Review: Praying the Psalms in the Voice of Christ by Fr. Frank J. Matera

A few months ago, I came across a new book (published in 2023) by Fr. Frank Matera entitled Praying the Psalms in the Voice of Christ: A Christological Reading of the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours. I purchased the Kindle edition of the book. I have often struggled to read and pray the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours, and I’ve been needing help to pray the Psalms more profitably as a Christian. The nationalistic, war-like imagery in the Psalms distracts me, and I frequently feel like I am stretching them out of shape or warping their original meaning in an attempt to pray them from a Christian perspective. I’ve abandoned multiple previous attempts to pray the Liturgy of the Hours regularly because the experience of constantly struggling with the imagery in some of the Psalms seemed to be eroding my faith rather than reinforcing it. Clearly this is not a new phenomenon. Early Christians had similar difficulties, and the Marcionites went to the heretical extreme of rejecting the Old Testament because of the incongruity.

The apostles had a much different view, aided by the Holy Spirit after Pentecost. Peter cites Psalm 16 as a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection in Acts 2:25-28, and later he cites Psalm 110:1 as a prophecy of Christ’s ascension in Acts 2:34-35. The church fathers also found Christological meaning in the Psalms.

I have often had difficulty with this. I come from a scientific background, and interpreting texts figuratively and typologically does not come naturally to me. In fact, it often strikes me as “reaching” and forcing a text to take on a meaning that it didn’t originally have. Far from building up my faith, the typological interpretations of the fathers often strike me as highly speculative and suspect. Perhaps this is a detriment of scientific and technical training, but it is a struggle nonetheless.

Fr. Matera’s book has been very helpful to me in this regard. As a New Testament scholar, he is well-versed in how the sacred writers interpreted the Old Testament and the Christological meanings they saw in the Psalms. But he is also well-trained in historical-critical scholarship and maintains its value for understanding the original meaning of scriptural texts. His introduction to the book maintains the value of both perspectives and succinctly distinguishes the historical meaning of texts from the prophetic and prayerful significance of texts that Jesus himself would have prayed regularly during his earthly life. Throughout the book, his commentary on each psalm often begins with a few brief comments about the historical meaning of the text, followed by a reflection on how that historical meaning takes on new significance in light of Christ.

This is exactly the kind of thing I needed. It stays firmly grounded in the historical context of the Psalms while showing how that historical reality applies to our understanding of Christ as Christians. It bridges the historical-Christological gap very effectively. For me, a purely typological reading which doesn’t interact with the historical setting of the psalm tends to accentuate the glaring inconsistency between the interpretation and the words on the page. It leaves me feeling like history has been discarded and the psalm is now an empty husk that can be made to carry any new meaning which the interpreter wishes. By contrast, Matera’s approach illuminates the consistency and through-lines that connect the original context of a psalm with its Christological interpretation (even if the Christological interpretation involves a completely new understanding of the words compared to the psalmist’s perspective).

Another helpful aspect of Matera’s commentary is his frequent encouragement to pray the Psalms in the voice of Christ — seeing each psalm as a prayer of Christ, the Word of God made flesh, to the Father. He explains this approach via an extended quote from St. Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 86:

God could have granted no greater gift to human beings than to cause his Word, through whom he created all things, to be their head, and to fit them to him as his members. He was thus to be both Son of God and the Son of Man, one God with the Father, one human being with us. The consequence is that when we speak to God in prayer we do not separate the Son from God, and when the Body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself. The one sole Savior of the Body is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, prays in us, and is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, and he is prayed to by us as our God. Accordingly we must recognize our voices in him, and his accents in ourselves. When something is said about the Lord Jesus Christ, particularly in prophecy, which seems to imply some lowly condition unworthy of God, we must not shrink from ascribing it to him, who did not shrink from uniting himself to us. In fact the entire creation is at his service, because the entire creation was made by him, but if we do not keep his unity with us in mind, we may be very disconcerted.

St. Augustine commenting on Psalm 86

Following St. Augustine, Fr. Matera encourages the reader to read even the penitential psalms as Christ praying on behalf of his body, the Church:

When Christ speaks, he speaks as the head of the church, and when the church speaks, she speaks as the Body of Christ, her Lord. Consequently, there is nothing in the psalms foreign to the whole Christ. He speaks words of guilt and of the need for forgiveness in the voice of his Body (see Psalm 51), and the church shares in the voice of his sufferings and victory (see Psalms 22 and 118).

This way of reading the psalms was not the original intent of those who composed them. But in the light of the paschal mystery, Augustine and his contemporaries reread Israel’s psalms from the vantage point of their faith in Christ’s saving death and life-giving resurrection. From this faith perspective, they heard the voice of Christ and his Body, the church.

Fr. Frank J. Matera. Praying the Psalms in the Voice of Christ: A Christological Reading of the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours (p. 3). Liturgical Press. Kindle Edition.

I’ve found this approach to be deeply moving, reminding me that Jesus truly took on our human nature and endured our trials.

Structure of the Book

The book is designed to be a companion to the Liturgy of the Hours (LoTH). After the introduction, Fr. Matera’s commentary is organized according to the four-week psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours. There is no index of psalms in the back of the book to aid in looking up the commentary on an individual psalm. This would be helpful for feasts and solemnities, when the psalms for the day differ from the four-week psalter.

On most days in Ordinary Time, though, the book is an easy companion to the day’s psalms in the LoTH. The commentary on each psalm is only a few paragraphs, and it is relatively quick to read before beginning prayer for most of the traditional hours. The commentary covers the psalms for the office of readings, morning prayer, daytime prayer, and evening prayer. A separate chapter covers the psalms for night prayer. I’ve now worked my way through the commentary twice (two four-week cycles), and it has been very fruitful. I expect to return to it again to remind my literal, scientific mind to think Christologically as I pray.

Primary Drawback: Typos

It’s worth noting that the Kindle edition contains quite a few typos — more than I usually encounter. Most of these are mild annoyances. In one particularly egregious case, the heading for morning prayer on Thursday of week four is labeled “Monday, Morning Prayer.” This made me double-check whether I was reading the commentary for the correct day. Other than that, most typos are simple spelling and typing mistakes, but it is disappointing to find so many.

I whole-heartedly recommend the book in spite of the typos, though. The content has been very helpful for me in praying the Psalms.