Ladies and gentlemen. My, that sounds like a radio announcer. Yes, but in this case the one who addresses you is a monk. And that makes a big difference. The ladies and gentlemen of the radio announcer are the public. An unknown quantity. The neutral object of his neutral craft. When the monk opens his mouth to the public, he wants to deliver a message. We call it the glad tidings. And when he says, ladies and gentlemen, he indicates that nobody is excluded. His message is for all human beings. And they are ladies and gentlemen because as human beings they have a dignity that distinguishes them from the beasts.

[01:08]

They are images of God. Instead of ladies and gentlemen, I could perhaps say saints and sinners, but I am afraid that you will turn me off before I had a chance to say a further word. It is true, though, that while I don't want to exclude anybody I have in mind, first of all, a special group of people, namely the Oblates of Mount Saviour. The word Oblate is used to designate people living in the world, that means following a trade or profession. without following strictly a monastic rule of life, under an abbot and community, and on the vows by which they pledge themselves to dedicate every moment of their lives to the immediate service of God in prayer and work.

[02:16]

But these omelettes are still uniting themselves through public promise to live in union of spirit with a monastic community. Monsevier has several hundreds of these oblates all over the country. Many of them do not have the opportunity frequently to go to the monastery and live for a few days in close contact with the community by participating in the worship of the community and entering in a dialogue with the monks. It is also very difficult for the monks to visit the various groups of oblates in various towns. But now the cassette recorder opens up a relatively easy way for you at least to listen here and there to a conference.

[03:22]

But this is not necessarily, of course, limited to oblates. We have many friends among the diocesan clergy, the religious, the laity, who have expressed the desire and are able to use such a substitute as a means for a deeper spiritual contact. And we as monks of Mount Saviour, ever since the very beginnings, the very founding of the place in 1951, we have been desirous to share the fruits of a life that gives us the opportunity for prayer and spiritual reading and meditation with those who have less time to give to the things of the Spirit because of other obligations. Without the help of our oblates and other friends, we would never have been able to establish one Savior.

[04:29]

And therefore, it makes us happy to think that we are able to render a service to those to whom we owe so much. Now, dear ladies and gentlemen, you remember that the first part of my greeting was, Good evening. In the context of our everyday life, this sounds a bit trite. But this talk does not take place in the context of the everyday life. It is meant to be listened to in a quiet moment. And the evening is the time for quiet moments. The sun has run its course and its setting has brought the day to its conclusion. The light of the sun fills us with energy and prods us constantly into activity.

[05:37]

When the sun sets, the work usually is done. One leaves the place of work, and one returns home to rest. Of course, there are different possibilities of resting. Some may do it by disappearing behind the paper, the daily paper, or others may plonk into a needy chair and watch television, because even to talk to one's wife or to play with one's children looks like an effort. Perhaps there is not so much to talk about either. So one does not retire to sleep as animals would do.

[06:39]

No, one is a man and as a human being one wants to enjoy some hours of rest before one retires. The joy of an evening meal in the circle of the family is a part of it, but it's not the full answer. One wants to enjoy also a conversation or a piece of art. After the sun has set, one turns on the lights. Only man does that. The animal never does. And man loves that soft and gentle light of the evening. It is the very soul of the evening. But in itself it is only an invitation.

[07:47]

It is an age-old custom among Jewish families, for example, to kindle a light on the eve of the Sabbath. It is the privilege there of the housewife to do so, and to praise the Creator of life. The candle is an invitation to the Queen Sabbath to come with her blessings. and to fill the hearts of the people with the delight of the Sabbath's rest. In the first centuries of our era, the Christians observed the same custom on Saturday evenings to usher in the Day of the Lord. You remember the celebration of the Easter We started by lighting the new fire for the Easter candle, which we then carry in solemn procession into the dark church.

[08:53]

From the one Easter candle, the light spreads all through the congregation, and everyone becomes a light. And in this light, then, we turn to the word of the Lord. And what the reader sees in the light of Christ, that he announces to the host of eager listeners. And so the night is turned into day. The darkness of ignorance yields to the light of knowledge, that saving knowledge of God's love for us. shared with us humans by the Word made flesh. Nobody has ever seen God, not only because he is spiritual, but because God dwells in an inaccessible light, and nobody is able to see God and live, as it is said in Exodus.

