Letter 24
To my dear friend and colleague,
Your question about the role of the Psalms in the Christian life touches something that is very close to the center of my own faith, and I want to answer it personally as well as theologically.
The Psalms are the prayer of the people of God across three thousand years. They express, with a directness and a range that no later composition has matched, everything that a human being can bring before God: joy and despair, gratitude and complaint, trust and doubt, love and rage. There is a psalm for every spiritual state, and the practice of praying them daily — as the monastic hours require and as any serious Christian life should include — is the practice of letting the whole range of human experience be spoken before God.
For the clergy, the daily office — the recitation of the Psalms across the week — is not merely an obligation. It is the foundation of the spiritual life. A priest who prays the office regularly, with attention, over years, is being formed by the Psalms in ways that gradually shape how he sees God, how he sees himself, and how he sees the people he serves.
I recommend to anyone who wants to understand the faith more deeply to begin by praying the Psalms.
Desiderius
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.