Psalm 34:18

I will give thanks to thee in a great church; I will praise thee in a strong people. (Psalm 34:18 DR)

The entirety of this Psalm ends up following a three-fold structure.

The first section (verses 1-8) is supplication towards the Lord for Him to act on the Psalmist’s behalf, with many of the passages beginning with the downfall of his enemies at the hand of God, often phrased as “let them” or something similar.

This section is then connected to the second section with a brief interlude (verses 9-10) wherein the Psalmist contrasts this with his own delight in the Lord’s salvation and confidence in God’s action on his behalf.

The second section (verses 11-17) is a rehearsal of the evils done against him and a vindication of his own innocence, in which such innocence forms the ground of his confidence that God will intervene.

The final section of this Psalm will in some respects mirror the first in respect to those who persecute him, and similar expressions such as “let them” are used throughout. But like the first section, there is a connecting interlude here in verse 18 that transitions between his assertion of innocence and God’s judgment against his enemies.

He begins this passage by stating that he will give thanks to Thee in a great church. In the Vulgate this is Confitebor tibi in ecclesia magna, with Confitebor being similar to the word which opens the Confiteor at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Confitebor does mean to confess, but the content of this confession is not necessarily that of the confession of sins or other wrongs as it generally means in English, but is wide enough in semantic range to admit of what English would consider praise or thanks. To confess is thus generically to speak the truth about something, and thus can take on this character:

He comes to the third limb of the Psalm, when having now observed the gift of the resurrection He proclaims that He confesses the Lord through the whole world. We have stated that there are two forms of confession, one of praise and one of repentance. Here the words which immediately follow, I will praise You, compel you to take it in the sense of praise. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 18, Ancient Christian Writers.)

Cassiodorus thus reads the parallelism of this passage as the second half expanding upon or explicating the first. That is, the praise of the second half is a further explication of the thanks in the first, which would then read the church and strong people in a similar manner:

The great Church is the Christian people who hold firmly to the right path and who with their girth embrace the extent of the whole world. Next comes: In a laden people, in the precise sense of a people bearing a harvest, for we know that it is composed not of flying chaff but of ears of corn. When the wind of temptation comes, it does not blow it away from Christ’s threshing-floor, but by such winnowing it is cleansed rather than blown away. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 18, Ancient Christian Writers.)

St. Augustine reads this slightly differently, in that the parallelism creates a fitting contrast between the confession of the first half and the praise of the second:

Truly says He, I will confess unto You: for confession is made in all the multitude, but not in all is God praised: the whole multitude hears our confession, but not in all the multitude is the praise of God. For in all the whole multitude, that is, in the Church which is spread abroad in the whole world, is chaff, and wheat: the chaff flies, the wheat remains; therefore, in a weighty people will I praise You. In a weighty people, which the wind of temptation carries not away, in such is God praised. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 10.)

In the early Church confession was generally made in public, which is why St. Augustine contrasts confession being made in the whole multitude with that of the praise being made in a weighty people. Both of these have in the background the parable of the wheat and tares, which St. Augustine uses as a metaphor to explain the presence of evil within the Church. In the parable the householder sows good seed, but then an enemy comes in the night and sows tares. The servants want to pull out the tares, but are refused:

And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn. (Matthew 13:29-30 DR)

This image is combined with that of the threshing-floor, in which the chaff is winnowed from the wheat, a symbol of judgment:

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:12 DR)

St. Augustine’s point here is that confession is made in the multitude of the Church; that is, among both the good and the wicked, but only the righteous are those who give praise or are in whom this praise is to be found. He speaks of this praise being in a weighty people, which is a literal translation of the word gravi as in the Vulgate and Old Latin, meaning heavy. Following the metaphor of the wheat and the chaff, the wheat is literally heavy, and thus when the winnowing takes place it will not fly away like the chaff which is lighter. Both Cassiodorus and St. Augustine link this image to that of temptation, in which the wheat are not carried away by the winds of temptation when they blow.

On St. Augustine’s reading, the confession within the great Church leads to this ability to give praise in a weighty people; it bulks up the soul, as it were, with grace received in the sacrament of Penance so that temptation can be overcome. To be in a state of grace through this sacramental confession thus allows one to confess the greatness and praise of the Lord, preeminently through partaking of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, the holy Eucharist. Some of the earliest extra-biblical writings draw this essential connection:

In the church you shall acknowledge your transgressions, and you shall not come near for your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life.

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. (Didache 4:14; 14:1)

When we approach prayer with an evil conscience, as the Didache describes, we refuse to make the confession in a great church that the Psalmist speaks of here, and thus prove to not be of the weighty people. But after that confession one can join one’s sacrifice with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a pure heart. This is why St. Paul speaks of examining oneself prior to partaking of the Eucharist so that one does not profane the Body and Blood of the Lord (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:27-32). St. Augustine further describes the nature of the distinction between the wheat and chaff in respect to this confession:

For in the chaff He is ever blasphemed. When our chaff is considered, what is meant? See how Christians live, see what Christians do; and it is fulfilled, which is written, Through you is My Name blasphemed among the Gentiles. Wickedly, grudgingly beholdest thou the threshing-floor, who art all on the chaff; not easily appeareth the grain to thee; seek and thou shalt find a weighty people in which thou mayest praise God. Wouldest thou find? Be thou such; for if thou be not such, it is hard but that all should appear to thee such as thou art: Comparing (saith the Apostle) themselves among themselves, they understand not. In a weighty people will I praise Thee. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 10.)

He notes that without this confession, one will be like chaff among chaff, and will not likely find the weighty people in which to please God. If we continue in our sins instead of bringing them to confession, we are constantly blown around by temptation. But if we become like the weighty people through confession, we can then praise Thee in a weighty people. There is on the practical level a stability in virtue that—enabled by grace—allows us to withstand the trials and temptations that are common and inevitable in this life. Those who are bound and subject to their sins are unstable in all their ways (cf. James 1:8) and get blown around by the fashions of this world and are incapable of praising God with sincerity of heart.

In confession we humble ourselves before the Lord, imitating His humility in which He was made lowly for us:

Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light. (Matthew 11:29-30 DR)

This burden of our Lord in humility is light, yet becomes the anchor which keeps us grounded as a weighty people when temptation blows and trials and persecutions rage. When we submit ourselves to the Lord in confession, we can then pray with a pure and sincere heart, as the Psalmist elsewhere speaks:

I said I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord: and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin. For this shall every one that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time. And yet in a flood of many waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. (Psalm 31:5-6 DR)

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I found this great image of this angel and isolated it in Photoshop and then brought into After Effects. The background church dome image I applied wiggle hold to to get it to move, and then made a sequence of the text with the precomp blended in at certain intervals.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: