Psalm 18:5
calloused feet are quite a treat
Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the world. (Psalm 18:5 DR)
Once when I was Ireland my future wife and I decided to walk to a local waterfall. According to the guide book it was only supposed to be a few kilometers away, but either this was wrong or was being calculated from a different location. I believe it ended up being around the equivalent of about 9 miles each way.
Now normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but for some reason I had chosen to wear a pair of really cheap sandals for this trek, the kind with the blackish rubbery material directly under one’s feet. And, naturally, the path there was not flat but very hilly. Granted, it was a lovely walk and the location we eventually arrived at was beautiful, but upon arrival my feet were already killing me. We stayed for about half an hour or so and then started the trek back.
As we arrived at the bus stop to take us back into town I had to take off my sandals for a minute and sit down. I looked at the bottom of my feet to discover that they were completely black, as the constant prolonged friction had rubbed the material off of the sandal and onto my feet. Quite the memento for an otherwise wonderful trip!
When I consider the mission of Jesus’ apostles, it’s easy to kind of gloss over the physical toll their traveling must have taken. The highlight reel of their evangelization can overshadow all the hardships they must have experience, although St. Paul is at times more forthright about this.
But their feet must have been calloused beyond belief. To be fair, there would have times of traveling by ship or the occasional horse or donkey, but their generally poverty would have meant a lot of walking, and thus rough and calloused feet.
Understood in that sense, a life lived in God’s service requires calloused feet, whether literally and/or spiritually. It is a (largely) American heresy—unfortunately one which most American Christians ascribe to to one degree or another—that our life in Christ will not involve great suffering. This can range from the extreme end of full on prosperity gospel to the other extreme where we assume a sort of political gospel in which we can put things on autopilot and let a quasi-messianic political figure be the solution to all our ills. Most are probably somewhere in between, just not willing to suffer much, if any, unpleasantness for the sake of Christ. In fact, we can easily make the Gospel say that God doesn’t wish us to suffer but rather to be happy, which ends in a kind of bland spiritual mediocrity, a lukewarmness which doesn’t sit well with our Lord.
But happiness of this sort is not what God wishes for us, as only through suffering and discipline can we truly become sons of God. As St. Paul reminds the Hebrews:
For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: And you have forgotten the consolation, which speaketh to you, as unto children, saying: My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.
(Hebrews 12:4-8 DR)
Seen in this light, suffering for the Christian need not be a source of despair but rather of joy, as suffering is God’s chosen means to refine us, to purge us of our sins and to bring us into the kingdom of his Son.
In this verse the Psalmist uses poetic parallelism to continue the thought from the previous verse, noting how not only do the heavens speak to man in every language the lory of God, but this message goes into all the world, meaning that there is nowhere where this witness is not observed and heard.
St. Paul sees in this passage a type of the apostles preaching the Gospel to the nations:
Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say: Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world. (Romans 10:17-18 DR)
Following St. Paul, the Church likewise applies this verse to the apostles in the Divine Office. This verse from Psalm 18 forms the first antiphon of the first Nocturn for Matins in the office of the Common of Apostles, and then Psalm 18 is the first Psalm of this first Nocturn, thus analogizing the Apostles for the heavens, as St. Paul does. St. Robert Bellarmine comments:
And in truth, the holy apostles and other holy preachers of the word, may deservedly be so compared to the heavens. For, by contemplation they are raised above the earth, ample through their charity, splendid through their wisdom, always serene through their peace of mind, through their intelligence quickly moved by obedience, thundering in their reproofs, flashing by their miracles, profuse in their gifts to others; and, in the spirit of true liberality, seeking nothing from them; free from the slightest speck, as regards sanctity of life; and, finally, the resting place of the supreme king, by reason of their perfect sanctity. “For the soul of the just is the seat of wisdom.”
(St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Psalms, 18, 4.)
This was a particularly simple animation. Given the typological allusions to Pentecost, I wanted to do something related to that. I found this fascinating miniature from an Armenian monk and scribe known as Petros from 1386. The style is exceptionally interesting and so I knew it’d be a great base to start from.
I cut out the figures in Photoshop as well as some of the corners of the original image. I then brought the pieces into After Effects and added some slight wiggle to the figures. In the original there are rays coming forth from the corners, but they proved too thin to meaningfully cut out, so I drew some simple dashed lines and animated the offset of the dash.
I then added a bunch of textures and did a lot of color correction, and the piece was done. Simple but fun I think.
Enjoy.
Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth:
and their words unto the ends of the world.
(Psalm 18:5 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: