The Longest Psalm Day-by-Day Responses to Divine Self-Revelation

Michael Casey’s insightful meditations on Psalm 119, the longest psalm of the Psalter, are to be read slowly and savored. By reflecting on the meaning of each of the Psalm’s 176 verses, he shows us how God’s Torah can form and renew our lives today. Here is a volume to which you can turn for spiritual nourishment and guidance.

God’s self-revelation in Scripture can be known by us through lectio. Fr. Michael Casey has done the homework. All we have to do is turn the page. This book on “the Longest Psalm” is an example of how we can hold and grasp the whole of Hebrew Scripture.

The long, repetitive Psalm 119, like an apparently barren landscape, yields surprising variety and abundance to the practiced, patient gaze. Thanks to Michael Casey’s well-trained eye and long experience, this neglected psalm now receives the attention it deserves. To read this commentary is both to appreciate the psalm and to assimilate rewarding habits of close reading.

Psalm 119 occurs more frequently in the Liturgy of the Hours than any other psalm, but it has long been neglected in commentary because it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Michael Casey executes here a successful rescue mission, showing that the very point of the Psalm is that it is staying where it is, celebrating the word of God by turning it over and over like a diamond so that we can appreciate all its facets.

From the author who gave us Sacred Reading, the finest introduction to Lectio Divina that I know, comes this volume in which Michael Casey leads us through a Lectio Divina for Psalm 119. With each biblical verse, Casey plumbs concrete questions of daily life, such as our experience of longing, evil, vanity, and stumbling. Each of the 176 verses of this psalm is given a two-page reflection, perfect for a brief meditation before beginning the day.

If you find Psalm 119 tedious and suppose that its main virtue must lie in its acrostic cleverness, appreciated only in the original Hebrew, this book will make you think again. In a meditative, practical, and sometimes even playful reading of each of the psalm’s 176 verses, Michael Casey shows how the law celebrated in this psalm, far from being something harsh and coercive, is a source of joy and delight, nothing less than the divine self-revelation offering us a pathway to fullness of life. The law, understood in this way, encompasses not only the written word, but the assimilated word, active in our hearts, shaping our outlook and values. The fruit of a Cistercian monk’s long exposure to the psalms, singing them, as verse 146 says, ‘seven times in the day,’ this book is a gift to all who treasure them, both Jewish and Christian.

How to joyfully fulfil the Law of the Lord in all the varied circumstances emerging from one’s life? Who else but Michael Casey, could weave together 176 answers to this question using the 176 verses of Psalm 118 (119). With his usual laser-sharp gaze on the text, his comprehensive exploration and penetrating acumen we have all come to expect from his work, Casey draws us into the profound riches and purpose of this otherwise repetitive and predictable text.