This post is in response to Dr. John Bergsma's fantastic post over at The Sacred Page.
I think today's passages from the liturgy bring out nicely an interpretive idea I've been thinking about lately: the idea of that the allegorical sense of the Old Testament can be a connection between the literal and anagogical senses of the OT promises. (For more on the Four Senses of Scripture see paragraphs 115 - 119 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The literal sense of scripture is what the words mean on the face of it in their literary and historical context, the allegorical sense is how they refer to Jesus Christ and the Church, the moral sense is how they tell us how to live, and the anagogical sense is how they relate to eternal life)
For example, take Psalm 65 from today's reading. The literal sense has to do with the fruitfulness of the land as a covenant blessing to Israel. The allegorical sense of Ps. 65, as Dr. Bergsma points out, has to do with the fruitfulness of God's word through the Holy Spirit in Baptism. But I think that this is a connection, also, to the anagogical sense.
In this case, I think that the anagogical sense of Psalm 65 has to do not only with the working of the Spirit in our hearts working out to our own eternal life, but with the actual renewal and blessing of all of creation through that act of God. After all, it is the same God of New Creation (I would even argue the same act of New Creation) which renews both our hearts, our bodies, and the entire cosmos!
So, I think that the original covenant promises relating to the land, old age, seeing children's children, etc., weren't merely there because the people hadn't been raised up yet to the spiritual sublimity of the New Covenant, but also because they reflect (in at least a transitory way) the blessings of the New Heavens and New Earth in which death will be undone and the terrible curse of Gen. 3 erased!
