One of the holy Fathers of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine, offers a lovely and penetrating reflection on the first verse of the first Psalm of the Old Testament. It is one of the so-called wisdom Psalms.  The words are as follows, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked”.  In the opinion of this great Christian scholar, the blessing applies to Our Lord Jesus Christ, homo dominicus, the Man of the Lord. The Law of the Lord, which is to be our delight  and meditation  day and night , finds its meaning only in Him, As Patrick Reardon, a noted biblical exegete remarks, “Christ is the One who fulfills it, and He is the key to its understanding”. The “blessed man”, Jesus Christ, is an insult to the counterfeit wisdom of this world. The powers of this world cannot abide him. “Let us lie in wait for the righteous one, because he is annoying to us; he opposes our actions, reproaches us for transgressions of the law, and charges us with violations of our training” (Wis.2:12)

It is to be expected that the inspired writer of Hebrew poetry writes in admiration of those pious Jews who delight in the Law “day and night”. One cannot spend too much time meditating on God’s revelation. The Divine word edifies and inspires; it is a source of wonder and pleasure .St. Benedict, the founder of Western Monasticism and a profound guide to Sacred Scripture in his own day, has his disciples arise after the middle of the night, each night, to use its last, quietest deepest hours to meditate upon the Law of the Lord as it is laid out, first of all in the Psalms and then in the other scriptures.

Most of us are likely familiar with the phase “food for thought”. The Divine word is our daily nourishment. As we begin the season of Lent, let us spend time meditating on the Psalms and the other books of the bible as our daily bread.