'They all sang with one voice'

Christians undertake a New Exodus through baptism into Christ Jesus, gaining strength by God's grace to prevail over modern-day 'pharaohs'

At the General Audience on Wednesday, 3 December, in the Paul VI Audience Hall, the Holy Father re­flected on Psalm 114[113A], one of the Psalms that Jewish tradition has clas­sified as part of the Egyptian Hallel. It is a joyful and triumphant hymn that reminds all Christians that the Lord who led Israel to safety is the same Lord who leads us by Baptism to free­dom from our sins. We are called to listen to God's voice in the "desert", in the silence of our hearts, to recognize his law and the power of his divine voice. The following is a translation of the Pope's Catechesis, seventh in the series on Evening Prayer, which was given in Italian.

1. The joyful and triumphant song we have just proclaimed recalls Israel's Ex­odus from the oppression of the Egyp­tians. Psalm 114[113A] belongs to the collection that Jewish tradition has called the "Egyptian Hallel". These are Psalms 112-117[113-118], a selection of songs used especially in the Jewish Passover liturgy.

Christianity has taken Psalm 114­[113A] with the same paschal connota­tion, but opened it to the new interpre­tation derived from Christ's Resurrec­tion. The Exodus celebrated by the Psalm becomes, therefore, the symbol of another, more radical and universal liberation. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, places this hymn, in its Latin Vulgate version, on the lips of the souls in Pur­gatory: "In exitu IsraÁl de Aegypto / they all sang together with one voice…" (Purgatory II, 46-47). In other words, he saw in the Psalm the song of expectation and hope of those who are on the way, after purification from every sin, towards the final goal of communion with God in Paradise.

A proclamation of the marvels God worked for his people

2. Let us now follow the thematic and spiritual line of this short, prayerful composition. It opens (cf. vv. 1-2) by re­calling the Exodus of Israel from Egyp­tian oppression until its entry into that Promised Land which is God's "sanctu­ary"; that is, the place of his presence in the midst of his people. In fact, land and people are fused together: Judah and Israel, terms with which the Holy Land or the Chosen People were desig­nated, come to be considered as the seat of the presence of the Lord, his special property and inheritance (cf. Ex 19:5-6).

After this theological description of one of the fundamental elements of faith of the Old Testament, that is, the proclamation of the marvels God worked for his people, the Psalmist re­flects more profoundly, spiritually and symbolically on the constitutive events.

The sea rolls back and mountains skip: witnesses to God's liberation

3. The Red Sea of the Exodus from Egypt and the Jordan of the entry into the Holy Land are personified and transformed into witnesses and instru­ments that have a part in the liberation wrought by God (cf. Ps 114[113A]:3, 5).

At the beginning in the Exodus, the sea rolls back to allow Israel to pass, and at the end of the journey through the desert, it is the Jordan which turns back in its course, leaving its bed dry so that the procession of the children of Is­rael can cross over (cf. Jos 3-4). At the centre there is a reference to Sinai: it is now the mountains that participate in the great divine revelation which takes place on their summits. Likened to liv­ing creatures such as rams and lambs, they skip and exult. With a very vivid personification, the Psalmist now asks the mountains about the reason for their confusion: "[Why is it]... you mountains, that you skip like rams? You hills, like the lambs of the flock?" (Ps 114[113A]:6). Their response is not men­tioned: it is given indirectly through an injunction, subsequently addressed to the earth, so that it too should tremble "before the Lord" (cf. v. 7). The confu­sion of the mountains and the hills, therefore, was a startled adoration in the presence of the Lord, God of Israel, an act of glorious exaltation of the transcendent and saving God.

God sustains humanity on its way through the desert of history

4. This is the theme of the last part of Psalm 114[113A] (cf. vv. 7-8), which in­troduces another  important event of Is­rael's march through the desert, that of the water that gushed from the rock of Meribah (cf. Ex 17:1-7; Nm 20:1-13). God transformed the rock into a spring of water which becomes a lake: at the root of this miracle is his fatherly con­cern for the people.

 This gesture acquires, then, a symbol­ic meaning: it is a sign of the saving love of the Lord who sustains and re­generates humanity as it advances through the desert of history.

St Paul was known to use this image and, on the basis of a Jewish tradition which claims that the rock accompanied Israel on its journey through the desert, he re-read the event in a Christological key: "All drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ" (I Cor 10:4).

New Exodus of Christians from slavery to God's peace

5. In this wake, commenting on the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, a great Christian teacher such as Origen conceived of the New Exodus undertaken by Christians. Indeed, this is what he says: "Do not think that it was only then that Moses led the people out of Egypt: now too we have Moses with us..., that is, the law of God wants to bring you out of Egypt; if you listen to it, it wishes to distance you from Pharaoh …. It does not want you to re­main in the dark actions of the flesh, but to go out into the desert, that you reach a place apart from the upheavals and instability of the world, that you     reach stillness and silence…. So when you have arrived in this place of calm, there you can sacrifice to the Lord, recognize the law of God and the power of the divine voice"  (Omelie sull'Esodo, Rome, 1981, pp, 71-72).

Taking up the Pauline image that calls to mind the crossing  of the sea, Origen continues: "The Apostle calls this a baptism, realized in Moses in the cloud and sea, so that you too, who have been baptized in Christ, in water and in the Holy Spirit, may know that the Egyptians are pursuing you and want to reclaim you to serve them: namely, the rulers of this world and the evil spirits to whom you were first en­slaved. They will certainly seek to follow you, but you will go into the water and escape unharmed, and having washed away the stains of sin, you will come out as a new man ready to sing the new canticle" (ibid., p.107).

L'Osservatore Romano December 10, 2003
Reprinted with permission