Category: Psalms

The last shall be first

The last psalm of the Church’s year for the current year (Year C) is the same as the first psalm for the new year which starts with the First Sunday of Advent (Year A) : Psalm 121/122, a pilgrim psalm.   For two Sundays in a row, with very different sets of readings and very different atmospheres and messages, we sing the same psalm.  It’s not exactly the same all the way through (of which more later), but the Response and the first verse are identical.

Only every third year

This does not happen every year, only when the move is from Year C (where we are now) to Year A.   At the end of liturgical year A, the last psalm is 22/23, because the OT reading for that iteration of Christ the King is about the Lord being a true shepherd,  and 1 Advent B has Psalm 79/80.  At the end of Year B it’s Psalm 92/93, because we are emphasizing the kingliness of the Lord, and 1 Advent C uses Psalm 24/25.   But this year, we have 121/122 for Christ the King on November 24th, and then the same again on December 1st at the beginning of Advent.  Why, and does it work?

Psalms of Ascents, or Gradual Psalms

It is a brilliant psalm for both Sundays, for several reasons.  First of all, it is one of the ‘psalms of ascent’, one of the traditional pilgrim psalms.  The usual Catholic title for these is ‘Gradual psalms’, which I rather like, as it sounds as if it’s celebrating our slow creep towards improvement and the Kingdom.  These are a bunch of psalms (119/120 to 133/134) which come just after the longest psalm in the whole book (117/118), a complex and artful meditation on the beauty of God’s Law.  The next few psalms are brief, and seem briefer because of the contrast.

Going up

The ‘ascent’ could be to Jerusalem, or to the Temple Mount, or up the steps, no one seems to be sure; but I think two things are at work here.  Pilgrimages are usually, traditionally, to places hard to reach, and very often uphill, because you express penitence and merit by effort or even suffering; and also there is a convention that you go ‘up’ to Jerusalem the way that in the nineteenth century, people always went ‘up’ to London from anywhere else in the country, even from the north.  The same was true of Oxford and Cambridge, which is why being sent home in disgrace is always referred to as ‘sent down’.  It’s nothing to do with geographical direction or compass points, and everything to do with aspiration.  And they are ‘gradual psalms’ , from gradus, the Latin word for step, because you must travel step by step; no shortcuts.

Pilgrims to Jerusalem

The best, because the longest and most arduous, pilgrimage was to Jerusalem.  Here is a link to a wonderful fifteenth-century virtual pilgrimage by Dr Kathryne Beebe, which I stumbled upon while researching this topic, and was enchanted by.   And the illustrations are stunning.

Psalms telling the story of a journey

119/120 is a song at the beginning of the pilgrim’s journey, where he is fearful of the people he will encounter on the way and devoutly hopes for God’s protection, while still feeling rather nervous.  The next psalm shows the group starting to coalesce (not just ‘I’, but ‘Israel’) and already feeling much braver;  it is the beloved and familiar ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains;/ from where shall come my help?’ (120/121), full of serene confidence, which we had a few Sundays ago.  Then we get Psalm 121/122, and we  (‘our feet’, ‘the tribes’) have suddenly arrived in Jerusalem.  We have reached our destination, as the satnav always says.  The later pilgrim psalms are prayers and praise, thanksgiving and celebration, until Psalm 133/134  as the last in this group of psalms,  a night-time leavetaking, as the travellers start the journey home.

Psalm 121/122, living in the moment

What is striking about Ps 121/122 is its immediacy.  ‘I rejoiced when I heard them say:/ ‘Let us go to God’s house.’/ And now our feet are standing/ within your gates, O Jerusalem.’

There is no explanation or leisurely scene-setting.  The speaker could not be more direct.  We don’t know who the ‘them’ are which he mentions, but this is immediately overtaken by the excitement of the next line and the sense of arrival and achievement, ‘now’.

At this point the two Sundays’ versions diverge (not US).  And I want to talk about them with their preceding readings, because it makes a huge difference to the emphasis.

Christ the King: 2 Samuel 5, and Ps 121/122

The first reading for Christ the King is short.  (The context is that Saul is dead by the beginning of Samuel 2, but there is still a lot of fighting going on about the succession.)

