Psalm IX

Come, sing a new song + to the Lord for he has done marvellous deeds.

With His right hand + and His Holy arm He has sacrificed His beloved son. ( Ps. 97:1c-d)

The Lord has made known his salvation + He has revealed His justice to the nations.

On that day the Lord ordained His mercy + and at night his song.

This is the day which the Lord has made + we shall rejoice and be glad in it.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord + The Lord is God and He has shed His light upon us.

Let the Heavens be glad and the earth rejoice, let the sea and all that is within it thunder praise + let the fields and all that is in them rejoice.

Bring to the Lord you fathers of the nations, bring to the Lord glory and honour + bring to the Lord the glory of his name.

Thus far is said each day from the Sunday of the Resurrection till the Feast of the Ascension at all hours besides Vespers and Compline and Prime. But on the night of the Ascension these verses are added

Sing to God you rulers of the nation’s + sing a psalm to the Lord.

Sing a psalm to God who ascends above the highest heavens + to the east.

Behold! He will give to his voice a voice of power. Give glory to the Lord the God of Israel. + His splendour and righteousness are in the clouds.

God is wonderful in his saints + The God of Israel, Himself will give power and strength to His people. Blessed be God!

And note, that this psalm is said each day from the Ascension of the Lord till the octave of Pentecost with the above said verses at Matins and Terce and Sext and Nones, by saying the Glory be there where the Blessed be God is said and not elsewhere.

It is the day of resurrection!

Here begins the Pascal Season, this psalm is given by Francis as the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. The psalm is to be said every day, at Matins, Terce,  Sext, and Nones, from Easter morning until the night of the Ascension when verses pertaining to the Ascension are added.

As we saw from the beginning of Francis’ Office of the Passion, Francis wrote XV Psalms which he arranged principally around the Triduum and weekdays throughout the year.  This then is the first psalm we have examined which falls outside that period.

Most definitely, the Crucifixion forms the core concept for Francis Psalm IX which is then surrounded by calls to praise, worship, wonder, lines which one might use at prayer.  Each verse seems to stand alone, and so the Psalm is perfect for mediation; one could spend quite some time with each verse; trying them out for fit, deciding what is intended in their use within Francis’ Psalms, what Francis intended us to apprehend by them.

‘Come, sing a new song + to the Lord for he has done marvellous deeds.’

Begins Psalm 97: 1a & b with the call to praise the Lord for his marvellous deeds  and the Psalm ends in the final verses of this same Psalm 33 - 36, diverting briefly to verses of Psalms 117/118 and 95/96

“With His right hand + and His Holy arm He has sacrificed His beloved son.” ( Ps. 97:1c-d)

The crux is that God has sacrificed his beloved son and did so with the right hand of his Holy arm.          

The dexterous arm, the truthful, clean arm and its clean right hand.

God set his Son upon the cross with his right hand and “With His right hand + and His Holy arm He has resurrected His beloved son. “

Whether Francis intended anything specific or notable by his using these verses I cannot be certain since at this time in my wanderings through the mind of Francis within the mind of Christ I am stuck in my own musing on the subject:

The Lord God executed a clean, true and right sacrifice of himself for his creation.

Then the Lord says here is my mercy forever – sing to me! And we are familiar with singing “this is the day that the lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

The Hebrew intends that this psalm (97/98) be sung by a strolling minstrel a troubadour, one such that Francis yearned to be when he sought to train to be a Knight. To stroll and to sing of God for all to hear, to call upon all creation to sing and praise God.

We are used to finding Francis in the hedgerows and margins of the fields and so he calls for the earth, skies and seas and those creatures of the fields and all the nations to honour the Lord with the honour due to his name. And just this until the night of the Ascension.

Then, Francis calls upon these same Peoples, who have given due glory to the name of God, to sing a psalm to the God who ascends above the Highest Heavens to the east. Christ is He who ascends.

“To the east?' Psalm 67/68: 33 – 36 The Hebrew , transliteration  qedem  qêdmâh intends, in Christian terms, the sense that Christ ascended to that place before antiquity, to the oldest time before the first dawning of the sun in the east.

Jerome writes orientum, the LXX puts it as anatolas – eastward and so, it seems, Francis uses the word ‘east’ as tribute to his brother Sun. For Christ is the Sun of Justice.