I Lift Up My

Eyes…
PRAYING WITH, THROUGH, WITHIN THE PSALMS
KEVIN L. HUGHES, PH.D. -- VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
AUGUST 2023.
Here’s the plan…
 Some principles for reading scripture,
generally speaking..
 The “nuts and bolts” of the Psalms
 What is the book of Psalms?
 How are they put together?
 What kinds of Psalms are there?
 What makes the Psalms distinctive and
important in the Bible?
 How do we begin to pray with them?
First Part:
Some Basic Principles
of Scriptural Reading
for Catholics..
Some Principles of
Scriptural Reading

 Close to the text

 Read the Bible as texts (biblia) AND as book
 One and many
 Authorship as Human AND Divine
 Literary AND Inspired
 Read in context AND reliable in teaching
 Scriptural infallibility (faith and moral life)
 VS. Biblical inerrancy
Texts have histories

 Inspiration is recognized by the text’s

reception by the communion of faith, not
proclaimed by an angel, etc.
 Human authorship is fully functional, and
divine inspiration works in and through the
very best of human artistry
 Instance of General principle: Grace
perfects/completes nature, doesn’t destroy
it.
The Authority of Scripture

 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 107. The inspired

books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired
authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as
affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the
books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error
teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation,
wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
 Catholic Infallibility (doctrine and moral life)
 VS. Evangelical Biblical Inerrancy (true in every respect)
To read Scripturally

 …Not only historically

 To read as revelatory of the Word of
God.
 Reading for depth and breadth, theology
and history
 To read the Psalms scripturally is to
allow them to give voice to your
prayer… and that’s not as easy (or as
hard) as it may sound… More later..
Second Part:
the Nuts and Bolts
of Psalms…
What is the Book of Psalms?
 A compilation of liturgical songs accumulated over Israel’s history
 “Liturgical” construed broadly – those songs that were in service
of and/or performance of prayer.
 Most likely 5 books stitched together.
 1-41 (Yahwist)
 42-72 (Elohist) (Korah, Asaph – guilds of temple singers)
 73-89 (Elohist) (Korah, Asaph)
 90-106 (Yahwist)
 107-150 (Yahwist) (incl “Songs of Ascent” and ”Hallel” (or
”The Hallelujah Collection”!)
 The “Yahwist Psalter” *MAY* date from before the Exile (587 BC),
and the “Elohist Psalter” after (530-450)… but….???
Have you ever
noticed…

THE PSALMS ARE

SOMETIMES NUMBERED
DIFFERENTLY?
 MASORETIC (HEBREW)
TEXT
 SEPTUAGINT (GREEK)
TEXT (LXX)
The Magic
number is
150…
... NO MATTER HOW YOU GET
THERE (?!?)*

* Except some of the Eastern Churches have Ps. 151

What kinds of Psalms are
there?
 Poetry!
 Several genres
 Hymns
 Laments
 Thanksgivings
 Royal Psalms
 Wisdom Poems.
What kinds of Psalms are there?

 Hymns:
 Hymns of the Lord’s Kingship (e.g. ps 47) “enthronement psalms”
 Songs of Zion (e.g. ps. 46)
 Usually call to praise, rehearsal of the Lord’s deeds, repeat call to praise and blessing.
Psalm 8
For the leader; “upon the gittith.”* A psalm of David.
O LORD, our Lord,
how awesome is your name through all the earth!
I will sing of your majesty above the heavens
with the mouths of babesa and infants.*
You have established a bulwark* against your foes,
to silence enemy and avenger.*
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place—
What is man that you are mindful of him, b
and a son of man that you care for him? c
Yet you have made him little less than a god, *
crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands, d
put all things at his feet:
All sheep and oxen,
even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord,
how awesome is your name through all the earth!
What kinds of Psalms are there?

 Laments (most common, nearly 1/3)

 Community laments (e.g., Ps. 14)
 Individual laments (ps. 25)
Psalm 14
For the leader. Of David.

