Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

Afterword

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to God than divine praises of the Psalms. For no mortal can unfold in words or through the power of the Psalms. If you study the Psalms intently and drill down to their spiritual meaning, you will discover the Incarnation of the Lord’s Word, his Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension. If you study the Psalms intently you will find such intimate prayer that you could never think of it yourself. Furthermore, in the Psalms you will find the innermost confession of your sins in a perfect way to invoke the Lord’s divine mercy. In Psalms you also confess your weakness and wretchedness, and in that way appeal to God to show you mercy. You will discover all the virtues in the Psalms if you are worthy before God of having their secrets revealed to you. If you wish to repent of your sins and confess them and ask God’s pardon, devote all your attention to slowly reading, not rushing the words, but contemplating them and examining them. Sing these seven psalms of David: Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 130, and 143. You will very quickly obtain God’s compassion. If you wish your understanding to grow bright with spiritual joy and gladness, recite with an eager spirit the following psalms: Psalms 17, 25, 31, 54, 67, 70, and 86. More quickly and confidently, then, you will be able to gain God’s mercy. If you wish to praise almighty God and have his majesty, and to know even a little of all the benefits he has designed to grant the human race from the world’s beginning, recite the following psalms: Psalms 103, 104, 105, 147, and 149. You will be offering to almighty God a sweet gift of honey and honeycomb if you praise him continually and magnify himwith these Psalms. If you are afflicted by various hardships and attacked on all sides by trials, whether human or spiritual, if it seems God has abandoned you—as he often abandons his saints for a time in order to test them—and the resulting trial seems more than you can endure, recite privately Psalms 12, 22, 61, and 64, and