All the tribes of Israel come to David at Hebron, and assert their kinship with him.  They know about David’s prowess, and they know that God chose him to lead them.  So they all come together at Hebron, and ‘King David’ makes a pact with them and is anointed king of Israel.  (After this, David goes on to conquer Jerusalem and set up his capital city there.)

The psalm starts as we have seen.  The second stanza praises Jerusalem ‘as a city/ strongly compact’, and names it as the focus of pilgrimage and power : ‘It is there that the tribes go up,/ the tribes of the Lord.’.  The third stanza makes this even clearer : it is the law to praise God there, and it is where the judgment seats were set up ‘of the house of David’;  – so, lawful authority for the ages to come.

1 Advent A : Isaiah 2, and Ps 121/122

The choice of stanzas is different for the First Sunday of Advent (A).  We sing almost the entire psalm in this version.  This is in response to the words of the beautiful and poetic first reading, which describes ‘the vision of Isaiah […], concerning Judah and Jerusalem.’.   This is the fulfilment and apotheosis of the place and event that David’s consecration foreshadows. Isaiah sees ‘the mountain of the Temple of the Lord’ being lifted up above everything else, and all the nations will ‘stream’ to it (water flowing uphill, to show how amzing and totally other this will be), and they will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’.  The whole world will make this pilgrimage.   The people  look forward to God teaching them, giving them his laws, bringing justice and peace.  The sentences roll on, coming to a final, almost breathless call, ‘O House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.’.  It is a most beautiful and stirring piece of writing, with real elan.  I think it is impossible, even just reading it silently, not to feel the sweep up and down at the cadence like a mighty wave.

The Temple of the heavenly Jerusalem

The essential ‘place’ mentioned is the Temple and the mountain it is on.  Jerusalem is mentioned by name, but only once, as a pair with Zion, and I think this is why the two lines about Jerusalem the compact city are omitted from the Advent version of the psalm, in every version except the US’.  (The US version keeps all the lines, and ends up with one verse more than everyone else.)  The emphasis is rather on Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage to praise the Lord’s name.  We have the thrones of judgement, just as at the end of the Christ the King version, but now we go further, with two stanzas of prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, because now it is more than just a city strongly compact (and therefore defensible if necessary); now it is the home of peace and the house of the Lord.  The swords have been hammered into ploughshares, or, as we might say today, the weapons have been put beyond use.  This is no earthly address, this is Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem.

Setting the psalm(s)

There was so much similarity between the two versions of the psalm that it would have seemed perverse to write two different settings.  I think it’s important to preserve the link between them, so I kept the music the same, except that it was necessary to put extra bars in where there are extra lines.  I was very concerned to keep the feeling of ‘going up’ where possible, but it doesn’t technically occur in the words until the second stanza for everyone except the US, where it comes in the second line.  So I put it in the melody, which takes a run all the way up the octave.  It was difficult with the version of the words for CAN and OZ, so I shifted it to the recorder part, but (I hope) there’s still a feel of moving forwards.  Onwards and upwards.  It needs to be sung at a good walking pace, not rushing, but not dawdling either.

Ps 121/122, a psalm for coronations

This psalm has been set by many composers (including Boyce, Vivaldi, Purcell…), often incomplete, of course.  The most famous setting is probably the Hubert Parry version, which was composed for a king’s coronation in 19o2.  Some version has been sung at every British coronation since Charles I (though that did not end well).  I don’t think it’s because of a link between this psalm and the feast of Christ the King, however; I think it’s because of the whole tone of triumph and achievement.

Miles to go before we sleep

Triumph and achievement are not exactly the expected note for the First Sunday of Advent!  Rather,  what we are doing is being delighted to have got this far, and working out what still remains to be done (the praying for the peace of Jerusalem), and above all, doing what we can to bring it about (last stanza).  So the words of the psalm the second time around, with its extra verse(s), help us to focus on going forward, and the job still to be done.  Very appropriate for 1 Advent, and not too daunting, because we are aware of the  (short) timeframe before the Prince of Peace himself will arrive.

