The words of Psalm 1 always begin the week for us in the Kathisma appointed to be read on Saturday night at Great Vespers of Sunday. Beginning the Psalter anew on Saturday night is appropriate, because this same service begins the new tone of the Octoechos. It is the first service of the new week, the first service of the Day of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.
The words of Psalm 1 are univocally interpreted by the Fathers of the Church as a Messianic prophecy, because it begins "Blessed in the man, who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked." According to the reasoning of the Fathers, this description applies to the Christ and only the Christ, because in another place in the same book we are told, "All have gone astray. There is none who is righteous, no, not one." Christ therefore must be the blessed man, Who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked. Nevertheless, the thesis of this series of evening sermons is that the Psalter, while it is primarily about our Lord Jesus Christ, it is also, in due proportion, about His Holy Mother, and contains information about His Holy Mother.
The first and most obvious thing that we can see is that Christ is being held up by his ancestor David in contrast to his forefather Adam, because Adam "walked in the counsel of the wicked." Christ, on the other hand, according to His human nature, walked according to righteous counsel. The Gospel According to Saint Luke tells us: "He went down with them [Mary and Joseph] and was obedient to them, and grew in wisdom and grace before God and men." This can easily be construed as a precept for us by example. What is the way to grow in wisdom and grace? Be obedient to the Most Holy Mother of God.
And if we think that Psalm 1 has exhausted its Marian insights at this point, we are in for a rude awakening, for walking is just the beginning of the psalm's teaching regarding righteous conduct. No, the psalm goes on to speak of standing and sitting. Walking, standing and sitting are the three traditional degrees of Hebrew ethical behavior. Walking means overall, habitual action. Standing means agreement with the behavior around us, and sitting signifies establishment, confirmation in ethical or unethical behavior. The Messianic prophecy in Psalm 1 shows us that Christ did not stand in the way of sinners, and in this too He is an example to all of us. If not the path of sinners, what did He stand in? In the House of Lord, as the Psalms tell us in other places: "O Come, bless the Lord, all you who serve the Lord; who stand in the House of the Lord, in the courts of the House of our God"; "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the House of the Lord,' and now our feet are standing in your midst, O Jerusalem"; "Who shall go up to the House of the Lord and who shall stand in His Holy Place? It is He Who walks blamelessly...." Finally, Christ does not sit in the company of scoffers (those who disparage the demands of the Law). Where does He "sit" instead? Zion, the Most Holy Mother of God, is His resting place, as, again, the Psalms tell us, "this is my resting place unto the ages of ages. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it." Concretely, we can see that, far from disparaging the demands of God's Law, the Lord Jesus and His Holy Mother were at pains to fulfill the Law even when it did not exactly apply to them. This supererogatory obedience is what the Feast of the Presentation is all about.
Psalm 1 continues to tell us that the Messiah delights in the Law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. We know that this is equally true of the Most Holy Mother of God and that a description of the quality of this meditation is available to us in the Gospel According to Saint Luke. There, we learn that the Mother of God was pondering her circumstances constantly in her heart, in other words, reflecting on her life in terms of what God had revealed. Constant meditation on the Law of God, in turn, makes God's Messiah "like a tree planted by a stream of water, which will give its fruit in due season." This same stream of living water is mentioned in other places in the Psalms. For example, "the stream of a river gives joy to God's city, the Holy Place where the Most High dwells. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be disturbed." The stream that is being referenced in all these cases is the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that works with and in the Son, God's Messiah to produce the abundant fruits of meditation on the Law, also sanctifies the Most Holy Mother of God, who is described as His city, His dwelling place, His tabernacle.
Since the Fathers have consistently told us that Psalm 1 is a Messianic prophecy, the question remains for us, "how do we, as children of the Most Holy Mother of God in Christ, make "the blessed man" present in our own lives? It is self-evident that we not only eschew temptation to walk, stand and sit in ways that are displeasing to God, but we also have to positively choose to walk, stand and sit in union with the Mother of God. Read contextually along with the other passages in the Psalter, Psalm 1 is teaching us that the only authentic way to follow the Lord Jesus is the Mother of God's manner of following the Lord Jesus. In the same way that being in the church is the only effective way to teach us the appropriate times to sit, stand and kneel, being in union of thought and intention with the Mother of God is the only way to learn how to walk, stand and sit, that is, to become "the blessed man," sharing in the Sonship of Christ by adoption.
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