Countless Christians, and especially monastic communities, centre their public prayer on those prayers of Israel which we call the Psalms. They are ancient, pre-Christian prayers, from an era and in an idiom which is far from contemporary. They attract immediately by their heartfelt devotion, and yet they also contain elements which can puzzle and even repel. Poetry is all very well, and prayers are all very well. But why did the Church choose, and why do so many individuals choose, to pray by means of poems, often bloodthirsty and vindictive, drawn from a tradition which is now foreign to us?