Reading All 150 Psalms

for me my favorite for many years has been psalm 139 lord you search me you know me you know my resting my rising you discern my purpose from afar before ever words on my lips lord you know it through and through behind me before you besiege me your hand ever laid upon me the idea of god always already there [Music] welcome back to the word on fire show i am brandon vott the senior publishing director at word on fire today we're going to hear from bishop baron about what it was like to record all 150 psalms that's right he recorded every single psalm on audio also why the psalms are so important and how they can deepen your prayer life but before we get there bishop it's good to see you welcome hey brandon good morning to you you recently had a long deserved vacation i can't remember the last time you had a vacation and you spent a little time with your good friend father john muir playing some golf what was your golf game like i did a staycation so what john and i father john and i do is i'll go to phoenix where he is sometimes for a couple of days and we intensely play golf and then he'll come sometimes here santa barbara so he came on um sunday and we played monday tuesday took a day off wednesday then played thursday friday and then saturday so five rounds of golf in six days and uh it was good you know i i don't play that often the problem is to get good at golf you have to be at it all the time you have to play like once a week and i can't do that i just can't find the time so but that's the way i do it i'll take a block of time and then intensely go after it so i'm i'm the sort of golfer where i got a good shot bad shot hey that was a good shot that was a terrible shot that was a good pun that was a terrible putt that's how i play you know so i'm happy if i play bogey golf golfers know what i mean if you're one over power on a whole if i get a power i'm like thrilled you know so that's kind of where i am i shoot in the i don't know high 80s low 90s so anyway i'm lousy like most amateurs but i enjoy it well to go from one long experience to another you recently recorded all 150 psalms which is an extreme accomplishment you did it for the new catholic app called hallow if you're not familiar with halo it's the number one catholic prayer and meditation app uh you can check it out the website hallow.com word on fire word on fire is now partnered with hallow in several ways we've got a lot of bishop baron's content on the app i'll say a little bit more about that later but man tell us about this experience what was it like how long did it take was it exhausting tell us about it yeah um it was here in the studio so we have a little room we call the whisper room it's like a little soundproof booth and it's for just audio recordings so i went in there i would say five times maybe six times and i'd go for an hour or maybe an hour and a half each time then then it was too much my voice would get shot or i get too tired or i had to go somewhere so we did it over you know several weeks when i'd find the time i'd come in um i found it challenging now i've done this before with my couple my own books where i've done an audio recording of them there's nothing harder than that i just think it's very difficult when you're wearing these highly sensitive you know headphones and the microphone you hear every little imperfection every time you swallow or you make a little noise or you know you're going too fast or too slow so it's challenging it really is and then the psalms of course are so beautiful and they're so rich but they're they're poems and of course poems have a certain rhythm and it's not like reading prose so they had their own challenges and so usually after an hour or so i was kind of exhausted like okay i've done enough of that but at the same time gosh it was really spiritually rich even though i've been praying the psalms all my life but to kind of just go through them one after the other and to read them out loud they were probably some of them anyway were undoubtedly lyrics to songs that they were sung but certainly recited the culture of reading silently that's that's like around the time of augustine and ambrose people started doing that prior to that any text they read it out loud so when you're reading a book in the ancient world you were reading it out loud they think because remember that scene in the confessions when ambrose people see him reading without moving his lips and they thought what's he doing you know so my point there is is these ancient texts were all meant to be read out loud or sung so it kind of produces that experience the psalms were obviously special to the jewish people they prayed them multiple times a day of course we know mary joseph and jesus prayed the psalms regularly why do they remain so important to the church today i call the church's songbook the churches recognize that in their theology in their spirituality in their psychological truth in their humanity they just express so much that's that's good and true and beautiful and it's the way the church sings it's not so much thinking it through uh it's not moralizing though you can find you know a certain moral teaching within the psalms but it's more the response of a singer it's the response of it's a lyrical response to the grace of god and the church i think has always recognized them therefore as privileged when you mention you know jesus and mary that always strikes me as very moving as i pray the psalms as all priests do that i am i'm praying these these words that jesus as a busy young man would have learned he would have prayed them himself in the course