The fool says in his heart,

“There is no God.”
Their deeds are loathsome and corrupt;
not one does what is good.a
The LORD looks down from heaven
upon the children of men,b
To see if even one is wise,
if even one seeks God.c
All have gone astray;
all alike are perverse.
Not one does what is good,
not even one.
II
Will these evildoers never learn?
They devour my people as they devour bread; e
they do not call upon the LORD.f
They have good reason, then, to fear;
God is with the company of the just.
They would crush the hopes of the poor,
but the poor have the LORD as their refuge.
III
Oh, that from Zion might come
the salvation of Israel!
Jacob would rejoice, and Israel be glad
when the LORD restores his people!*
What kinds of Psalm are there?

 Thanksgivings (a little more eclectic.) Ps. 118.

 Song of ascents, e.g. Ps. 121, as a procession up to the temple.
Psalm 133
A song of ascents. Of David.
How good and how pleasant it is,
when brothers* dwell together as one!
Like fine oil on the head,*a
running down upon the beard,
Upon the beard of Aaron,
upon the collar of his robe.
Like dew* of Hermon* coming down
upon the mountains of Zion.b
There the LORD has decreed a blessing,
life for evermore!c
Third Part:
What makes the Psalms
unique in Scripture?
My God, My God….

 FIRST: the psalms are most often direct address, to

GOD.
 (most of scripture is narrative or letters, etc., ABOUT
God, or even (as in the Prophets) FROM God.
 “The psalms are the prayerbook of the Church…”
 Think about this, an INSPIRED book of Scripture, by
which God GIVES US words with which to pray.
 (Is God a control freak? OR???)
 Awkward moments (story about Bridget and me)
 When I don’t have the words….
For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.*
I
As the deer longs for streams of water,a
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, the living God.
When can I enter and see the face of God?
My tears have been my bread day and night,
as they ask me every day, “Where is your God?”
Those times I recall
as I pour out my soul,e
When I would cross over to the shrine of the Mighty One,
to the house of God,
Amid loud cries of thanksgiving,
with the multitude keeping festival.
Why are you downcast, my soul;
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.
II
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I remember you.
From the land of the Jordan* and Hermon,
from Mount Mizar,g
Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your torrents,
and all your waves and breakers
sweep over me.
By day may the LORD send his mercy,
and by night may his righteousness be with me!
I will pray* to the God of my life,
I will say to God, my rock:
“Why do you forget me?i
Why must I go about mourning
with the enemy oppressing me?”
It shatters my bones, when my adversaries reproach me,
when they say to me every day: “Where is your God?”
Why are you downcast, my soul,
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.
Praying with Psalms,
praying with the saints…
Saint Augustine:
“How loudly I cried out to you, my God, as I read the
psalms of David, songs full of faith, outbursts of devotion
with no room in them for the breath of pride…How loudly I
began to cry out to you in those psalms, how I was inflamed
with love for you and fired to recite them to the whole
world, were I able, as a remedy against human pride! Yet in
truth they are sung throughout the world, and no one can
hide from your burning heat.” (Confessions IX.4.8).
Praying with the Psalms,
praying with the Saints…
Rule of Benedict, Chapter 19: The Discipline of Psalmody
1 We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that in every
place the eyes of the Lord are watching the good and the wicked
(Prov 15:3). 2 But beyond the least doubt we should believe this to be
especially true when we celebrate the divine office. 3 We must always
remember, therefore, what the Prophet says: Serve the Lord with fear
(Ps 2:11), 4 and again, Sing praise wisely (Ps 46[47]:8); 5 and, In the
presence of the angels I will sing to you (Ps 137[138]:1). 6 Let us
consider, then, how we ought to behave in the presence of God and
his angels, 7 and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our
minds are in harmony with our voices.
So how do we make the “divine office” more
than “rote recitation”?
 Let the words in.
 “If the psalm prays, you pray; if it laments, you lament; if it exults, you rejoice; if it
hopes, you hope; if it fears, you fear.” Augustine, Ennar. in Psalmos.
 If we take the ride with the psalms, and ask “Lord, what sorrow should I be grieving?
What beauty should I be celebrating? What victory should I exult in?” we’ll be
pleasantly surprised.
 Let your mind be furnished with the words…
 The role of memory in the spiritual life…the “furniture of the mind”…
 Let the world of the scriptures take in our world, our heart..
Thank you!!

