“Why . . . can Christians pray the Psalms? According to the ancient church, it is because it was always the Messiah at the head of his people who prayed them; in Augustine’s fine phrase, it was always “the total Christ,” the totus Christus, Christ as the head and his folk as the body, who gathered in the temple with these hymns and lamentations” (Robert W. Jenson, Canon and Creed, 23).