of his life mary knew them so that's a wonderful link and thomas aquinas knew them and john henry newman prayed them and you know so it links us to the whole tradition as you were recording these psalms you said afterward that you frequently recalled dietrich von hildebrand and his reflections on the heart can you say more about that yeah i think you know i've talked about that before von hildebrand one of the great catholic philosophers of the last century and von hildebrand used it was not trained as a thomist it was he was not a catholic as a young man and didn't come up out of atomis philosophical tradition he came up out of a husserlian phenomenological tradition and one thing he noticed about catholic philosophy even as he reverenced it was it puts a great stress on the mind on the questions of the true puts a great stress on the will so questions of the good you know what ought i to seek and so on but he felt it didn't put enough stress on what he called the heart and the heart he identified as the seat of one's emotional life and see van hillenbrand thought it was very interesting that like when you really fall in love with someone we don't say i'm going to give my mind to you even though that's kind of part of it i don't say even i'm going to give my will to you though that's part of it we say i'm going to give my heart to you that person grabbed my heart you know that there's something about the heart that we identify as the center of the personality in a way so we could have a longer debate about that but i think he it's important that he he recovered this idea of the heart he also noticed it in the great catholic tradition of the sacred heart of jesus we don't say the sacred mind of jesus even though he had a sacred mind right we don't say the sacred we don't have a feast of the sacred will of jesus though he had a sacred will but we do have a feast of the sacred heart and and that's interesting he thought well anyway the reason i thought of him was the psalms is there intellectualism in the psalms sure and you can distill a theology there's a theology of god implicit in them for sure can you distill the will and the good and the moral life yeah you can but i think above all what you sense in the psalms is the heart because it's a no now who wrote the psalms famously no one really knows you know they're associated with david david might have even written some of the real archaic ones possibly or they go back to his time but let's say we'll just call him the psalmist for one of a better term the author of the psalms um what he's really expressing it seems to me is his heart it's it's the seat of his emotions as he's responding to god he's received this theology of god from his tradition he believes in god with all his heart and now his heart is responding to god and i think that's why we resonate so deeply with the psalms because our hearts the seed of our emotional life get stirred as we enter into the heart of this ancient author you know a couple years ago i started praying the liturgy of the hours more devotedly we'll come back to that in a minute but the liturgy of the hours is centered on the psalter the psalms it repeats them over a four-week cycle i remember early on one of the things that most surprised me was the preoccupation with enemies and foes enemies and foes you see those words over and over and over i remember it being a little jarring for me because i thought well it's like enemies aren't a big deal in my life i don't have a lot of visible enemies how do we how do we interact with that when we're reading psalms and this constant emphasis on enemies yeah it struck me too over the years and then doing this exercise of actually just reading them one after the other all 150 it just jumps out at you and i can't prove this but my guess is that the word enemy or foe is one of the most common in the psalms part of it brandon i think is it's the humanity of this author uh he's not hiding anything from god so god hears his words of praise and exaltation it hears his joy he hears his deep sorrow when this man just wants to lie down next to dead people you know he my one companion is darkness you've taken all my friends away i mean so the depression that he feels at times but also his intense fear of and anger toward his enemies so i just love that the emotional honesty of it um you know when you're in the presence of god i better get myself you know properly gussied up before i talk to god and i better just tell god exactly what i think god wants to hear well god's not interested in that because god knows what we're like anyway i mean what's the point of hiding so i can hide from you i guess oh i better look presentable for brandon and not tell them what's going on but i can't do that with god so why bother if if you're angry at your enemies and heck we've all got them um tell him he knows anyway so express it so i think that's called call this the psychological side of it i think is very important but i press it too in the theological direction the righteous person always has enemies because we live in a fallen sinful world the righteous person will always awaken in unrighteous people a resentment or a hatred or a rivalry and the more righteous you are the more enemies you'll tend to have i think that's true um the more intensely just you are the more you'll awaken the opposition of the world who's our prime example of course is jesus himself right who's the the the supreme instance of from the side of his humanity of the just person what do we hear in the gospels but the ever increasing opposition of jesus enemies in the course of his public life even