Passionists Pray
Psalms
Psalms of Thanksgiving
“I love the Lord for he has heard the cry of my appeal; for he turned his ear to me in the day when I called him.” (Psalm 116, Friday evening, week 2) Prayers of thanksgiving from individuals and communities, recognizing the goodness of God who heals and has mercy, recur in our daily prayers. God, the creator, reaches down to the humblest of his creatures with care and concern. Prayers of thanksgiving remind us of God’s continual providence as well as our duty to give thanks as individuals and as communities for the gifts we’ve received.
Psalms of Forgiveness
“Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offense. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51, Friday mornings) Psalm 51, asking God’s forgiveness, is the first psalm in the church’s prayer every Friday morning. Its weekly repetition indicates its importance. “Even if we live good lives, we’re never without sin,” Augustine says in commenting on this psalm. “We’re hopeless creatures, more interested in the sins of others than our own.” This psalm calls us to acknowledge our sins, like King David: “My offenses truly I know them; my sin is always before me.” “’Create a clean heart in me, O God.’ Search within your heart for what is not pleasing to God. For a clean heart to be created, the unclean one must be removed.” We need God’s forgiveness.
Pilgrim Psalms
A number of our morning and evening psalms are songs prayed by pilgrims to Jerusalem long ago. More than songs for the road, pilgrim songs describe the journey into the mystery of God we’re all called to make.
For example, in the longing and yearning for God’s temple found in Psalm 84 (Monday Morning 3), we hear our own longing for God and a promise of strength for our spiritual journey.
They are happy, whose strength is in you,
in whose hearts are the roads to Sion.
As they go through the Bitter Valley
they make it a place of springs,
the autumn rain covers it with blessings.
They walk with ever growing strength,
they will see the God of gods in Sion.
A number of psalms, like Psalm 125 (Tuesday evening, week 3), celebrate Jerusalem, Sion, God’s holy city. As the Jewish people found strength in Jerusalem, Christians find strength in the new Jerusalem, the church founded on Jesus Christ. We’re also called to build a city, here and now, in the place where we live. The pilgrim psalms urge us ever onward.
Those who put their trust in the Lord
are like Mount Sion, that cannot be shaken,
that stands for ever.
Jerusalem! The mountains surround her,
so the Lord surrounds his people
both now and for ever.
God is King
God is king. The ancient Jewish prayers praise God as a king who mounts his throne each day. Christians see Jesus Christ as a king. “You are a king?” Pilate asks Jesus. “You say I am a king, for this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (John 18:37)
The Lord is king, let earth rejoice,
let all the coastlands be glad.
Cloud and darkness are his raiment;
his throne, justice and right.
Psalm 97 (Wednesday morning, week 3)
God the Creator
We meet God the Creator, revealed in creation, in the prayers. The Lord loves justice and right and fills the earth with his love. By his word the heavens were made, by the breath of his mouth all the stars. He collects the waves of the ocean; he stores up the depths of the sea. Psalm 33 (Tuesday morning, week 1). The psalms see God as all–powerful, One who brings all into being and guides all, a God who “loves justice and right and fills the earth with love.” God, the creator, appears throughout the psalms. Love and respect for creation found in the psalms make them important prayers today when our “common home”, our environment, is endangered by human beings. Pope Francis warns of today’s dangerous forgetfulness of God as an all-powerful Creator in his letter Laudato Sī: “ The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world. Otherwise, human beings will always try to impose their own laws and interests on reality.” (75) Praying the psalms strengthens our connection with creation. (72) Morning and evening prayers remind us of our place in our common home.
The Cry of the Poor
Some psalms in morning and evening prayers are desperate cries for help by individuals. The Creator cares for all creation, but especially the poor. In psalms like Psalm 143 (Thursday morning, week 4) someone in darkness, failing in spirit, numbed by life gone bad, pleads with God: “do not hide your face.” “To you I stretch out my hands. Like a parched land my soul thirsts for you. Lord, make haste and answer; for my spirit fails within me. Do not hide your face lest I become like those in the grave… Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge.” This desperate cry from the past is still heard today in those who look for justice and wonder why it can’t be found. They may not use the language of the psalmist, but their experience is the same. In psalms like these we join those crying for help. Psalms of lament are frequent in our daily prayers. We also hear in them the voice of Jesus Christ who stretches out his hands with suffering humanity in prayer. Jesus embraced suffering humanity in his passion, St. Augustine says, “The whole Christ is speaking here; here is your voice too.” The psalms of lament foster a spirit of compassion in us.