Lenten Meditation #1: The Penitential Psalms in the Pilgrimage of Lent
The Penitential Psalms in the Pilgrimage of Lent
Christ Church, Lent 2021
Lenten Meditation # 1: “Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness.”
Introduction:
There are seven Psalms that have come to be grouped together as the Penitential Psalms, a designation attributed to Cassiodorus in the sixth century but perhaps as derived from Augustine in the fifth or even Ambrose in the late fourth century AD. They became an integral feature of the medieval Lenten liturgies. Gratian in the 12th century explicitly mentions the recitation of the seven Penitential Psalms on Ash Wednesday. Both the patristic and medieval traditions have carried over into the reformed liturgies such as in the books of the Anglican Common Prayer tradition illustrated, for example, in praying Psalm 51 on Ash Wednesday as part of the Penitential Service. The Penitential Psalms figure prominently in the liturgies of Lent.
Following the numbering of the Psalms in the Hebrew Masoretic text which carried over into the English translations of both the Coverdale and the King James Versions, the seven Penitential Psalms are Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143. As such they belong to the whole range of the Psalter with its one hundred and fifty Psalms. But as one scholar suggests, they seem to have a certain symmetry rather than an arbitrary quality to them that is captured in the Latin titles which are attached to them in the classical Book(s) of Common Prayer.
The Latin titles derive from the first lines of each Psalm. That the Latin titles have been retained in the liturgical psalter of the Prayer Book reveals an important sense of the continuity of prayer and of the Church universal. The idea of a certain symmetry or structure belongs not only to the strong medieval sense of order but to the unity of Scripture itself within which the Psalms play a crucial role.
The Latin titles are:
Psalm 6 – Domine, ne in furore (O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation)
Psalm 32 – Beati, quorum (Blessed is he (those) whose unrighteousness is forgiven)
Psalm 38 – Domine, ne in furore (O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation)
Psalm 51 – Miserere mei, Deus (Have mercy upon me, O God)
Psalm 102 – Domine, exaudi (Hear my prayer, O Lord)
Psalm 130 – De profundis (Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord)
Psalm 143 – Domine, exaudi (Hear my prayer, O Lord)
Psalms 6 and 38 bracket Psalm 32 while Psalms 102 and 143 bracket Psalm 130. Psalm 51 at the center of the sequence stands alone as expressing the heart-note of all penitence. It shall be our Lenten devotion to consider the seven Penitential Psalms and I commend them to your study and to the discipline of committing them to memory so that they become part of you. But first, a few words about the Psalter and its place in the Scriptures.
