The Spirituality of the Psalms.

The Spirituality of the Psalms Carroll Stuhlmueller Liturgical Press, $19.95, 208 pp.

When Carroll Stuhlmueller died in 1994, he left behind a nearly finished manuscript on the psalms. Carol Dempsey, O.P., and Timothy Lenchak, S.V.D., completed the work, and we owe them an immense debt. This wonderful study, blending fine scholarship with a keen sense of the psalms as prayer, honors the memory of a great priest and teacher. I have a small collection of books on the psalms, which favors studies that draw upon the classic commentators, while addressing the life of prayer. This volume fits my twin criteria: solid scholarship, combined with a sense of why the psalter is the prayer book of the synagogue and of the church.

The opening chapters concern themselves with the place of the psalms in the Bible and in the Christian community, and with ways of studying and praying the psalms. Successive chapters deal with the types of psalms. There is no total agreement on the taxonomy of psalm-types, so Stuhlmueller has every right to make his own choice. His taxonomy is not only useful but insightful. For example, along with such standard categories as lament, praise, and thanksgiving, he gives us a chapter on psalms for sickness and dying, as well as the royal psalms of David. Stuhlmueller provides us with many practical hints on how to read the psalms. He suggests that we read many translations; that we look for key words and key ideas; that we identify our sentiments with Jesus, who was a reader and prayer of the psalms. Finally, he invites us to pray the psalms in accordance with the liturgy and the classic commentators.

The Spirituality of the Psalms is a fitting tribute to a man praised in the preface to this book by his fellow Passionist, Donald Senior, as a person of "humane spirit" and "genuine holiness." Both elements shine through this work.

Lawrence S. Cunningham is John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.