ON PSALM 34

6. HE. Come ye to him, and be enlightened: and your faces shall not blush. To begin with he uttered praises and arranged the choruses; now in the second part he encourages the people to come to communion, so that as spiritual adviser he might set before us the rite of the Church to come. Come ye is addressed not to drunkards, adulterers, or the arrogant, but to sober, chaste, humble Christians who deserve to be enlightened by reception of the sacrament. As Paul attests with regard to communion: Whoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the chalice. So one must ensure that the person who comes to Him so governs himself in making humble satisfaction that he seems capable of being enlightened rather than blinded. Face, as we have often said, means presence, and it can often experience confusion and change colour if heavenly gifts are withdrawn from it. So the faithful do not blush, since they obtain these gifts; blushing is the mark of one who is frustrated by not being able to achieve his longings. Some people make a big issue of this passage, and think that we must interpret it in this way: since Paul says: Only he that has immortality and inhabits inaccessible light, how can the psalmist say here: Come ye to him, and be enlightened? But the problem is solved by this brief statement of the truth: His light is said to be inaccessible when the unique and almighty nature of its substance is described; but when the grace of the sacred Godhead pours forth, we both approach Him and obtain blessed enlightenment. So elsewhere it is stated: Which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world.[1]…

9. TETH. O taste and see that the Lord is sweet: blessed is the man that hopeth in him. He comes back to the most holy communion of the Lord, and never stops repeating what he knows is the source for men of the joys of eternal life. Taste refers not to the palate but to the sweetest emotion of the soul, which is fattened by contemplation of the Godhead. So that you may understand what taste means, see follows, and this refers specifically not to the mouth but clearly to our contemplative nature. So when we receive this Body, we may be confident that the grace of life is being granted to us. He does not wish you to relate that communion to the body which all men share, so he says: The Lord is sweet, for by this communion He grants salvation to mankind in accord with His devoted love. Our Life who is truly God, who united to Himself the flesh assumed from the virgin Mary and made it His own, claimed that it brings life; as He says in the gospel: Amen, amen I say to you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have eternal life in you. Though that flesh has been assumed from human nature, we must not account it as belonging to one of us or as stained by the contagion of any sin, but flesh worthy of adoration, which brings salvation, gives life, and forgives sins through the Word to which it is joined. As the Lord himself says in the gospel: “That you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, and leads us to the kingdom of enduring life.” The psalmist next appends this unconditional and strong statement, that the man who does not cease to hope in the Lord is blessed. This is a leading theme, for it is so frequently repeated in order that we may never cease to seek what we know is proclaimed with such constancy.[2]

[1] Cassiodorus. (1990). Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms. (W. J. Burghardt & T. C. Lawler, Eds., P. G. Walsh, Trans.) (51st ed., Vol. I, p. 327). New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

[2] Cassiodorus. (1990). Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms. (W. J. Burghardt & T. C. Lawler, Eds., P. G. Walsh, Trans.) (51st ed., Vol. I, pp. 328–329). New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.