From the beginning of the Church, the early Christians adopted the Jewish psalter as their own.
They saw the figure of Christ portrayed in many of the psalms: as a royal descendant of King David and as the expected Messiah; as the Man of Sorrows bearing the sins of humanity; as the truly innocent and righteous man pursued by the wicked; and above all as the only-begotten Son of God.
With their expressions of hope, trust in God and praise for all His gifts to us, as well as anguish and desolation, the psalms are readily entered into by the practicing Christian.
The 150 psalms in the Psalter have thus been seen by Christians throughout the centuries as a compendium of prayers and meditations encompassing the entire range of Christian belief.
We can understand, therefore, why the Christian monastic communities which sprang up from the 3rd century onwards likewise adopted the psalter as their prayer book.
They saw the figure of Christ portrayed in many of the psalms: as a royal descendant of King David and as the expected Messiah; as the Man of Sorrows bearing the sins of humanity; as the truly innocent and righteous man pursued by the wicked; and above all as the only-begotten Son of God.
With their expressions of hope, trust in God and praise for all His gifts to us, as well as anguish and desolation, the psalms are readily entered into by the practicing Christian.
The 150 psalms in the Psalter have thus been seen by Christians throughout the centuries as a compendium of prayers and meditations encompassing the entire range of Christian belief.
We can understand, therefore, why the Christian monastic communities which sprang up from the 3rd century onwards likewise adopted the psalter as their prayer book.