Can happiness be found in an ordinary day? In a morning cup of coffee, in a child’s laughter, in the tiredness that follows honest work? Psalm 128 answers: yes. It is one of the warmest texts of the Bible—a hymn of blessing that does not fall from heaven like a thunderbolt, but slowly takes root like a seed in fertile soil—emphasizes Fr. Piotr Kwiatek OFMCap, Capuchin friar, psychologist, and initiator of psalm therapy, in his commentary for the Heschel Center at the Catholic University of Lublin on Psalm 128, sung on the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph on December 28.
As Fr. Kwiatek writes, “Psalm 128 stops us in the simplicity of everyday life. It is an ancient pilgrims’ song that does not promise a trouble-free existence, but offers something far more valuable: a sense of meaning and rootedness.” It is a psalm that “brings spirituality into dialogue with the hard realities of family economics and psychology.”
Happiness as the Fruit of the Journey, Not the Destination
The author of psalm therapy explains that the Hebrew word translated as “happy” (’ašrê) does not mean euphoria or a fleeting emotional high. “It refers rather to a state of deep contentment, inner coherence. The psalmist reveals the secret immediately: happiness is born from walking—from the journey itself, not from reaching the destination,” we read in the commentary. Contemporary psychology strongly confirms this intuition.
Fr. Kwiatek notes that “in Jewish tradition there is a conviction that greater is the one who lives by the work of their own hands than the one who devotes themselves exclusively to piety,” because “piety detached from concrete life becomes empty. Faith must have hands. It must touch the ground.” Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav similarly emphasized that “prayer, joy, and care for one’s neighbor are the heart of true service of God. Without practice—that is, without action in the world—prayer and the study of Scripture risk closing in on dry formalism.”
The Home as a Temple of Everyday Life
“The table is the place where a family becomes a family—not by blood, but by shared bread and conversation,” writes Fr. Kwiatek. He points out that Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, stressed the importance of the “here and now”—mindful presence in the moment. Psalm 128 is an ancient handbook of such presence, as if it were saying: “Happiness is not waiting around the corner. It is sitting across from you at the dinner table.” Modern people often treat their homes like hotels—a place to sleep between one project and another. The psalm reminds us: the home is a temple.
In Jewish tradition, the family table is a kind of altar at which the “daily sanctification of life” takes place. The Talmud teaches: “Since the Temple was destroyed, a person’s table atones for them, like an altar.” This motif also appears in midrashic interpretations of Psalm 128. “You do not need a cathedral to encounter God. You need attentiveness during an ordinary meal,” reads the Heschel Center commentary. “A child who experiences stability ‘around the table’ builds an inner model of the world as a friendly place. Psalm 128 is not a naïve idyll; it is a mental health prevention program written in poetic language.”
Moreover, rabbinic tradition expands the meaning of “home” to include community, friends, and spiritual family. In this view, the “table” is any place where “we share life with another person.”
Happiness That Transcends the Self
As Fr. Piotr Kwiatek notes, “the final part of the psalm leads us out of the privacy of the home toward the community—Zion and Jerusalem. This is a crucial moment for mental health: moving beyond egocentrism and fixation on the self toward social and spiritual responsibility.”
According to Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, one of the pillars of well-being (the PERMA model) is Meaning—understood as serving something greater than oneself. Psalm 128 reminds us, writes the author of Psalm Therapy, that “our personal happiness is inseparably intertwined with the fate of the Church community and of society.” A person who is spiritually and emotionally mature knows that “their home is not a fortress cut off from the world, but a living cell within a larger organism. Blessing flows outward: from the heart of the individual, through the family table, to the walls of the city—this is a holistic vision of shalom, the fullness of peace.”
“For the modern person, often focused on self-development,” Fr. Kwiatek comments, “this psalm is a reminder that the true meaning of life is found in service and in care for the well-being (shalom—peace, wholeness, prosperity) of others. Our inner peace is incomplete if it does not serve outward peace. Happiness is not private; it is communal. The more I desire the good of the city, the more I am at home in my own heart.”
A Manifesto of Normality
The commentator on Psalm 128 for the Heschel Center at KUL calls it “an extraordinary manifesto of normality”—a normality that “in God’s eyes becomes something extraordinary.” It shows that the path to holiness and mental health does not lead through escape from the world, but through deep immersion in its realities: work, marriage, parenthood, and care for the common good. Fr. Kwiatek emphasizes that “psychology confirms what biblical scholarship reads in these verses: the human person needs a sense of meaning, secure relationships, and a goal that transcends the ego.” Jesus Christ is the one who provides the “vital sap,” protecting us from burnout and inner emptiness.
Piotr Kwiatek OFMCap – PhD in psychology, priest and religious of the Kraków Province of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He completed a three-year Gestalt therapy program in Philadelphia (USA) and received training in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) at the Albert Ellis Institute in New York. He teaches positive interventions at SWPS University—studies recommended by the founder of positive psychology, Prof. Martin E. P. Seligman. Author of books in the series Positive Psychology and Faith, as well as Psalm Therapy and A Workbook for the Psalms. Creator of the free well-being app “Dobroteka 2.0.” More at: www.piotrkwiatek.com
Heschel Center, Catholic University of Lublin