Psalms offer a clear faith understanding
The Psalms formed the core of prayer in the first centuries of the Church
April 30, 2006 -- Third Sunday of Easter
By Fr. Michael Stubbs
Well-worn rosaries reflect their heavy use. Prayer polishes their beads and weakens the chain linking them together. But as the physical deteriorates, the spiritual grows in strength. Someone who prays on a regular basis also is shaped by that prayer. That person looks upon the world through the eyes of faith.
The early Christians in the first centuries of the Church had inherited from their Jewish brothers and sisters the Book of Psalms as their primary source of prayers. The Psalms supplied the lyrics for their songs during the liturgy. The Psalms formed the core of the morning and evening prayer which sanctified every day of the week. Accordingly, the Psalms influenced the way those first Christians understood their faith in Jesus Christ.
It comes as no surprise, then, that of the 360 Old Testament quotations in the New Testament writings, about a third originate from the Book of Psalms. As the early Christians prayed the Psalms, they saw connections between the words that they were praying and Jesus Christ. It was natural for those connections to eventually find their way into the New Testament. That is why the New Testament writings so frequently allude to or quote the Psalms.
For example, the early Christians relied upon Psalm 118:22 to help them understand the death and resurrection of Jesus. "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." That verse appears in Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11, and 1 Peter 2:7.
In Sunday's gospel reading, Luke 24: 35-48, the risen Christ appears to the disciples and says to the them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled."
Many scholars point out that the phrase, "the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms," corresponds to the three categories of the Hebrew Bible at the time of Jesus. In other words, the phrase is synonymous with the Bible. The third category, ordinarily identified as "the Writings," included as a major component the Book of Psalms. Those words of the risen Christ would then refer to the Bible as his disciples knew it.
We might point out that this is the only place in the New Testament where the three categories of the Hebrew Bible are linked together. On the other hand, the phrase "the Law and the Prophets," appears five times in the New Testament. It is the more typical stock phrase to indicate the Bible. At the time of Jesus, the third category of "the Writings" was still in flux and not clearly defined.
That suggests another reason for the risen Christ's reference to the Psalms in the gospel reading. Through praying the Psalms, the early Christians would understand more clearly their
faith in the risen Christ. In specifically mentioning the Psalms in his reference to the Bible as a whole, the risen Christ is focusing attention upon the Psalms as the privileged place for the disciples to deepen their understanding of his death and resurrection.
(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)
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