Cynthia Bourgeault's Chanting the Psalms, Chapter 2: Early Monastic Psalmody (17-26)

In Chapter 2 Bourgeault traces how the Church, especially in monasteries, sang the psalms. Noting how important it was for early Christians to get as close to Jesus as possible, she emphasizes that first-generation Christians sang the psalms primarily because Jesus sang the psalms. The early Christians imitated Jesus and sang psalms in order to remember and model their lives after him.

For two centuries Christians, persecuted and meeting in house churches, confessed their faith, came together to break bread, often died as martyrs, and sang the psalms which Jesus sang. Then something happened in the fourth century that changed the landscape entirely. In 313 A.D. the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity so that Christians were able to come out of the catacombs and stand in respectable daylight. ”Suddenly Christianity found itself preoccupied with building basilicas, hammering out creeds, creating elaborate liturgical ceremonies, and expressing its newfound sense of “the reign of Christ” through vestments and trappings of imperial royalty” (19). The change in spiritual atmosphere, tone, and commitment was dramatic. Almost overnight Christianity lost its countercultural edge and, having become the only legitimate religion of the Empire, began to luxuriate in wealth and privilege. Christianity became culturally acceptable; people by the droves packed the new church buildings.

Many Christians came to the conclusion that something powerful—-the imitation of Christ!-—was in danger of being lost. As a consequence, thousands of Christians fled the big city “mega-churches” and fled into the deserts of Syria and Egypt, first in trickles, then in droves. They took the psalms with them. “These spiritual pioneers became known collectively as the Desert Fathers and Mothers”(19). Developing a variety of monastic communities, they lived "as hermits or in small clusters known as sketes” and/or eventually “found their way to large monastic complexes where hundred or even thousands of monks banded together in quasi-military style. But whether solitary or communal, the monks all seemed to root their prayer practice in the words Jesus used [that is, the psalms]” (19.)

Learning to sing the psalms from memory, they sang the hymns of Jesus throughout the day as they worked and worshipped. Many spent their energy in ceaseless prayer by repeating over and over again a versicle from Psalm 70 as “a means of achieving continuous attention in prayer: ‘O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me’” (20).

As second wave of psalm-singing occurred a hundred years later. In the sixth century, after the disastrous fall of Rome that ushered in the so-called Dark Ages, Benedict of Nursia worked to develop Christ-centered monastic communities throughout Europe. These Benedictine communities were Christian sanctuaries that preserved and institutionalized the singing of the psalms. In his Rule Benedict provided a day-by-day scheduling of work, worship, and opportunities for hearing the Word of God that profoundly renewed the way Christians prayed and sang the psalms. It’s at this time, Bourgeault rightly notes, that “the Divine Office makes its official debut” (22).

The monastic day was full of psalm-singing. Traditionally things started in the middle of the night (about two or three a.m.) with the service (or office/work) of vigils; thereafter seven other office during the rest of day guided the community in work and worship: lauds (at early dawn); prime (6:00); terce (9:00); sext (noon); none (3:00) vespers (sunset), and compline (just before retiring). Within a week’s time, the community sang all 150 psalms.

Concluding this chapter, Bourgeault describes her experiences at Mount Saviour Monastery in upstate New York, She rightly tells us that in most modern monasteries, psalm-singing is not quite so extensive, “but the ideal remains in place” 23).

In fact, if here I may add this note to Bourgeault’s Chapter Two, you and I can go to the Abbey of Gethsemane in Trappist, Kentucky, for a retreat with the monks and there find the ancient praying of the psalms still in tact.

Bourgeault concludes the chapter by describing the monks’ work (office) as “bi-axial,” that is cross-shaped (+). As they live with each other (horizontally, so to speak), they also live in attentive awareness of God (vertically). In large measure it’s psalm-singing throughout the day that makes it possible for them live bi-axially. “Reaffirming the desert understanding that psalmody is in essence mindfulness prayer, [Benedict wrote] in the Rule, ‘Let us consider how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels, and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voice” (26). Bourgeault concludes by saying that Benedict’s words are “a good reminder, as timely now as it was fifteen hundred years ago. And just as difficult.”