The timeless wisdom of the psalms

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Find today’s readings here.

At the St. Joseph Abbey in Spencer, Mass., retreatants are afforded the opportunity to observe and join the Trappist monks for the Liturgy of the Hours in the Abbey Church. Keeping the hours was a precious highlight of the weekend I spent at the abbey last fall.

Lauds, None, Vespers, Compline, Vigils. Of the five, the opportunities I had to pray at the Vigils have remained most vivid in my memory. I felt so vulnerable to the solace of the psalms sung in that dark stone sanctuary after crossing the lawns from the guest house to the church, bleary-eyed at 3:30 a.m., with stars lighting the way.

I returned to my room after those prayers to think unfinished thoughts about how timeless and relevant the psalms felt until my drowsiness inevitably won its battle over my contemplation. But toward the end of my stay, an encounter with the foreword to one of the guest house psalters clarified my mind.

Whether the psalter was taken from the library or from one of the desk drawers I had not opened all weekend, I cannot recall. I also cannot remember the exact words I read. All I know is that it was imprinted upon me by the foreword’s author that, in their cloisters, the Trappists hold these psalms so precious because they believe so fully in the capacity of the psalms to contain the whole of human suffering, hope and joy; past, present and future. This was something of an answer to my tired wondering about how prescient the psalms felt at night.

After the retreat, I left Massachusetts grateful for the Trappists and their strict observance, glad that somebody up on that hill in Spencer was praying for us and singing the psalms for as long as we can hope. Still, returning to daily life meant it was easy to return to all my defaults, and encountering the psalms was no exception. 

Now a long way out from that retreat, more distant from scripture than I was that weekend, I am tempted to doubt the promises of the prophet Isaiah in today’s responsorial psalm. In my first encounter with the words, “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation,” I could not imagine it was you or me being addressed. But perhaps I can do better to let today’s first reading bring me back to the Word. 

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul tells of the graces that brought him into the early church from his position far outside it. He reminds the gentiles then, and us now, that we are coheirs to the kingdom with him: “members of the same Body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”

The wisdom of the psalmists and the prophets and the grace of God know no bounds. They reach backward, and they reach forward to you and I. We really will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.

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