True Happiness and Wisdom

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

The responsorial psalm for today's liturgy is taken from verses of the very first psalm in the Book of Psalms. This book of the Bible is actually made up of five separate books, all joined together. The psalms themselves are the hymns and prayers that were used in the daily life of the Israelite. Some of them were used in the Temple liturgy; others were designed for individual or communal use in various situations. The five different books of psalms were joined together to make one book of 150 psalms. Imagine going to five different churches, picking up a hymnal in each, publishing a composite hymnal from all five, and you would end up with something like the Book of Psalms. Though they number 150, there is one psalm that is duplicated, word for word. So there are actually only 149.

Psalm 1 is something of an introduction to the Book of Psalms. It gives one of the main themes of the Book of the Psalms; namely, that meditating on the Law of God, the Sinai covenant, is intrinsic to the spiritual life of the faithful people of God. True wisdom lies in contemplating God's law and then acting upon it. Psalm 2 gives us the second theme of this book of the Bible; namely, the glory of God to be revealed in the Messiah. Together, these two psalms sum up the other 147. The first is used as the response to the readings for today because of its reference to true wisdom, the wisdom that is born of heeding God's word, God's commandments, and making God's word the foundation of our lives. Both Isaiah and Matthew point out to us that true wisdom leads to true happiness. Substitute the word happy for "blessed" in the first verse of Psalm 1 and today's liturgical readings are summed up very neat. The truly happy or blessed person is the one who delights in God's ways.