Commenting on the value, the power, and the personal nature of the Psalms:
"The one who hears (the Psalms) is deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of the songs, as if they were his own songs. He who chants will be especially confident in speaking what is written as if it is his own and about him. For the Psalms comprehend the one who observes the commandment as well as the one who transgresses, and the action of each...these words become like a mirror to the person singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul...he who hears the one reading receives the song that is recited as being about him and either, when he is convicted by his conscience, being pierced, he will repent, or hearing of the hope that resides in God, and of the succour available to believers--how this kind of grace exists for him--he exults and begins to give thanks to God."
--Athanasius (in his pastoral letter to Marcellinus)
"The truly pure and humble 'will take in to himself all the thoughts of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in such a way that he will utter them with the deepest emotion of the heart not as if they were the composition of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were his own utterances'; he will recognise that the words of the Psalms 'are fulfilled and carried out daily in his own case'."
--Abba Isaac
(quoted from a book I'm currently reading, Spes Scotorom, Hope of Scots, Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland, in an essay called "The wisdom of the scribe and the fear of the Lord in the Life of Columba" by Jennifer O'Reilly)
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