© Kate Keefe and Music for Mass 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Keefe and Music for Mass, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Confidence and clarity

The world of the psalms is very black and white. There is the just man and there are enemies. There are still waters and raging torrents. There is lavish plenty and there is starvation. There are green meadows and barren deserts. Sometimes the psalmist is celebrating, sometimes he is lamenting; sometimes he is in danger, sometimes shouting in victory. He can be troubled, but he is rarely confused, and his attitude towards God is one of serene confidence.  Sometimes God takes a while to answer or lay on a rescue, and the psalmist feels free to use a tone of reproach or even scolding: it’s God’s duty to save him and restore his fortunes (e.g. Pss 6 and 12/13, but there are lots of examples).

Confidence in virtue

This goes along with an enviable confidence in the psalmist’s own goodness. He keeps telling us that his foot has not stumbled, that he has not forsaken God’s ways (‘ever’, or ‘since my youth’).  ‘I have never neglected his commands./ I have always been upright before him;/I have kept myself from guilt’ (Ps 17/18).  He has found all his pleasure in knowing God’s laws, and following them. He can indeed be a little irritating, and we are happy to come across the rare psalm (e.g.Ps 24/25) where he admits that maybe things have been difficult, though, nearly always, the difficulties he has encountered or is worrying about are coming on him from outside (enemies, extreme weather events, illness). His confidence clearly lies in himself as well as in God.

Uncomfortable words

This can lead to difficulties for the modern reader/singer of the psalms.  People express discomfort over the revenge verses, and they are often left out when the Church prescribes the psalms for liturgical use (e.g. the last verse of Psalm 136/137, the psalm I called ‘one of the best song lyrics ever‘, but it ends with that terrible line about ‘dashing your babies against the rock’).  People agonise about whether verses like this should even be allowed in the Bible, whether they should be edited out; but if this is God’s word, do we have a right to leave bits out?  We insist upon context, we stress the difference between the Old Testament and the New, but the words are there in the canon.

Overweening confidence…..

However, we can also feel very uncomfortable singing the smug psalms or declaring how perfect we are in the sight of God.  There are psalms which talk about the psalmist’s/our failings, but they are outnumbered by the ones which stress our virtue.  The distance between what we are singing and what we know to be true gives us pause.  It does not seem to worry the psalmist.  Why not?

…and what it’s based on

I think there are various reasons for this.  The original Jewish covenant is based on a system of rules.  If you obey the rules in the Book, you are a just man and God will favour you (Ps 118/119, at great length).  If you are a son of the covenant (shown by circumcision), then the rules apply to you, and you must keep them (this is why Paul goes round and round the same arguments in Romans about how the covenant brings sin, because it sets the rules and people then break them).  If there aren’t any rules, then you can’t transgress them (you can see how this might lead to trouble).  What you are thinking does not matter so much as your observance of the rules.   Motive is not so important; the Bible is totally pre-Freudian.

Another element is that when the psalmist talks about how good he is, it’s partly aspiration and ‘a firm purpose of amendment’, as we used to say.  He’s looking forwards not backwards, and giving himself the benefit of the doubt, as we all do (Ps 100/101).  We don’t have definite dates for any of the psalms, but it’s a fair bet that mostly the psalmist is living in a society where, even if he’s not actually a slave, there are lots of other powerful people around with differing world views, and the psalmist is quite convinced that he and his people are the good guys in the narrative (Ps 78/79 is a good example).

Autres Testaments, autres moeurs

But we are looking at all this through a Christian prism.  We are supposed to be worrying about what is in our heart, and loving our enemies.  We are aware that Jesus demands perfection (Mtt 5. 48), and with him as our example, we cannot help but be aware how far we fall short.  Sometimes he does this overtly (‘…but I say to you’ six times in the Sermon on the Mount, Mtt 5), but he’s often much more subtle.

Parables and the sideways look

Parables are a very subtle way of teaching, and Jesus seems to have enjoyed using them.  When you speak a parable, you’re telling a story, a very attractive and in-bringing way of talking to an audience, and you have the opportunity to influence the way your audience will receive the story, through clever techniques like shifting the point of view.

