Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, with the day of the memory of all the Russian Saints, as well as with the completion of the first week of the Peter and Paul Fast!

Today let’s continue our discussion of the psalms and focus our attention on the 33rd (34) psalm, ‘I will bless the Lord at all times.’ This spiritual hymn is sung or read often during the divine services. We hear the words of the first half of this psalm at the end of vespers, as well as fully at the end of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts during Great Lent. In some parishes this psalm is sung at the end of every Liturgy. For this reason probably many of you, especially the choristers, are very familiar with this hymn. Perhaps some of you may even know it by heart.

Psalm 33 is an alphabetic acrostic, that is, each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, starting from the first up until the last. This is not the only psalm organized in such a way. ‘I will bless the Lord at all times’ is an especially joyful glorification of God in which the closeness of God to the righteous is accented. The psalmist, the Holy Prophet David, continually repeats that he will praise God, and that the Lord hears his prayers and liberates him from all dangers. This psalm also lays out the most basic rules for a successful human existence: “Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” It would be good for each of us to remember these simple commandments!

From early times this psalm and especially the 8th verse “O taste and see that the Lord is good” has been associated with communing of Christ’s Mysteries. Up until our own time, this verse is used during the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts as the communion verse, that is, a verse from the Psalter that is sung, usually to an especially beautiful and elaborate melody with a refrain of alleluia, while the clergy commune in the altar. Despite this ancient use of this psalm, in our time, as we have already noted, it is tied more closely to the ending of the divine services, or at least to the completion of a certain part of a service (vespers in the context of the all-night vigil). In this context the 33rd psalm also has a deep meaning. It sometimes happens that we are so busy with our earthly life that we forget about God and remember about Him, spiritual warfare, and life after death only when we come to church. After the service we leave and once again get swallowed up by our affairs. This, of course, is not very good; therefore, let us try to keep in mind the words of the 33rd psalm, which sometimes accompany us out of church and back into our habitual worldly milieu, and remember to praise God not only on Sundays or during the church services, but constantly, and not only with our words, but also by following the commandments that are set out in this wonderful psalm.

priest Alexis