June 2007 Lectio Divina

Reflect upon the great dignity it is to be a member of the Church.

Psalm 48
Thanksgiving for the people’s deliverance

The Lord is great and worthy to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain rises in beauty,
the joy of all the earth.

Mount Zion, true pole of the earth,
the Great King’s City!

God, in the midst of its citadels,
has shown himself its stronghold.
For the kings assembled together,
together they advanced.

They saw; at once they were astounded;
dismayed, they fled in fear.
A trembling seized them there,
like the pangs of birth.

By the east wind you have destroyed
the ships of Tarshish.
As we have heard, so we have seen
in the city of our God,
in the city of the Lord of hosts
which God upholds for ever.

O God, we ponder your love
within your temple.
Your praise, O God, like your name
reaches to the ends of the earth.

With justice your right hand is filled.
Mount Zion rejoices;
the people of Judah rejoice
at the sight of your judgments.

Walk through Zion, walk all round it;
count the number of its towers.
Review all its ramparts,
examine its castles,

that you may tell the next generation
that such is our God,
our God for ever and always.
It is he who leads us.

This psalm is one of a group which have as their theme the praise of Sion, Jerusalem, site of the royal palace and the Temple. It may have been a psalm designed for the Feast of Tabernacles, because this feast celebrated (among other things) the Temple as the center of Israel’s worship. The psalm contrasts the reactions of two groups of people as they see Mount Zion: the enemies of Israel, the pilgrims coming to worship.

The key to praying the psalm in Christ is to understand Zion as a reference to the Church, especially the Church in heaven, as indicated by the sentence: He took me to the top of a great mountain, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem (Revelation 21:10).

"The Lord is great and worthy to be praised in the city of our God,” in the Church in which we gather to praise the Lord.

Mount Zion, true pole of the earth is literally ‘in the far north’. In Canaanite mythology ‘the mountain of the north’ or ‘the far north’ was the home of the gods, as Mount Olympus was in Greek mythology. The psalmist takes over the expression, applying it to Zion. Zion is the home of the true God. Zion (the Church) is the true ‘north,’ the true pole of the earth, the spiritual summit of the world.

God…has shown himself its stronghold

God is the true defense of Jerusalem, not the impressive physical battlements protecting the city. The Christian is reminded of Jesus’ promise to the Church that ‘the gates of hell can never overpower it.’ (Matthew 16:18). The Church’s defense is not in treaties or alliances with political powers, as the twentieth century of all centuries has shown us, but in God himself.

For the kings assembled together,
together they advanced.

They saw; at once they were astounded;
dismayed, they fled in fear.

This verse may refer to the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian armies during the reign of King Hezekiah, King of Judah from 715-687 B.C. The Assyrian King Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, but Isaiah prophesied that Sennacherib and his forces would suddenly leave. ‘That same night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. In the early morning when it was time to get up, there they lay, so many corpses. Sennacherib struck camp and left; he returned home and stayed in Nineveh.’ (Isaiah 37:36-37)

But the event in the psalmist’s mind may not be an event in the past but an event in the future: the Day of the Lord, the great Day when God will come in power to bring justice on the earth. Prophets predicted (Psalm 2) that on this Day the kings of the earth would assemble together against Jerusalem to fight against the Lord and his anointed king.

They saw may refer to an awesome appearance of the Lord himself, such as is described in Isaiah 29:5-8:

Suddenly, in an instant,
you will be visited by Yahweh Sabaoth
with thunder, tempest, flame of devouring fire.’

By the east wind you have destroyed
the ships of Tarshish.

These ships were among the largest vessels afloat, capable of sailing to Tarshish, a distant Phoenician colony in Spain. The kings are compared to these mighty ships, but the Lord shatters them on the rocks, like the east wind dashing the ships of Tarshish against the cliffs.

The powerful forces, political or social, which threaten to overwhelm the Church may at times gain the upper hand, but they will not ultimately triumph.

As we hear heard refers to the prophecies concerning Jerusalem, prophecies that promise its security and prosperity. The New Testament speaks in like manner of the ultimate victory of the Church, the body of Christ.

In the heavenly Jerusalem ‘there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.’ (Revelation 21:4).

the Lord of hosts.

The hosts may have referred originally to the armies of Israel, but later they were understood to be the hosts of heaven.

O God we ponder your love
within your temple.

Love translates the Hebrew word hesed, covenant love, the love by which the Lord binds himself to his people. We celebrate the love of God revealed on the Cross and mediated to us in the Eucharist by the Spirit.

your right hand

The right hand means the strong hand, the hand that brings victory.

Walk through Zion

The people are invited to join in a thanksgiving procession around the city, to rejoice in its physical strength seen in the ramparts, sloping banks protecting the foot of the walls; and her castles, the fortified towers of the palace.

The Christian rejoices in the wisdom and truth (the judgements) revealed in the Gospel, knows its invincible strength, and from personal experience of that strength evangelizes the next generation.

Commentary from ‘The School of Prayer’ – an Introduction to the Divine Office for All Christians, by John Brook, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota (1992)