from the time he's born they're trying to kill him right but then in his public life enemies they wanted to kill him they conspired against him they were whispering against him and then at the climax of the story the whole world became his enemy if you want he's left with a couple of people with him at the cross even his most intimate friends have betrayed him denied him and fled from him right he took upon himself the sins of the whole world that means the whole world was coming at him so that's why i hear in the psalmist's obsession almost or preoccupation with his enemies it's a typological anticipation of jesus uh who took upon himself the the opposition of the world right uh so i'd see both those the psychological side of it and the theological side of it don't don't pretend with god what's the point what's the point god knows everything about us and so tell him if you're angry you're upset you're you're hurt you're afraid well tell him tell him uh and then also see okay the more righteous i am the more likely i am to have enemies i want to stick on that theme of enemies in the psalms for just another minute when you read the psalms it sticks out not only that the psalmist acknowledges that he has enemies but he demands retribution against his enemies you know if you and i think have joked about this before that if there's one verse that atheists know in the bible it's psalm 137 9 which says happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks you know they say that's that's your moral guide the book that has god killing infants on rocks um how do we square that with you know jesus who says love your enemies don't bash their heads against rocks right and that's the right way to start for a christian is we read the whole bible from the standpoint of the end of the bible you read the whole bible from the standpoint of jesus he's the interpretive lens so he's the lamb standing as though slain in the book of revelation who was able to open the seals of the great scroll so that is right that's the interpretive key if something if i'm reading the old testament such a way that it's repugnant to jesus i'm reading it wrong so on this point is the psalmist expressing his profound anger and what he wants done to his enemies yeah sure he is does that mean he's right about all that no he's expressing his heart you know von hildebrand expressing his emotions but is he right about that well no of course not of course we shouldn't be bashing our enemies children's heads against rocks and and yes we should be loving our enemies as jesus says nevertheless the psalmist in his sinful and broken humanity is expressing his passion in the presence of god would it be okay in prayer to say to god i am so mad about this i'd like to kill that guy well god knows it anyway again if i have those feelings sure god knows it anyway so maybe lord i'm so mad i am so mad at this i could kill that guy let him know think of it maybe under the rubric of like psychotherapy we're at home with that idea that with your therapist you might be able to express whatever is going on inside of you it doesn't mean you're gonna do it or that you should translate it into action or that it's morally okay no no yeah say that but think of now in prayer i'm with this intimate friend that knows me better than i know myself and can i with the psalmist express my passion i mean how many times brandon in my pastoral life have people expressed to me their profound anger at god over things that have happened and how could you let this happen and how could you permit this and i'll say look go to the psalms and you'll find the same thing you'll find the same frustration the same passionate anger at god god can take it god can take it and so express that in prayer with the psalmist but it doesn't mean now i translate that into moral action no no we use jesus himself as the great criterion um so i'd say those two things there's kind of a psychological and a more theological way to look at that when writing about the psalms in the past you've said that the psalms give expression to the distinctive dialogic quality of biblical religion that christianity is fundamentally based on the speech of god to us why is that special yeah i think it's very important i mentioned before that i kind of got into this even though i was born and raised a catholic and went to mass and all that but what kind of awakened my keen religious sensibility were philosophical arguments that i heard when i was a kid and that's fine that's great god kicked open the door that way i think for me but think about philosophical arguments is you know i'm in control i got a question okay let me think this through with the help of you know maybe these philosophers and i'm going to say okay premise and the conclusion okay yeah i guess you know god and god it must be this and that i i'm in charge of that process um and i it can deliver to me real truth and that's great it can illumine me that's great but the bible doesn't work that way like you never find anything like that in the bible you don't find people kind of puzzling it out like socrates or plato you know compiling arguments no the bible is a story of god has addressed his people um read the philosopher levinos it's very interesting on this point the 20th century jewish philosopher a philosopher knew the rational tradition of western thought but he also was a biblical person and it's it's the god who addresses us and then we're placed in the passive voice oh here here i am what what what should i do what what do you want i i'm not in charge of this process i'm responding to what's been said to me again don't