Reciting the Psalms

I have a 15 decade rosary that I got at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a Trappist monastery in Conyers, Georgia. There is a history behind the string of beads with 15 decades instead of 5 decades as with the normal rosary. The monks recited the Psalms on each of the little beads and said the Our Father on the large beads. 150 beads, 150 psalms. Since I read this, I have admired the devotion and tenacity of anyone who could recite all 150 psalms.

In his journal, The Sign of Jonas, Thomas Merton's entry for October 12, 1947 is as follows in part:

This morning I was out there again reciting the 118^th Psalm and the Gradual Psalms by heart, looking at the hills. I am finishing my Psalters for the dead., and this is the last time round for this year. I am finishing early. Five days more to go. We have a month in which to say the Psalter ten times over. And I like it. It means a great deal to me.

Merton entered the Trappist monastery, Gesthemani, on December 10, 1941. By the time he wrote the entry above he had been saying the Psalms every day for almost six years. Ample time to learn them by heart. I will turn 60 next month and am already beginning to have lapses of memory due to aging. What makes me think I can learn the Psalms? Well, I'm going to try.

To facilitate my study, I have printed and bound my own Psalter, as shown in the photograph above. I will record my progress here from time to time.