St. Bede Psalmcast

Welcome to Episode 14 of the St. Bede Psalmcast! Today we’ll be talking about Psalm 49, the psalm appointed for Track 2 for Proper 13 which this year falls on July 31st, 2016. We have a pretty extensive talk about Wisdom Literature to set up the psalm and its place within the "Wisdom in Revolt" tradition. We also talk about Death and conclude that there's nothing fun about dying in Babylon. Some background on Cassiodorus sets up his enthusiastic recommendation of this psalm and the broader discussion about wealth, focus, and purpose. Also introduced today is the email address for the podcast: psalmcast@stbedeproductions.com

This episode is on Psalm 66, the psalm appointed for Track 2 of Proper 9 in Year C, the 7th Sunday after Pentecost. The conference referred to is Evangelism Matters; more info is here: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/06/15/registration-open-for-evangelism-matters-conference-in-november/

Ordinarily I'd be discussing the Psalm appointed for Track 2 of Proper 7 in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary. I'm taking advantage of the fact that it's Psalm 22 to loop back and finish an episode I'd intended for Holy Week on the Psalms of the Passion. The image this week is from f. 25v of Walters MS W.435, a book of hours from Bruges finished around 1490, now residing in the Walters Art Museum: http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W435/data/W.435/sap/W435_000058_sap.jpg

This episode tackles Psalm 30, the psalm appointed for Option 2 for Proper 5 in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary. We talk a little bit about lectionary mechanics to explain what all that means before we get to the psalm itself. The book referred to in the show is W. Kelly Simpson’s The Literature of Ancient Egypt, available at Amazon and other retailers. The image for today’s episode is from an Egyptian memorial stele in the Manchester Museum and is the public domain here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stele#/media/File:Heiroglyphs.jpg The commotion & distraction around 18 minutes was my older cat deciding he needed to find a comfy spot in a box of crumpled paper...

This podcast proves that starting with the psalms can take you almost anywhere in Christian theology! The episode focuses on Psalm 8, the psalm appointed for the Feast of the Holy Trinity in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary. However, in the process we touch on a wide range of topics including Trinitarian theology, inclusive language, ecological theology, and cosmology! And mention a hymn by St. Ambrose... One of the projects mentioned was the new edition of the St Bede's Breviary: breviary.stbedeproductions.com/test/office.html