think voices from clouds that's a symbol what i'm talking about but that you're addressed by god god invades your life god moves into your space and then the proper next move is a response i've heard the voice of the lord now what do i say back someone has initiated a conversation with me so we say deus dixit god has spoken god has spoken okay and we can there's a whole theology of revelation i can talk about what that means god has spoken but once he's spoken okay i speak back i got something to say to god and to me the psalms are a beautiful example of of that it's it's someone to whom god has spoken through his religious tradition and now in in passionate language sometimes in anger sometimes in exaltation sometimes in great joy sometimes in frustration he speaks back to god that's biblical religion it's not a detached musing philosophical hmm what do i think about this that's fine but that's not biblical religion it's here i am what do i what do you want and gosh i'm mad at you and come on lord come back and speak to me again and it's someone responding from the heart to the god who from his heart has spoken to us now look at you know my hero john henry newman who's whose cardinal motto core encore locator heart speaks to heart but hildebrand would like that wouldn't he uh he means god's heart speaking to my heart my heart speaking to god's heart that's biblical religion and the psalms express that beautifully do you have a favorite psalm did any of them stick out during this reading of all 150 yeah for me my favorite for many years has been psalm 139 lord you search me you know me you know my resting my rising you discern my purpose from afar before ever words on my lips lord you know it through and through behind me before you besiege me your hand ever laid upon me the the idea of god always already there you know i'm not searching for an absent uh conversation partner the lord knows me he searched me he knows me intimately before i was knit together my mother's womb the lord knew me he knows all my thoughts and before ever words on my lips the lord knows what it is and so it's the surrender to the god who has already known me into existence and even here and now knows what i'm doing and what i'm about you know it's the intimacy of god that's so beautifully expressed in that psalm uh you know where can i run from your love i go to the heavens you're there i go to the depth of the earth even there uh you are i go to the sea's furthest end even there your right hand holds me up behind it before you beseech me your hand never laid upon me that's that's the god i can't possibly escape from so stop trying you know and surrender to him that's the psalm i love the best how about a least favorite psalm [Laughter] uh you know it's a little irreverent to say it but we were joking about this psalm is psalm 119 which every day in the liturgy of the hours for daytime prayer it's the it's the basic psalm and 119 is the longest by far and it's a hymn of praise to the law to the law and you know it's beautiful and i've used it a lot in my in my popular speaking because that idea of loving the law is odd to us we think the law you know i can you know grudgingly accept it as a necessary evil but i don't love the law but this man you know goes on for pages and pages well as i was reading this psalm we take a break and i turned to uh to doug cummins who was the kind of helping me produce it and i said that guy really loves the law that guy is really fond of the law because it goes on and on it's lovely it's wonderful i wouldn't say it's my uh least favorite but it's it's a little more challenging we've mentioned a couple times here the liturgy of the hours and i just want to throw out a little teaser here to everybody listen to this podcast later this month word on fire will be announcing something big regarding the liturgy of the hour so whether you're new to it whether you've been doing it a while look forward to that we've got a lot of excitement about this initiative all right well it's time now for our question from one of our listeners you can send your question in to us at the website askbishopbarren.com you can record your question you can speak heart to heart to bishop baron on any device today we have one from nicholas in new mexico he's asking how you develop love for god here's his question [Music] hello bishop aaron my name is nicholas from rio rancho new mexico my question is how do i fall head over heels in love with god thank you that's a good question huh no i love the fact that um the premise of your question is good that that that's what we should do uh religion is not about just knowing god or you know even relating morally to god it's being swept off your feet it's it's falling in love the way a husband and wife fall in love with each other and you know that whole idea of falling in love gives away the game there because it means you're out of control if you're totally in control of the situation you know you're trying to understand this person and you're you're googling information and you're analyzing well you're in control you're not in love with that person you might be you know checking that person out and seeing what she's like and all that but to fall in love um that means you've surrendered your own ego and you've surrendered your need to control and you've kind of lost yourself in the beauty and value of the other right so that's right the premise of your question is right that's what we should do in regard to god i mentioned philosophy earlier if i just stay in a philosophical frame of mind in regard to god i haven't fallen in love i'm it's could be a propa-dutic