Psalms in Liturgy and Life
Nestled somewhere after the first reading in every Liturgy of the Word is a humble liturgical feature known to most as the Responsorial Psalm. Even though the Psalms are Scripture, homilists rarely preach on them. Depending on certain factors – the quality of the church’s sound system, the church’s acoustics, the ability of the cantor – it may be hard to make out the words of the Responsorial Psalm as they are sung. It becomes all too easy to treat the Responsorial Psalm as a pleasant musical interlude between the first and second readings.
The Psalms present other challenges to us. If you open a Bible and start reading them, you will find a very wide range of emotions and desires expressed by them. You will even find expressions of anger and vengeance that seem rude at best and scandalous at worst to the contemporary reader. Expressions that you’ll never find in a contemporary hymn, and that you’d likely never use in your personal prayers.
Despite these challenges, we should not ignore the Psalms. In fact, it is precisely in their openness to even the most difficult and scandalous emotions and reactions that they offer a great service to us and become a means of grace for us. If you seek a resolution for our liturgical New Year, spend some time with the Psalms.
Let’s begin with those scandalous emotions – such as the expressed wish to see the enemy’s children smashed against the rocks. Pretty rough stuff. Surely we, in the 21st century, are far removed from such primitive urgings. Or are we? Go to any post online that deals with a topic that is in any way controversial, and read the comments afterwards. Think back on this past election year. Think of the words that come to mind if someone cuts you off in traffic – even as you are leaving church, with the Body and Blood of Christ still permeating your very being and slowly reordering it to Himself. Yes, my friends, we – even we – are capable of such scandalous emotions. The Psalms perform their first act of grace for us. They offer a diagnosis. We have the disease.
Now let’s take one step back. In the Psalms, what occasions such scandalous outbursts? It’s remarkable how many of the psalms have the speaker facing threats from hostile foes or traitorous friends. Sometimes, the speaker is an individual person who is thus threatened. That person may begin by laying out the situation before God and crying for revenge. But notice how often the very act of singing the psalm causes a change in the singer. The one seeking cruel vengeance ends up placing his or her trust in the Lord. The mood shifts. A similar thing happens in psalms where the speaker speaks on behalf of all the people of Israel, threatened by enemies all around. Again, the cry for horrible revenge, and again, the shift to trust in God and a disarmed heart.
Take another step back. In what context did the people of Israel originally hear and sing the Psalms? During their worship. Think of psalms where an individual is beset by enemies, and finds healing in the very singing of the psalm. Now look at the gathered community. People see their relatives, friends, and foes all around them. Imagine psalms like this one, pointing out to the assembly their own divisions and showing the path to reconciliation. See how Jesus, in His own ministry, could simply allude to this need for reconciliation, and all understood what He meant. They all heard it and sang it in the Psalms. Think of psalms where it is Israel as a whole that is threatened by enemies – as she often was in her history – and imagine an assembly singing those words. They are invited once again, as a people, to trust in the Lord, who hears their cry and honors His covenant.
Take yet another step back. Our Catholic tradition has not shied from applying many of the Psalms to Jesus Himself. He is beset by enemies and even by the failure of some of His closest followers, and yet He trusts in His Father. By now, it’s easy to apply the psalms to ourselves. We, too, walk a similar path. We face challenges from within and from without. Yet the Psalms are there, naming our worst fears and showing us the path to resolve them by trusting in God’s mercy.
Do not be afraid of the Psalms – even those that seem rough to our ears. Often, it is in expressing our own roughness – and showing us the way to find healing – that they render us a tremendous service.
A word to those who preach. Whenever you find yourself stuck for a theme for your homily, go to the refrain of the Responsorial Psalm. That refrain is meant to capture some essential element of the first reading – indeed, of the readings as a whole. Be warned, however. The connection between the refrain of the psalm and the other readings may not be obvious at first glance. Don’t run off. Leave the canned homilies alone for now. Sit with that refrain and the whole Responsorial Psalm. Trust in the Lord, who promised that He would give us what we are to say. Sooner or later, some insight will come. I have found that my best homilies were those that were given to me rather than those I produced. The same will be true for you.