[10:05]

Now this forms a part of the significance of the evening. The reason why, here in our context of sharing spiritual things, one wishes a good evening is done with a special emphasis. A good evening is one that brings us the kindly light of the candle of Christ, the symbol of the Savior, who in this kindly light of the resurrection opens to us the meaning of the scriptures, so that our heart start burning as did the hearts of the two disciples whom the Lord met on the way to Emmaus on the evening of the first day Sunday in history and this is exactly what you are going to do this evening

[11:27]

Sit around your table, get some candles, and kindle them, but have enough light for everybody to read. And then get your Bible, and open it at the Book of Psalms, and then take the first Psalm, and then let us listen to it first. But now wait a moment. Before we do this, give me another moment to explain briefly why we take the first song. All scholars agree that it has been put there at the head of the book deliberately. Even we, children of the technical age,

[12:30]

and generally demythologized, even we still give a lot of emphasis and have a special respect for a beginning. If it is a matter of beginning an act of worship, We say solemnly in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe we simply make the sign of the cross. In the field of music we begin with an overture. A building is begun with the breaking of the ground. The birth of the baby is celebrated, and many other opening ceremonies. And more to the point, a book opens, usually, with a preface, a foreword, or a head.

[13:44]

In Latin we call that capitulo, from caput, head. Here we see clearly that a real beginning is more than only a start. It is an anticipation of the whole, like a seed that contains already the plant. In the Christian context, the first sentence of the Gospel of Saint John is a perfect beginning. In the beginning was the Word. The Word not only starts creation and history, but it contains them. And this is precisely the case with the first Psalm. It is not merely the first in the sense of numeric succession.

[14:49]

but it sums up the essential message of the whole Psalter. The Psalms, the Psalter, is a recapitulation of all the writings of the Old Testament. They are the law, or the five The five books of Moses containing the rules, the foundations for the life under God as lived by the chosen people. Other books present the history of the chosen people in the promised land, like the book of Joshua, Judges, Kings, and so on. Then we have the prophets with their admonitions, warnings, judgments, consolations, prophecies of the coming day of the Lord.

[15:55]

Then there are the wisdom books, and they again have a message of their own with regard to the attitudes and principles that are followed either by the wise or by the fools in their way of life. The Psalms contain all of this, but as prayer and praise in the form of songs, so that not only the mind may be instructed or the memory be cultivated, but that the heart may be penetrated and transformed. The Latin word confessio, from the verb confiteri, admirably expresses the character of the Psalms. They are an outpouring of the soul before God.

[16:59]

not only in the confession of praise of God's truth and God's goodness but also through the manifestation of the misery of man in the confession of sins the sins of the people and of the individual in lamentation and in petition the command love the Lord your God with your whole heart your whole soul and with all your power is fulfilled in the Psalms for to love God means to pray to him the word at the beginning of Psalm 102 our enumeration All that is within me, bless his holy name.

[18:06]

This word aims at the totality of the heart given to God in prayer. Because heart in the Hebrew understanding means the entire inner man, his mind as well as his affections and emotions. There are psalms that spring from the heights of inner exhortation, enthusiasm. There are others that cry to God out of the depth. One does not have to wait for the right inner mood to pray them. One is able to pray in the depth of desolation, of loneliness, of repentance, of spiritual dryness and shyness, and even of unwillingness to pray.

[19:09]

Out of any depth one is able to cry to God, for the simple reason that the God of the Psalms is not the infinitely distant, immovable God of the philosophers. But The name of the God of the Psalms is Jahweh, and that means, in the interpretation of all the sages and teachers of the Old Testament, the God of Mercy. The God who proclaimed His true name to Moses in the midst of the burning thorn bush, without turning it into ashes, The God who on Mount Sinai descended in the cloud and stood next to Moses there and proclaimed the name of God.

