The Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary by St Bonaventure : Psalm 48

St Bonaventure Receiving the Banner of St Sepulchre
from the Madonna, by Francesco Solimena (1710). The 
Cathedral of San Paolo in Aversa, Italy. Public domain.

The following posts present the text of The Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its authorship is generally attributed to St Bonaventure (1221-15 July 1274) who studied at the University of Paris where in 1243 he joined the Franciscan Order. In 1254, he was made a Master of Theology and took over the leadership of the Franciscan School in Paris. Bonaventure was officially confirmed as seventh Minister General of the Franciscans in 1257. He later wrote a life of St Francis and has been called the second founder of the Order. Appointed Cardinal the year before his death in 1274, he was canonised in 1482 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588 with the title of Seraphic Doctor.

I offer this annotated presentation of St Bonaventure’s Psalter as a small gift to our gentle Queen and Mother in gratitude for her many graces and favours, praying for her continued help and protection for the author and his family.

This presentation of St Bonaventure’s Marian Psalms will include: an English translation based upon that of Sr Mary Emmanuel O.S.B. in the 1932 edition published by Herder; the Latin text as published in the Psalterium B. Virginis Mariæ of 1679; the text of the Douay-Rheims Psalms; with footnotes and occasional notes translated from Fillion’s Bible (1900 edition).

Psalm 48

“By the fruit of thy womb, refresh and sustain the hunger

of thy little ones.” Madonna della Misericordia (1494), 

artist n/k. Rocca di Gradara castle, Italy. Sailko. CC BY 3.0. 

1. Hear ye these things, all ye nations: give ear, all ye who desire to enter the kingdom of God.[1]

2. Honour the Virgin Mary: and ye will find life and perpetual salvation.[2]

3. Keep thy poor servants,[3] O Lady: join them with a happy union to Christ.

4. By the fruit of thy womb, refresh and sustain the hunger of thy little ones.[4]

5. For after thy bringing forth thou hast remained incorrupt: and after thy Son, inviolate.[5]

Glory be to the Father etc.

1. Audite hæc, omnes gentes: auribus percipite, qui ingredi cupitis regnum Dei.

2. Virginem Mariam honorate: et invenietis vitam et salutem perpetuam.

3. Pauperes servos tuos, Domina: felici confœderatione conjunge Christo.

4. Esuriem parvulorum tuorum: fructu ventris tui refice, et sustenta.

5. Remansisti enim incorrupta post partum: et inviolata post Filium.

Gloria Patri, etc.

Footnotes

[1] Cf. “Hear these things, all ye nations: give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world.” Davidic Ps. XLVIII, 2.

[2] Cf. the reaction of Elizabeth and the infant John in her womb: “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” Luke i, 43-4.

[3] Cf. “Save thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in thee;” Ps. LXXXV, 2.

[4] Cf. “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.” Matt. xix, 14.

[5] Cf. “It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death”: St. John Damascene, Encomium in Dormitionem Dei Genetricis Semperque Virginis Mariae, Hom. II, n. 14; quoted by Pius XII in his Encyclical Munificentissimus Deus, Nov. 1, 1950.

Davidic Psalm XLVIII

1 Unto the end, a psalm for the sons of Core.

2 Hear these things, all ye nations: give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world.  3 All you that are earth-born, and you sons of men: both rich and poor together.  4 My mouth shall speak wisdom: and the meditation of my heart understanding.  5 I will incline my ear to a parable; I will open my proposition on the psaltery.

6 Why shall I fear in the evil day? the iniquity of my heel shall encompass me.  7 They that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches,  8 No brother can redeem, nor shall man redeem: he shall not give to God his ransom,  9 Nor the price of the redemption of his soul: and shall labour for ever,  10 And shall still live unto the end.  11 He shall not see destruction, when he shall see the wise dying: the senseless and the fool shall perish together: And they shall leave their riches to strangers:  12 And their sepulchres shall be their houses for ever. Their dwelling places to all generations: they have called their lands by their names.  13 And man when he was in honour did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them.