Next time: Lectio Divina,

Spiritual Exegesis, Christ and
the Psalms, what if a psalm
becomes a stumbling block…
and more!!!
I Lift Up My
Eyes…
Part 2
PRAYING WITH, THROUGH, WITHIN THE PSALMS
KEVIN L. HUGHES, PH.D. -- VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
SEPTEMBER 2023
Here’s the plan for
Day 2…
 Beginning with Merton…
 Human emotion taken up and blessed in
faith.
 Imprecatory psalms… a stumbling block?
 And then deeper…
 Spiritual exegesis and the Psalms
 The Psalms as totus Christus, “the whole
Christ” at prayer.
 Your Questions and Conversation.
Praying with the Psalms, and
the Saints…
“The experience that makes the Psalms a real, deep, personal possession
of our own hearts must be at the same time religious and poetic.
Experiences which are essentially human and “natural” are transfigured by
the theological virtues. Joy and sorrow, expectation and fear, anguish,
desperation, triumph, peace: all these emotions have their part in our lives.
They are also the material of the Psalms. The problem is therefore not to
learn from the Psalms a totally new experience, but rather to recognize, in
the Psalms, our own experience lived out and perfected, orientated to God
and made fruitful, by the action of loving faith.

Merton, Thomas. Praying the Psalms (pp. 24-25). Ravenio Books. Kindle
Edition.
What does this mean for us?

The Psalms express this full range of human emotion and

human experience. Can we imagine our praying the psalms
as a bringing-forward of these emotions and experiences,
like gifts to the altar, so that they may be sanctified, made
sacramental… we bring all of our humanness into relation
with the psalms.. We allow the Spirit to descend up on all
the human emotions like the dewfall…. This full range of
human emotion becomes sacramental in our prayer….
Can a Psalm be a Stumbling Block?
Psalm 109
For the leader. A psalm of David.
I and brought death to the brokenhearted.
O God, whom I praise, do not be silent,a
for wicked and treacherous mouths attack me.
They speak against me with lying tongues;
with hateful words they surround me,
attacking me without cause.
In return for my love they slander me,
even though I prayed for them.
They repay me evil for good,
hatred for my love.b
II
Appoint an evil one over him,
an accuser* to stand at his right hand,
That he may be judged and found guilty,
that his plea may be in vain.
May his days be few;
may another take his office.c
May his children be fatherless,
his wife, a widow.d
May his children wander and beg,
driven from their hovels.
May the usurer snare all he owns,
strangers plunder all he earns.
May no one treat him with mercy
or pity his fatherless children.
May his posterity be destroyed,e
their name rooted out in the next generation.
May his fathers’ guilt be mentioned to the LORD;
his mother’s sin not rooted out.f
May their guilt be always before the LORD,g
till their memory is banished from the earth,h
For he did not remember to show mercy,
but hounded the wretched poor
He loved cursing; may it come upon him;
he hated blessing; may none come to him.
May cursing clothe him like a robe;
may it enter his belly like water,
his bones like oil.
May it be near as the clothes he wears,
as the belt always around him.
May this be the reward for my accusers from the LORD,
for those speaking evil against me.
III
But you, LORD, are my Lord,
deal kindly with me for your name’s sake;
in your great mercy rescue me.
For I am poor and needy;
my heart is pierced within me.
Like a lengthening shadow I am gone,
I am shaken off like the locust.
My knees totter from fasting;i
my flesh has wasted away.
I have become a mockery to them;
when they see me, they shake their heads.
Help me, LORD, my God;
save me in your mercy.
Make them know this is your hand,
that you, LORD, have done this.
Though they curse, may you bless;
arise, shame them, that your servant may rejoice.
Clothe my accusers with disgrace;
make them wear their shame like a mantle.
I will give fervent thanks to the LORD;
before a crowd I will praise him.j
For he stands at the right hand of the poor
to save him from those who pass judgment on him.
Dealing with
“Imprecatory Psalms”
Psalms omitted from the Liturgy of the Hours by Paul VI:
 Ps. 58; 83; 109.
Psalms edited in the Liturgy of the Hours
 Ps. 5, 21, 28, 31, 35, 40, 54, 55, 56, 59, 63, 69, 72, 79, 110,
137, 139, 140, 141, 143. (!!)
 23 of 150 psalms!!

