"Quam Dilecta!" Explained
Each year, as part of our St. John’s Day celebration, we exclaim the Latin words “Quam Dilecta” several times: at the start of the service, during the reading of the Psalm and at the beginning and end of the sermon. Given that Latin is infrequently spoken in our postmodern age, we can all be forgiven for not understanding exactly why we do so.
“Quam Dilecta” is the Latin name for Psalm 84, a poem from the Hebrew Scriptures that was and is spoken and sung as part of worship both in the temple in Jerusalem and here on Long Island. It is the incipit, or opening words of that psalm: “Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum!” which translates to “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!” Quam Dilecta means: “How lovely.”
The Psalm continues to describe the dwelling place of God as a place where swallows can find a nest, where the valley is filled with springs, where the rain covers the land in pools of water, and where our souls sing for joy for the living God.
Our ancestors associated this psalm particularly with our church and as we exclaim “Quam Dilecta” we affirm with generations long past that we too find this place, St. John’s Church in Cold Spring Harbor, to be a place where God lives and for which our souls long.
Happy St. John’s Day. Quam Dilecta!