14 This way of theirs is a stumbling block to them: and afterwards they shall delight in their mouth.  15 They are laid in hell like sheep: death shall feed upon them. And the just shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their help shall decay in hell from their glory.  16 But God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, when he shall receive me.  17 Be not thou afraid, when a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased.  18 For when he shall die he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him.  19 For in his lifetime his soul will be blessed: and he will praise thee when thou shalt do well to him.  20 He shall go in to the generations of his fathers: and he shall never see light. 21 Man when he was in honour did not understand: he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them.

Notes

The vanity of worldly goods ; the wicked will receive eternal punishment and the good will be eternally rewarded.

This psalm is moral and didactic, composed of short, pithy sentences after the manner of the book of Proverbs. The subject matter closely resembles that in Psalm XXXVI : there is once again a discussion concerning the important and difficult problem of inequality between humans and the frequent prosperity of the wicked. The psalmist pays particular attention to the present and future state of wicked men who “trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches” (verse 7). He sees that the goods and advantages which they possess are essentially transitory and incapable of delivering them either from death or from any punishments which follow. The just, on the other hand, although often plunged during this life into every sort of suffering,  have as an inner consolation the hope of a better life in eternity. This Psalm is perhaps the one out of all those in the psalter which contains the most explicit statements regarding the existence and conditions of future life. Several of the verses are obscure both in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, (notably verses 7 et seq., 12-14, and 18) and this is also the case in the Hebrew.

Structure: the psalm is divided fairly simply:

‣ a solemn prelude in verses 2-5 ;

‣ and two equal parts, divided by a refrain (verses 13 and 21):

1. verses 6-13 – The riches enjoyed by the wicket will not deliver them from death ;

2. verses 14-21 – The glory of sinners will perish in the land of the dead, whereas the just will live in eternal happiness. 

Solemn prelude. Verses 2-5. 

The poet addresses his call universally since the subject he is about to cover is of general interest to all men, irrespective of race, country or status.

5: “I will open my proposition”: “my proposition” in Hebr. is more akin to “my problem” or “my enigma”: the delicate and difficult question of the temporal prosperity enjoyed by the wicked.

“on the psaltery”: in Hebr. with the kinnôr, a sort of harp or lyre: i.e.,  accompanied by music and in poetic language.

First part: Despite their riches, the wicked will not escape death. Verses 6-13.

Those have to suffer because of rich and powerful sinners have no need to worry unduly because their oppressors will be precipitated into their own ruin through their power and their wealth.

6: “ the iniquity of my heel”: a Hebraism which is equivalent to “the iniquity of my enemies,” the cowardly malice of those who attacked someone from behind.

8: “No brother can redeem”: even the money of a brother cannot redeem or save his brother from death, so how much less can an ordinary man do this for another? Even were a wicked man to use up all his riches, he would not be able to furnish God with a ransom capable of prolonging his life.

The holy Fathers apply this verse in a beautiful manner to our Lord Jesus Christ, the man par excellence who redeemed the whole human race – something no other man could have done.

Second part : The glory of sinners will perish in the land of the dead, whereas the just will live in eternal happiness.

14: “afterwards they shall delight in their mouth”: Despite an end so miserable, there are still found men so senseless as to admire the way they spoke when they were previously on earth. The Hebrew reflects this: such is the way or destiny of those who place their trust in themselves and of those who follow them in admiring their words.

15: “death shall feed upon them”: it is probably better to give to this verb the sense of feed them, in conformity with the Septuagint and the Hebrew: meaning Death is their pastor[the one who feeds]. A striking image. Cf. Ps. XXII, 1-2.

20: “he shall never see light”: a reference to the darkness of sheol, which here we can rightly call hell, will be their eternal destiny, whereas the just will see light in God’s light (ps. XXXV, 10).

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.