The Prodigal Son : three viewpoints

Take the Prodigal Son as an example (Luke 15).  The story starts off totally identified with the prodigal.  We see his frustration at home, his arrogant request for his share of the money to use for his own benefit.  Here’s a man who is totally confident in his own abilities.  He wallows in delight and fleshpots.   Then come debt and famine.  We feel his hunger and disgust as he feeds the pigs and wishes he could eat as easily as they do, then his coming to his senses and repentance.  He sets off for home; – and our viewpoint shifts: now we are waiting with the father, equally hungry for a sight of his son, and over the moon with delight as he hoves into view.  The father doesn’t wait for him to arrive and apologise, he rushes out to meet him.  Now our viewpoint shifts again, to the older son, who is full of resentment and jealousy when he sees how welcoming his father is to this unsatisfactory little brother.  The Prodigal Son, main character and eponymous hero, isn’t even on stage (he’s taking a much-needed bath) for the last part of the story, the conversation between the father and the elder son.

Jesus finishes the parable, and naturally we ask ourselves which of the protagonists we are.  It’s not easy or straightforward.   Three sections, three viewpoints.  The prodigal has broken the rules; the elder son has kept them, but he’s not the confident ‘just man’ we see so often in the Psalms.   The father behaves like God, with stunning generosity and love, so we aspire,  but don’t identify.   Jesus’ point is surely that what matters is what is in people’s hearts, not just rule-keeping.

The Good Samaritan

Similarly with the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), there are various roles, and we get to choose which one we would play.  The Levite and the priest keep to the letter of the Law and avoid pollution; but the despised Samaritan has a good heart and behaves accordingly.  Jesus turns the question of who is doing the right thing (behaving as a ‘neighbour’) back on the questioner.  He answers by a circumlocution because he doesn’t want to criticise the Levite and the priest, still less admit that a Samaritan might be the hero of the story; but the point is made.

The same thing occurs in other parables where there are several characters.  Sometimes it can even be confusing (the man without the wedding garment who gets into trouble at the banquet he is invited to at short notice, Mtt 22), but I think Jesus is deliberately using this sideways look to keep us slightly unsure, so that we pay attention.

The need to pay attention

The Lord’s technique is incredibly skilful.  The truths he is offering us about ourselves are not particularly palatable, and it would be very easy to alienate the listener immediately.  A very wise priest of my acquaintance always says, ‘Christ did not come to save us from sin, because that would have been a total failure.  He came to save us from ourselves.’  As it was, many people found Jesus’ message impossible to accept, and the rich young man goes away sorrowing (Mtt. 19.22, Mk 10.22).  But parables give Jesus a way to engage people with the story and possibly only later think about the implications.  We see this happening when the apostles get him to themselves and ask more questions, as in Luke 8.9.  Repeatedly he asks people to pay attention (all the remarks about having ears), and it’s always worth dwelling on what he actually says, as there is invariably more to it than we catch at first (I think this is why so many people find Lectio divina works for them).  Mary at Bethany is commended because she is concentrating on nothing except what Jesus is saying.

Sure foundations and over-confidence

Human nature means that the promise of salvation leads very easily to smugness and over-confidence.  This is why Jesus constantly keeps us just off-balance in what he says.  Even in the Our Father we see this technique in operation.  We start with praise and (literally) pious hopes.  But there are two cunning phrases in the text.  ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven‘ – who is supposed to be actually doing it on earth?  Er, we are, and as beautifully and efficiently as the angels do their job in heaven.  Similarly later on : ‘forgive us our trespasses’, which we can all pray knowing how much we need it,’as we forgive those who trespass against us‘.  It always surprises me that we don’t pause or go a bit quieter at that bit.

The Responsorial Psalm comes after the Old Testament reading for a good reason.  It reflects a simpler response to a simpler world view.  The psalmist’s confidence can be very comforting, but we have to be aware that Jesus’ harshest words are for those who become too confident and complacent.  We need to strike a balance, so that we are not troubled by anxiety, but play the part that God needs us to play.

There is an old paradox, attributed to St Augustine, Saint Ignatius and John Wesley  (I haven’t yet seen it attributed to Disraeli or Oscar Wilde), which I think probably sums it up best.  ‘Act as though everything depends on you; pray as though everything depends on God.’  If that is our attitude, then we can confidently say with the psalmist, ‘in my justice, I shall see your face’ (Ps 16/17) and rest on God’s lap like ‘a weaned child on its mother’s breast’ (Ps 130/131).  This is a confidence that will never let us down: ‘The Lord protects the simple hearts;/ I was helpless so he saved me’ (Ps 114/115).

 

© Kate Keefe and Music for Mass 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Keefe and Music for Mass, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.