Psalms In The West Chapter 1 Summary

Next, chapter ten, “The Psalms for Christians: In the West until the Reformation, and in the East,” traces the Christian community and their use of the Psalms. During this period, we begin to see formal liturgies develop in the early centuries as a part of worship, which included the use of psalms in these liturgies (p.166). It is clear that the Psalms remain an important part of worship, for both the Jew, as seen in the previous chapter, and for the Christian (p.167). Furthermore, chapter ten provides an example of how the Psalter was perceived to be the property of lay Christians in a way other scripture was not (p.178). “. . . the Psalter became the textbook though which the young clerk-to-be learned his letters; the Psalms were central
for primary education . . .,” and were often learned by heart. Therefore, the Psalter was believed to be able to speak to and inform anyone, ranging from the layperson to the church leaders. Finally, in the section on “The Psalms in the Divine Office of the West” the author explains that the practice of reciting the entire Psalter in a week long period developed. I think that this dedication and desire to take part in worship from the Psalms depicts how crucial the Christian church has thought it to be throughout the years, and I think the current Christian church would do well to begin implementing more serious practices regarding worshipping through the psalms as the Christian church has done in the past. Chapter eleven, “The Psalms for Reformation Protestants,” covers the Psalms during the Reformation, a result of the split of the Western church that began in 1517 (p.191).
Furthermore, the changing society and new developments began to shift people’s access to the Bible, as well as their perspective of it. “One result of those new developments was the growing awareness of lay people of their place in the economy of God, and the growing awareness of Christians of the source book of the faith, namely, the Bible” (p.192). Martin Luther (p.192) and John Calvin (p.196) both used the Psalms extensively and wrote commentaries on the Psalms. This use of the Psalms would go on to form and shape the perspective of the proper use of Psalms in the Reformation churches that developed from the Reformation
Movement. Additionally, “the Reformation was the occasion for a completely new development in the use of the Psalms, that is, metrical psalters” (p.198). This new development in the use of the Psalms in significant because it marks the beginning of how we currently understand hymn-singing. During this times singing became an activity for the entire congregation (p.198). This is significant because if the Psalms do appear in our worship today, it is typically in psalm adapted hymns that began to take prevalence during the Reformation period. Lastly, I find Holliday’s discussion on hymn based Psalms to be very insightful, for he discusses hymns written by Isaac Watts and Virgil Thompson, both of whom used Psalms in their hymn composition. I find it very powerful when composers take scripture as the basis for their development of lyrics, for what better way to praise God than with words of praise passed on from generation to generation. Therefore, I think current composers of worship material would do well to take note of the use of scripture, especially Psalms, as a basis for musical worship. Continuing on, chapter twelve, “The Psalms in the Roman Catholic Church from the Council of Trent until the Second Vatican Council,” depicts a period when the Catholic Church, in response to the Reformation and the availability of the printing press, began to enforce a uniformity in their liturgical practices.
The first insight comes from the author’s discussion regarding the Psalms in the Mass. Excerpts from the Psalter were heavily used in the Mass through multiple brief sentences used as transitions throughout the service (p.219). This insight is important because it depicts expectance that the Catholic Church had for their listeners/congregation to be well-versed in their knowledge of scripture in order to pick up on short excerpts of passages that might not be recognizable to someone lacking in knowledge of scripture. Secondly, the author notes that during this time period “. . . there was little that brought fresh understanding of the Psalms” (p.225).However, the author still maintains that “. . . it must not be forgotten that the Psalms continued to nourish Christians in many ways” (p.225). Therefore, this remains important because even though the church had not developed new or fresh ways to understand the Psalms, the Psalms were still entirely capable of nourishing Christians who not only experienced hardships and trials, but also in their everyday
lives. To conclude this chapter, the personal insight gleaned has to do with the struggle over biblical scholarship that the Roman Catholic Church faced, which the author refers to as repression (p.226). This was a time when leaders of the Catholic Church implemented vigorous opposition to new directions in Catholic biblical scholarship (p.232). Holliday refers to this as a tragic story in retrospect, one that caused much damage for a time. Therefore, this exemplifies to me the importance of finding a balance in tradition and new methods in the Church regarding worship. If one only relied on tradition, there would be no room for growth, but if one only relied on new methods and change, you would lose importance aspects of your history, therefore there must be a balance between the two.