[20:13]

Say, the Lord, the Lord is God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and in truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. You may look up Exodus chapter 34. The fact that this divine name, Yahweh, God's person, the name that expresses His innermost heart, the name that no man has invented and then given to God, but the name that God Himself has given to us as His personal gift and as the revelation of His heart.

[21:15]

The fact that this name, out of reverence and in the intention to protect His mystery from profanation, has, by the Greek translators of the Old Testament, the so-called Seventy Septuagint, been rendered with the word Lord, has made it difficult to us Gentiles to realize the true meaning of let us say, the true nature of this God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Even the fact that this name Lord, standing for Jehovah, has been used by the Church to designate the Lord Jesus has not contributed to open our eyes to the true nature of God as being selfless love, fatherly love, agape.

[22:22]

It has, on the contrary, contributed to removing Jesus himself into the sphere of the transcendent, inaccessible God of the philosophers. Certainly Yahweh is God. Indeed, that means the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Loving at the judge of the living and the dead, the God who answered Moses when the latter asked him, Let me see your glory. And then he said, and answered, You are unable to see my face, for no man sees me and lives. This is taken from Exodus 33, 20.

[23:25]

Indeed, nobody has seen God as St. John, in silent reference to this quotation I just gave you, says. Nobody has seen God, the first chapter of his gospel. But to warn, he continues, who was in the Father's bosom, that means in the heart of the Fathers, Jehovah. He has made him known. And when later on Philip repeated to Jesus the request of Moses by saying, Let us see the Father. Jesus answered, Who sees me, sees the Father. Jesus came from the Father's bosom, and ever since we pray to the Father in Jesus' name.

[24:34]

And we pray, since they are directed to Yahweh, the Psalms in Jesus' name. We pray the Psalms with all that is in us, with our whole heart. And we pray them with our whole soul. The Hebrew word nephesh, that we translate with soul, designates man as a living being. Not only his immortal part, but his vitality, his bodily life. Indeed, man prays the Psalms in health, in sickness, and in death. And then we pray the Psalms with all our power. Here the Hebrew words, word for power, that we translate with power or by power.

[25:47]

With all that means, with all that belongs to us, all our possessions, family, servants, dwelling, the whole house in the old sense. in fact, the whole earth and all that it contains. Remember the words of Genesis 1.28, And God blessed them, He means Adam and Eve, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the earth, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed and every tree. Indeed, man owns the world, not to exploit it, certainly, but to administrate it as God's lieutenant and to glorify God through it.

[26:59]

The Psalms are, in fact, a cosmic liturgy, as Hans Urs von Balthasar points out so well in his great work on Glo. And by praying the Psalms, we fulfill our highest office to act as priests for the whole of creation. Through the Psalms, man integrates all created things into a whole under the One God. And by doing this, men are becoming one among themselves. They realize that their hearts have been created for one another.

[28:02]

As it is said so beautifully in the 32nd Psalm, the 15th verse. But the Psalms are not only the prayer of the individual person, but they are truly the voice of the chosen people as a whole. Song is by its very nature a community action. It is prayer or praise in public. That means it does not only ascend to God, it also extends in the horizontal, binding the hearts together of those who join their voices in the same melody. And not only does it bind together the voices, but also the hearts, because of the universality on comprehensiveness that appears everywhere in the songs.

[29:21]

They reveal God's loving intentions, His thoughts of peace, with regard to all of mankind. And not only with regard to the chosen people, to all nations. They are not only the voice of today, but they are also the voice of the past. and the voice of future generations. The most important aim of the renewal of the inner life of the Church, inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council, is to restore her public worship. And in this context the Fathers of the Council have called our attention to the importance of the Psalms, and to the need for a renewed and deepened study of the Psalter, so that the minds of those who pray them may be in harmony with the words of the Psalms.

[30:32]

However, in spite of all these efforts to open up the understanding of the Psalms to the laity, a definite opposition against them has developed, strangely enough especially among the younger priests and seminarians, and the younger generation at large. To them, the Psalms are the product of the past, and that means they do not reflect the spirit of our age, and therefore do not fill the spiritual needs of the present generation.

[31:06]

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