For example: Psalm 139

7 Remember, LORD, against Edom that day at Jerusalem.
They said: “Level it, level it down to its foundations!”
8 Desolate Daughter Babylon, you shall be destroyed, blessed
the one who pays you back what you have done us!
9 Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them
against the rock.
What to do?
 Fr. Felix Just, SJ, PhD

” The Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours includes almost all the verses of almost all
the psalms, with very few exceptions. If one considers the teachings of Jesus, then it
should be clear why three entire psalms and a few selected verses from twenty
other psalms were omitted.

Christ as the hermeneutical key?

~VS~

 Timothy Troutner, “Bring back the Imprecatory Psalms” Church Life Journal August 11, 2021

“In light of the abuse crisis, it is time to reevaluate the modern qualms about the
imprecatory Psalms which led reformers to strip them from the Church’s liturgical
prayer in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. These scriptural cries of
judgment, in all their raw emotional violence, are precisely the language in which
the Church has historically expressed its grief, despair, and anger, crying out to the
God who asks us to offer to him our darkest passions for transformation, to the
God who promises to defend the vulnerable and punish the wicked.”
In the past…

 Can we understand the

“enemies” as demons, as
temptations, as those forces
that betray us?
 Can we pay attention to the
full flow of the Psalm? Does
it resolve itself?
 Or??
 At least this: I think we
should be very cautious to
censor our scriptures… rather
deal with the difficulties…
Spiritual Exegesis of the Psalms…
 Littera gesta docet; quod credas allegoria
Moralia quod agas; quo tendat anagogia.
 CCC 117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan,
not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events
about which it speaks can be signs.1. The allegorical sense. We
can acquire a more profound understanding of events by
recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the
Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian
Baptism.842. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture
ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written
"for our instruction".853. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge,
"leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their
eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus
the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. 86118 A
medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four
senses: The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;The Moral
how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87
Henri de Lubac on Spiritual
Exegesis
“…[The] spiritual meaning of a mystery is the meaning
that one discovers, or rather, into which one enters by
living this mystery. Even more fundamentally, the whole
process of spiritual understanding is identical in principle
to the process of conversion.”
LetterAllegory: Christ & ChurchMoral: how does it
change my life? anagogical: how does it lead me to
encounter God in intimate union, and in hope?
An Example…
Psalm 133
A song of ascents. Of David.
How good and how pleasant it is,
when brothers* dwell together as one!
Like fine oil on the head, *a
running down upon the beard,
Upon the beard of Aaron,
upon the collar of his robe.
Like dew* of Hermon* coming down
upon the mountains of Zion. b
There the LORD has decreed a blessing,
life for evermore!c
 Letter: A song of Ascent to the Temple
 Allegory: The Temple is the Church,
intended for harmony
 Moral: How do I live in harmony, interior
and exterior, receiving the blessings of God
 Anagogy: My own harmony is drawn into
union with God and with the blessed in the
fulfillment of our union…
 A movement of spirit, a deepening absorption
and appropriation of the scriptural word,
internalized and “spiritualized”
Another tip
from St. Augustine
 “prosopological exegesis”: Who is the speaker?
 St. Augustine used this method to show that the psalm
not only spoke about Christ, but was spoken by Christ;
Christ is the speaker of the psalm. St Augustine
“identified the voices of Christ the Son, God the
Father, and the church, along with a number of
individuals…
 In this view, the Psalms become not just poems, but
almost like dramas… who is talking when?
Continuing with St.
Augustine…
 Prosopoeia: impersonating characters:
St. Augustine used this method to show,
for example, that Psalm 3 has different
interpretations because of the different
speakers: Christ, the Church and a
Christian
 he “read the Psalms as Christ, that is, as
a member of Christ’s body who
participated in the self-understanding
head”
Totus Christus…

 The Psalms may be understood to speak

with the voice of the “totus Christus”… the
whole Christ… so when is it Christ speaking
as the head, as the son? When is Christ
speaking as one of us? When are we hearing
Christ speaking our words for us?
 In this way, the recitation of the psalms, by
identifying with the words, become a way of
drawing close to Christ…
Well, that’s a lot! Time to chat…

 What questions do you have?

 What has struck you most? What do you find yourself still thinking about?
 What do we hope to attend to in our encounters?
 What’s still on our mind? What did I leave out?
Thank you, once again!!