[Video] Psalm 65:17

I cried to him with my mouth: and I extolled him with my tongue. (Psalm 65:17 DR)

In English we have a few idioms for choosing not to speak even when we really wish to. Perhaps the least intense expression is to keep my mouth shut, which implies a desire to speak but a decision to refrain. A slightly stronger version of this is when we say “I held my tongue,” meaning that there was some desire but it wasn’t overwhelming. However, a stronger version is “I bit my tongue,” implying that the urge to speak was so strong that one had to metaphorically (or perhaps literally) bite one’s tongue so that the pain of the bite was more intense than the desire to speak.

In the Roman Martyrology for July there is the case of a martyr who literally bit his tongue so as to avoid temptation:

In Thebais, in Egypt, the commemoration of many holy martyrs who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian. At this time, when Christians sought death by the sword for the name of Christ, the crafty enemy devised certain slow torments to put them to death, wishing much more to kill their souls rather than their bodies… Another was bound and laid among flowers, when a shameless woman approached him with the intention of exciting his passions, but he bit off his tongue and spat it in her face. (Roman Martyrology, July 28)

The Scriptures are replete with admonitions about the tongue—both to use for good and to avoid its use for ill—and St. James famously reminds us that “if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body.” (James 3:2 DR) It is because the tongue is so associated with the word and thus with our thoughts—and thus with our interior intentions, dispositions and will—that the tongue becomes a stand-in for our will. What we choose to say or not say is evidenced by the tongue, which becomes the instrument of the expression of our heart and mind and will. Thus, if we have perfect mastery over the tongue—which St. James later says is is a raging evil set on fire by hell itself—we will have perfect mastery over ourselves. The Psalmist connects these two ideas elsewhere:

I said: I will take heed to my ways: that I sin not with my tongue. I have set guard to my mouth, when the sinner stood against me. I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence from good things: and my sorrow was renewed. My heart grew hot within me: and in my meditation a fire shall flame out. (Psalm 38:2-4 DR)

Here the Psalmist openly confesses his propensity to sin with his tongue, and for that very reason takes heed to his words and keeps silence even from good, that he might not sin in speaking rashly. Yet the nature of the fire within the tongue is that this silence does not necessarily mean he is not prone to temptation—it burns within his heart as he considers his sorrow and the injustice which surrounds and afflicts him.

However, the controlling of one’s tongue is not just in the negative sense of keeping one’s mouth shut or holding one’s tongue or even biting one’s tongue. For—as Ecclesiastes says—there is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. (Ecclesiastes 3:7 DR)

The Psalmist now comes to this time to speak, saying: I cried to Him with my mouth: and I extolled Him with my tongue. The parallelism of mouth and tongue creates a sense of movement from the general to the particular or from the origin to the instrument. The mouth could be seen as that which speaks, and the tongue as that by which it speaks. This stacking of images in the parallelism is intended to emphasize that this cry to the Lord issues forth not just in a generic sense but rather from the very depths of his interiority. That is, his mouth and tongue are the means by which the thoughts of his heart and the movement of his will are expressed and made evident.

St. Augustine considers the Psalmist’s prayer as expressing the prayer of the Church, specifically that of the Gentiles who were formerly in the darkness of idolatry but have been brought into the light of Christ. He argues that even those who were born Christian still have this heritage from which they have been rescued, and thus the prayer of the Church also becomes their own:

I that was “saying to a stock, My father thou art; and to a stone, “Thou hast begotten me:” now say, “Our Father, Which art in Heaven.” “To Him with my mouth I have cried.” With my mouth now, not with the mouth of another. When I was crying to stones in the vain conversation of fathers’ tradition, with the mouth of others I was crying: when I have cried to the Lord, that which Himself hath given, that which Himself hath inspired, to Him with my own mouth I have cried, and have exalted Him under my tongue. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 65, 21.)

It is only within the Church and being united to Christ in His mystical Body that this cry unto the Lord can become one’s own, that one can cry with my mouth rather than that of another. We in the modern world tend to prize our own individual expression of things, imagining that by doing so we are being our own person and giving expression to that. The reality, however, is that apart from Christ and His Church one is merely the mouthpiece for the spirit of the world, and all the individualism and personal expression one might imagine one is engaging in is simply another manifestation of the same father of this world, the stock or stone that the prophet Jeremiah mentions:

As the thief is confounded when he is taken, so is the house of Israel confounded, they and their kings, their princes and their priests, and their prophets. Saying to a stock: Thou art my father: and to a stone: thou hast begotten me: they have turned their back to me, and not their face: and in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us. Where are the gods, whom thou hast made thee? let them arise and deliver thee in the time of thy affliction: for according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Juda. (Jeremiah 2:26-28 DR)

Our tongues will be used to extol God or to extol the prince of this world, and there is no in-between. If our mouths do not cry unto the Lod, they will by default cry to the stock or the stone. And even if we dress them up in more modern visages, they are still as dead and lifeless as the pagan monuments of old.

It is thus that the Psalmist rejects all idolatry and anything other than God—including all the loves and pleasures of this world—extolling Him alone with his tongue. The Vulgate has et exaltavi sub lingua mea, which could be literally translated as “and I extolled Him under my tongue.” The Latin sub—which in the Septuagint of this passage is ὑπὸ—is generally translated as under, but in this case is being used idiomatically. That is, the image is of this praise sitting just under his tongue, almost bursting at the seams and ready to issue forth. In the verses of Psalm 38 quoted earlier he spoke of his heart growing hot within him when he didn’t speak, and in a similar manner the praise just under his tongue is burning like a fire, like holding one of those Atomic Fireball candies in your mouth.

There is also finally a splendid juxtaposition created between the mouth and under the tongue, as the former speaks to the outward expression of praise, whereas the former indicates the interior disposition and meditation from which it arises. That is, both the inner mind of the Psalmist and his outward expression of praise are made to perfectly coincide:

What is, “I have cried with my mouth, and have exalted Him under my tongue?” Him in public I have preached, Him in secret I have confessed. Too little it is to exalt God with tongue; but also “under the tongue,” so that of what thou speakest being assured, of the same in silence thou mayest meditate. “To Him with my mouth I have cried, and I have exalted Him under my tongue.” See how in secret he would be uncorrupt that offereth marrowed holocausts. This do ye, brethren, this imitate, so that ye may say, “Come ye, see how great things He hath done to my soul.” For all those things of which he telleth, by His Grace are done in our soul. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 65, 21.)

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I found a sort of generic background image and then placed the text in the composition and applied the Extrude plugin to the text and animated the depth of the Extrusion so it would loop. I then precomped this layer and duplicated it and rearranged the duplicates, offsetting them in time with Time Remapping. I finally added in some glow and blur and color correction.

Enjoy.

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