Psalm 33

These verses from Psalm 33 are chanted after the blessing of the bread, wheat, wine and oil, when litya is served at a vigil. One of the verses, “O taste and see that the Lord is good,” is obviously related to the blessed bread, wheat, wine and oil, and the fact that Christ called himself the “bread from heaven” and the “true vine” and that he was the grain of wheat which, buried in the earth, rose again as a great tree giving life and nourishment to all. The words are Eucharistic in that the same words can apply to the most mystical food which Christ gives us in the Eucharist, to which the bread and wine point. The same psalm is also indicated in the typikon to be chanted at the end of the Divine Liturgy and at the end of the Presanctified Liturgy, after the reception of the Holy Communion.