Mass propers: Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ps 121)

This Sunday's propers in the Extraordinary Form are somewhat unusual in featuring not just one but two verses not from the psalter - the Introit is from Ecclesiasticus and the Offertory from Exodus. 

But the verse to the Introit, the first verse of Psalm 121, was considered so important to the overall theme of the Mass, namely that if we but ask, God will forgive our sins and grant us the privilege of heaven (the Gospel is the healing of the paralytic, and accusations of blasphemy against Our Lord for forgiving his sins), that it is repeated as the Gradual with the addition of verse 7, and so it is worth a quick look.

Psalm 121 (122 in the Hebrew Masoretic Text version) is of course the third of the Gradual psalms, or 'Songs of Ascent’ the pilgrim songs sung on the way to Jerusalem for the major Jewish feasts, sung as the people climbed the steps to the Temple, and early taken into the Christian repertoire as symbolically representing our progress towards heaven.

The text

Here is the text of the Gradual for the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost with a translation from the Douay-Rheims:

Lætátus sum in his, quæ dicta sunt mihi: in domum Dómini íbimus. Fiat pax in virtúte tua: et abundántia in túrribus tuis.

I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord.
Let peace be in your strength: and abundance in your towers.

And here is an ‘interlinear’, fairly literal translation:

Lætátus sum (I rejoice) in his (in this), quæ (that) dicta sunt (they said) mihi (to me): in domum (into the house) Dómini (of the Lord) íbimus (we will go). Fiat (let there be made) pax (peace) in virtúte (in strength) tua (yours): et (and) abundántia (abundance) in túrribus (in the towers) tuis (yours).

A pilgrim Church

The first verse is a formulaic way of announcing that one is going on a pilgrimage; symbolically it refers to the pilgrimage towards heaven that all Christians are on throughout their lives. The towers and abundance refer to the promise of safe haven and happiness in heaven. Dom Gueranger’s commentary from, the Liturgical year for the day comments:

"In the Gradual, the Church repeats the Introit-verse, to celebrate once more the joy felt by the Christian people at hearing the glad tidings, that they are soon to go into the house of the Lord. That house is heaven, into which we are to enter on the last day, our Lord Jesus Christ leading the way. But the house is also the temple in which we are now assembled, and into which we are introduced by the representatives of that same Lord of ours, that is, by His priests."

You can listen to it here: