02_VanWieringen_179_197 15/07/14 12:15 Pagina 196 196 A.L.H.M. VAN WIERINGEN The “I”-character can be identified with the deceased. If this is the case, the deceased one prays the psalm. He is aware of the fact that he cannot appropriate for himself everlasting bliss, paradise. He is open to God, and, now knowing about the forgiveness of his sins, he speaks about access to the Land and the temple as a desire, of which the fulfilment can be expected from God alone. Nobody can appropriate anything at the crisis of death. A dead person however cannot in fact speak; the psalm of the funeral Mass is therefore sung by the assembled community. In that case, the reception does not take place at the level of the “I”-char- acter, but at the level of the “we”. In Psalm 65(64), the “I”-character becomes visible only in the “we”. In this way, the praying assembly makes the deceased visible before God’s face. It is not the “I”-char- acter who appropriates paradise but rather the “we” who gives him, in Christ, access to the promised, paradisiacal land. Both reading possibilities fit well into the structure of the funeral Mass. Just as the liturgy begins with the image of paradise, using the profession of the non-appropriation, so the liturgy is concluded by the antiphon “in paradisum”, without cancelling out the non-appropriation. In this antiphon, paradise is represented, into which the angels may ac- company the deceased, and elaborated by the expression of the holy city (civitas sancta) of Jerusalem, into which the martyrs may carry the deceased. In Ps 65(64),5, the word “sanctum” is used for the temple (sanctum est templum tuum, “holy is your temple”). In the Vulgate, in contrast to the Hebrew text, the proper name Jerusalem is present in verse 2. In this way, the fertile land, paradise, in all its richness, forms an inclusion of the funeral Mass in the liturgy of the Roman rite. * * * The communicative setting of Psalm 65 is characterized by a theology of non-appropriation for the “I”-character. The re-readings of Psalm 65, as expressed in the Vulgate and in the funeral liturgy according to the Roman rite, have continued this theology of non- appropriation. Psalm 65 teaches its readers that this theology of non-appropriation should be one of the basic attitudes of the faithful 31. 31 In fact, in the Christian tradition, the model of praying psalmus vox totius Christi capitis et corporis ad Patrem in Spiritu (“the psalm is the voice