Praying the Psalms in Christ
Overview
Written centuries before Christ, the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible have been prayed by Christians since the founding of the Church. The early church fathers expounded the psalms in the light of the mystery of Christ, his death and resurrection, and his saving redemption. In this book, a Benedictine monk examines the Christian praying of the Psalms, taking into account modern and contemporary research on the Psalms. Working from the Hebrew text, Fr. Laurence Kriegshauser offers a verse-by-verse commentary on each of the one hundred and fifty psalms, highlighting poetic features such as imagery, rhythm, structure, and vocabulary, as well as theological and spiritual dimensions and the relation of psalms to each other in the smaller collections that make up the whole. The book attempts to integrate modern scholarship on the Psalms with the act of prayer and help Christians pray the psalms with greater understanding of their Christological meaning.
The book contains an introduction, a glossary of terms, an index of topics, a table of English renderings of selected Hebrew words, and an index of biblical citations.
Praying the Psalms in Christ will be welcomed by students of theology and liturgy, by priests, religious, and laypeople who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and by all Christians who seek to pray the Psalms with greater profit and fervor.
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This book is a superb example of how a Christian contemplative, enriched by historical criticism, by the Fathers, and by the liturgical tradition, should read the Psalms. It will find its readership among believing Christians who desire to be led into the psalms in a way that integrates patristic and historical-critical learning. This book is for readers seeking to grow in faith and in their understanding of the meaning of biblical revelation.
—Matthew Levering, Ave Maria University
Many will profitably read Laurence Kriegshauser OSB's Praying the Psalms in Christ from cover to cover, but many more will gratefully consult it for its learned and lection divina exposition. Psalm by psalm Kriegshauser smoothly keeps track of key Hebrew words, with their repetitions and their echoes, and he highlights them like a good docent in a cathedral or museum. He does not get in the way of the Way.
—Review for Religious