just as you know brandon when you were first coming to know your wife i'm sure there was a moment of kind of analysis you were trying to understand her and learn more about her but you didn't stay at that level you know if you did she might be a vague friend or something that's why we'd say you got to move beyond philosophy into theology let's follow dante here into theology but then finally into what even beyond theology mysticism which is remember in dante you go from virgil who stands for reason and he goes to beatrice who stands for theology but then she hands dante over to saint bernard because bernard is mysticism and i would say that's that's what you're talking about that's falling head over heels see in that image you're out of control i'm head over heels i'm not standing firmly on on the ground i'm tumbling you know uh so your premise is right now how do you do it i i it's not too arid but that's what prayer is prayer is entering into that dialogue with god that is meant to lead to surrender so this morning in my chapel as i always do i did my holy hour in the morning and uh different elements in holy hour praying the liturgy of the hours praying the psalms that's part of it the rosaries part of it for me um but i hope part of it is is falling head over heels in love with god it's just surrender fulton sheen said when he was doing the holy hour he said i'm like i'm like a little dog at the foot at the feet of his master and um master might not need me today but here i am i'm ready you want me to go for a walk or you want you want to send me i'm ready and uh that's someone who's fallen in love you know with god so i'd say prayer and i'd say this um what are the two great commandments to love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul that means fall head over heels and love that's what that means so love the lord your god but then love your neighbor as yourself so it's a consequence of the first but it's also in a way it can be a propa-dutic it can be the way in so by loving another i don't mean romantic love here i mean willing the good of the other right by loving another here below in the simplest way that can be a manner by which i fall in love with god so i'd say that prayer and then the simplest act of love would be two ways to enter into this this the limit case of what spirituality is all about bishop there's two books that you've recommended again and again as classic stories of people falling in love with god one of them is augustine's confessions the other one is thomas merton's seven-story mountain would you say these are good recommendations for someone looking to see this on display yeah absolutely and maybe mer you know for contemporary uh readers augustine is i mean marvelous in every way but it might be a little more challenging just to get into that text um merton though you know his 20th century figure and writes in a very accessible way and sounds like a modern person yeah yeah and you're right i've described that book that way it's it's the story of a man falling in love with god i read it when i was 16 for the first time which is the age you are when you start falling in love for the first time right now in my case i do think it's the grace of god is because of aquinas and merton and other influences i started falling in love with god at that point in my life and that's the path that i i've been tumbling down you know ever since uh but yeah read the seven story mountain well thanks for that great question nicholas we encourage everybody here to read the psalms read this great song book of the church and do it with bishop baron you can do so through the hallo app you can learn more at hallow.com word on fire again bishop has recorded all 150 psalms and i believe during this lenten period they're having a challenge where you can go through all 150 psalms throughout lent with bishop baron so check it all out you can find it at hallow.com word on fire lots of other cool stuff in there um for example we have the bishop baron rosary we have stations of the cross you can listen to gregorian chant or meditate on the daily gospel reading so hallo is an awesome app it's free to download free to check out again hallow.com slash word on fire and then finally one more recommendation we mentioned a couple weeks ago this great new book which is in its own way another story of a man falling deeper in love with god just published by word on fire it's called with all the saints my journey to the roman catholic church it's the conversion story of mark galley who was the former editor-in-chief of christianity today the largest evangelical publication in the world he recently came into the catholic church and this is his story so find it out at wordonfire.org saints all right well thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you next time on the word on fire show [Music] thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video i invite you to share it and to subscribe to my youtube channel

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 11,430

Keywords: the psalms, reading the psalms, all 150 psalms, bishop barron, bishop robert barron, bishop barron the psalms, the psalms catholic, understand the psalms, christian psalms, psalms in the bible, psalms, the psalms project, bible, the word on fire show, word on fire, catholic, catholic ministry, catholic podcast, brandon vogt, word on fire the psalms, psalms commentary, commentary on the psalms, read the psalms, christianity, catholicism, bishop, the bible, the old testament

Id: j9ClFw7g6r4

Length: 29min 59sec (1799 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 07 2022