. . . There is no aspect of the interior life, no kind of religious experience, no spiritual need of the human person that is not depicted and lived out in the Psalms. But we cannot lay hands on these riches unless we are willing to work for them. … We cannot by mere human ingenuity or talent exhaust all that is contained in the Psalms. Indeed, if we seek only to “get something out of them” we will perhaps get less than we expect, and generous efforts may be frustrated because they are turned in the wrong direction: toward ourselves rather than toward God. In the last analysis, it is not so much what we get out of Psalms that rewards us, as what we put into them. If we really make them our prayer, really prefer them to other methods and expedients, in order to let God pray in us in His own words … then indeed we will enter into the meaning of the Psalms, and they will become our favorite vocal prayers.
Thomas Merton
Praying the Psalms
