St. Robert Bellarmine
[translated by Fr. John O'Sullivan]

After being called to the Cardinalate by Pope Clement VIII, Robert Bellarmine, one of only two Jesuit Doctors of the Church, found need for a reprieve from what were often tiresome temporal duties.

< soft cover edition shown

Therefore, to exhaust his intellectual and devotional energies in writing, he prepared for posterity his very own commentary on each of the Psalms. Most of the Psalms of David, he said, read like a compendium of the whole of the Old Testament, a summation in poetic capsule.

Others (Ps. 2, 21, 44 & 60) speak so clearly of Christ that they seem rather to belong to the Gospels. Yet, it is not the royal prophet, rather, it is the Holy Ghost, the true Author, Who desires to pluck this ten-stringed instrument of beauty called the Psaltery and bring our hearts to tears or jubilation as we sing praise to the Most High.

The Psalms are at the heart of liturgical prayer, especially within the Breviary, hence St. Bellarmine's erudite commentary is indispensable for those who wish to further understand and thereby develop in one's spiritual life via the Liturgy, the great treasure and sanctifier of Holy Mother Church.

Reprinted in 1999 from the 1866 edition and available in sewn hardcover this is a huge book of nearly 400 pages, a spiritual goldmine!