The Importance of the Psalms

The Psalms give us a language for our prayers. Here are two quotes from a Benedictine website. These are monks, you say. Then sign me up to be a Postmodern monastic!

"The book of psalms is like a garden which contains the fruits of all the other books of scripture, both Old and New Testaments. The crop it grows is their fruit, which it produces as music, while adding other fruits of its own. It seems to me also that the psalms are like a mirror. Anyone who recites them sees himself, and all the movements of his own heart and mind. He is deeply affected, because he encounters there as it were his own words, and his own songs, only given clearer expression than he could ever have managed himself."
(From the Letter to Marcellinus of St. Athanasius, 295-373, author of the Life of Antony)

"How sweet it is to read the psalms! It is not tiresome, but most delightful. What could I do that would please me more? In the psalms I praise and glorify my Creator; I invoke, honour and entreat Him; in the psalms I thank Him and bless Him; in the psalms I confess my sins and implore mercy; in the psalms I consider the vanity of the world, and I understand the frailty of life, the paltry value of this mortal body, and the danger of being carried far from God. Above all in the psalms I glimpse, in so far as the countless defects of my eyes permit, the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God. I find in the psalms such exact prophecies of Jesus Christ that I could believe some of them were composed after, rather than before, His death. I love to sing the psalms by heart so that I can pray them without effort, unhindered by illness or any other obstacle. Does not David deserve our admiration for giving us such exquisite poetry, such noble philosophy, such tender feeling, as of a man enamoured of heavenly beauty! A love of the psalms is the mark of a true monk. Woe to those who scorn them! We may well doubt whether any spiritual exercise can please someone who is bored by the psalter. So suited is psalmody to monks that in former times when they made their profession they used to be urged to keep the psalms always in their hands or on their lips. For what could be more useful for us, whose desire it is to pray at all times, to meditate frequently, and sometimes even to attain heavenly contemplation? If the main concern of monks is to bemoan their sins, to praise God for His infinite mercy, and with hearts overflowing with love, to cling to Jesus as He hangs naked on the Cross, then no physical or spiritual occupation could offer them greater satisfaction than the recitation of the psalter."
(Paul Giustiniani OSB, 1476-1528)