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Question

Dear father Angelo,

 I am writing to you again but this time in regards to some doubts about the Psalms, prayers as ancient as timeless and central to Christian religiosity.

Listening to a beautiful catechesis on prayers, by an eminent monk of the spirituality of rev. Divo Barsotti, I discovered that some Psalms are called “imprecatory”. I was somewhat intrigued and troubled by such prayers, as they have verses which seem to curse the enemies and to  wish them evils and revenge from God, almost contradicting the Christian model that invites not to hate and not to pay evil for evil to anyone, but rather to forgive and to pray for enemies.

I have certainly understood, thanks also to some writings of priests and fathers of the Church who address to these Psalms, that these prayers are almost a surrender of the afflicted to the Divine Justice of God, without actually wanting to personally act with hatred but leaving  his own cry of despair and oppression to the Lord, to whom alone, the Most High, the judgment and ultimate action belongs, even on enemies and injustices.

I have also understood that enemies are often not so much men or physical beings as instead demons and unclean spirits.

So in the ever-present struggle between good and evil these Psalms, contextualized at the time to which they belong, were and are in some ways the weapon and voice of the afflicted by evil who asks God for justice and listening, so that He may act to free him.

However, perhaps also because after the Second Vatican Council these prayers were put on the sidelines of the Catholic prayer and so we are no longer accustomed to them, I have actually struggled to read with intention some parts of these prayers.

I therefore ask you to help me acquire more clarity on these Psalms.

In addition, we talk about imprecatory Psalms but I have not found a list in which these Psalms and other kinds of Psalms are really specified. On the web some numbers of Psalms are called imprecatories but on other pages the numbers change and there is much confusion. Somehow many Psalms present elements and words that seem to be imprecatories but at the same time of praise, and this is so confusing to me.

Could you tell me which are the imprecatories ones ? Or anyway if there is an “official” list of the Church where they are divided by category (praise, imprecatories, …)?

Above all: is it rightful to pray these Psalms? And if it is, as I think it is, being Holy Scripture and the Word of God, is it legitimate to pray while mentally addressing them to our own enemies both physical (people or situations that hurt us very much almost to lead us to despair and towards which we seem powerless) and spiritual (the attacks of demons that afflict with tribulations and temptations)? Without risking to covet the evil of others and to deflect from the commandments of Christian love… or even to fall into sin.

I thank you in advance for all your answers that enlighten many believers on the Christian journey and dispel doubts and errors by increasing the knowledge of the true doctrine.

I send you a warm and sincere greeting.

Peace and Good,

Francesco

Answer

Dear Francesco,

1. There are Psalms that contain curses against enemies, and for this reason they are called imprecatory Psalms.

They seem contrary to the Christian law of forgiveness and to be a manifestation of a heart eager for revenge.

They have always been difficult. And it is understandable why some expressions were  taken away in the recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours. Some people, under the pretext that they are in the official prayer of the Church, could make them their own and apply them to those who were the cause of sorrows and evils.

2. Saint Thomas in the Summa Theologiae offers an explanation and says: “Such like imprecations which we come across in Holy Writ, may be understood in three ways: first, by way of prediction, not by way of wish, so that the sense is: “May the wicked be,” that is, “The wicked shall be, turned into hell.” Secondly, by way of wish, yet so that the desire of the wisher is not referred to the man’s punishment, but to the justice of the punisher, according to Ps. 57:11: “The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge,” since, according to Wis. 1:13, not even God “hath pleasure in the destruction of the wicked [Vulg.: ‘living’]” when He punishes them, but He rejoices in His justice, according to Ps. 10:8: “The Lord is just and hath loved justice.” Thirdly, so that this desire is referred to the removal of the sin, and not to the punishment itself, to the effect, namely, that the sin be destroyed, but that the man may live” (Summa theologiae, II-II, 25, 6, ad 3).

3. In the first meaning, that is as predictions, they were interpreted by Saint Peter in reference to Jude.

He indeed applies to Jude and to what is to be done what is written in the Psalm: “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it  (Ps 69,26),’; and ‘His office let another take (Ps 109,8)” (At 1,20).

4. In the second meaning, namely as an aspiration to justice, reference is made, for example, to Psalm 139:21-22: “Do I not hate them that hate thee, O Lord. And do I not loathe them that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies”. Hatred against God’s enemies (and demons are certainly God’s irreducible enemies) is inspired by God’s love.

6. In the third meaning, that is in reference to the desire for the elimination of guilt, they aim at the conversion of the sinner: “Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever; let them perish in disgrace. Let them know that thou alone, whose name is the Lord, art the Most High over all the earth.” (Ps 83,17-18).

Sometimes they aim for the good of religion and society.

7. There is no list of imprecatory Psalms, as there is of the so-called Penitential Psalms, which are seven, or even of the Gradual Psalms which are 15. Very often they are verses within a Psalm, which may be of praise or supplication.

Consider for example Psalm 149 which is a hymn of praise to God for His victories: 

“Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches.  Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to wreak vengeance on the nations and chastisement on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written! This is glory for all his faithful ones” (Ps 149, 5-9).

This refers to the conquest of the pagans to faith.

Their conversion is presented with the image of a victory or a triumph as in ancient times when the vanquished kings were held in chains and the nobles were tied to the stocks, to execute upon them the sentence already written.

It is a glory and honor for the people of God to have been elected as minister of divine salvation and justice against demons.

8. The Jerusalem Bible, in the footnote to Psalm 5, gives as an example the verses of the following Psalms: 10,15; 31,18; 54,7; 58,7s; 59,12s; 69,23-29; 79,12; 83,10-19; 104,35; 109,6-20; 125,5; 137,7-9; 139,19-22; 140,10-12.

9. It is legitimate to recite them, but with a Christian spirit that is – as Saint Augustine used to say – with a prophetic character of description of the punishments that overwhelm the damned in hell and not as an invocation of vengeance, which is altogether foreign to the spirit of the Gospel.

I wish you all the best, I remember you to the Lord and bless you.

Father Angelo