Psalm 110 is a reminder that in the ways of God, as in the Word of God,
there is often
more mystery than
clarity. St. Pope John
Paul 11 Humility before the mystery, openness to God's way of
revealing Himself, and joy in knowing that all has been fulfilled in
Christ enable us to
hear gladly
and pray deeply this psalm which celebrates Jesus our Lord as Prince,
Priest and Victor over the forces of sin and death.
St. Francis does not directly quote Psalm 110 in his writings;
yet this 13th
century man of prayer had ample opportunity
to ponder this significant psalm. He prayed Psalm 110 in the Divine
Office on Sundays and feasts of the Lord. At every ordination of one of
his friars, he would hear the verse proclaimed:
You are a priest forever.
At Christmas, the Little Poor Man would sing in union with the whole
Church the Communion antiphon for Midnight Mass which is also taken from
Psalm 110: A prince from the day
of Your birth...from the womb before the dawn I begot You.
What the crowd in the temple courts dimly sensed, the nascent Church,
inspired by the Holy Spirit,
understood. Divine Filiation — Redemptive Incarnation — Eschatological
Victory — all of these, mysteriously prefigured in Psalm 110, were
definitively fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of
David. The New Testament contains numerous references and allusions to this
Christological psalm. The Church uses it for a number of her liturgical
texts.
Fulfillment came in an unexpected and surprising way.
What do you think of the Christ?
Whose son is He?
Jesus asked the scribes and Pharisees. They said to Him:
"The son of David."
Matt. 22:42 Then our Lord, using
the opening verse of Psalm 110, invited them to take a deeper look at
the Messiah's Davidic origins:
But David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared, "The Lord said
to my Lord, ' Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your
feet. "' If David himself calls him Lord, how is he his son?
Mark 12:36-37 The scribes and
Pharisees missed the opportunity to
put beneath [His] feet their long-held views:
And no one was able to answer Him
a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask Him any more
questions.
Matt. 22:46
But, St. Mark notes, the great throng
heard [Jesus] gladly.
Mark 12:37 Did they
have a dim intuition that the young Rabbi from Galilee was the key to
understanding Psalm 110?
Even
to the scholars and liturgists of ancient Israel, Psalm 110 was a
mystery. Centuries of textual redactions and copyists' corrections had
produced various versions of a psalm which everyone agreed was linked to
King David. But who was the mysterious
Master? And what did the psalmist
mean when he placed in the mouth of God those baffling words:
From the womb before the dawn I
begot you? No one knew. As one monastic
author expressed it, Psalm 11O was a word waiting to be fulfilled.
Psalm 110
(verses 1-5,7)*
The Lord said to my Master:
"Sit on my right:
your foes I will put beneath your feet."
The Lord will wield from Zion
your scepter of power:
rule in the midst of all Your foes.
A prince from the day of your birth
on the holy mountains;
from the womb before
the dawn I begot you.
The LORD has sworn an oath
He will not change:
"You are a priest forever,
a priest like Melchizedek of old."
A Master standing a your right hand
will shatter kings
in the day of his great wrath.
He shall drink from the stream
by the wayside
and therefore
He shall lift up his head.
*In keeping with the directives of
the Apostolic
Constitution, Laudis Canticum,
the verses of this psalm
which contain imprecations (curses) have been
omitted in the current edition of the Liturgy of
the Hours.
Fulfilled!
PART 23
