of our enemies against the rocks are are often interpreted to mean that those are our sins and we should repent of them before they grow up too big. Kinda reminds me of a Veggie Tales episode about the fib.

    Peace,

    Eric

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