Praying with
the Psalms
A psalm, a
responsorial psalm, is always included in the Liturgy of the Word of the Sunday
Liturgy.
The psalm is a prayer, prompted by
the content of the first reading.
One suspects that in practice the
psalm does not stir up much interest in the minds and hearts of the
congregation. It can often sound a bit strange, with no clear and logical story
line. Especially if it is not opened up to the congregation with a clear and
prayerful chanting or reading, it might simply be experienced as an
interruption between the readings.
The psalm has a better chance of
working if it is chanted and the response sung.
But how
do we pray with a psalm?
Some
points to keep in mind:
As a person with a
spirituality formed in the Jewish tradition, Jesus would have used the
psalms as a platform for his reflective prayer. His quotations of psalms as he
was dying indicate how deeply the psalms had seeped into his psyche. “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22). “Into you hands,
Lord God, I commit my Spirit” (Psalm 31).
As we use a psalm we can imagine
(and surely it is not just our imagination) that Jesus is going through the
psalm with us. Or rather, he is reflecting on the psalm and we can join with
him in that prayerful rumination.
Jesus could see many of the ideas
and images in the psalms as applying directly to himself. Other psalm ideas and
images apply not so much to Jesus but to the “chosen people” of
which he was a part, though he was not at all responsible for the chosen
people’s sinfulness: on the contrary. Still, Jesus identified with the
chosen people, with all people, with the whole of humanity and all of creation.
Jesus even associates himself with
the imperfection and evil of the world and the sin of humanity, as expressed in
the psalms. And that also becomes part of his prayerful reflection. So Jesus,
in solidarity with the human race, can pray in the words of psalm 51:
“Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness, in your great tenderness wipe
away my faults; wash
me clean of my guilt, purify me from my sin.”
By using the psalms in our private,
non-liturgical prayer, as surely Jesus would have done, we can develop the
skill and habit of reflecting on the events of life in the context of the
Spirit of God. A person of Christian faith is invited to develop such a
practice. Good Christians are thoughtful people; good Christians are prayerful
people. Good Christians think and pray with Jesus Christ, enabled to do so by
the Holy Spirit. Good Christians work for the transformation of the world.
The psalms can bring us into the
prayerful thinking of Jesus about all aspects of life in the world. Using the
psalms in this way we learn a method to examine life from a faith perspective,
with Jesus Christ. The psalms, used in this way, can help us with the
“judge” dimension of the “See, Judge, Act” process.
The strengths and weaknesses of
creation, the good and evil in humanity are all indicated in the psalms. Jesus
accepts it all as being brought, with suffering, into the fullness of
redemption.
Such thoughts,
prompted by the psalms, would have been, are still, a part of the prayer of
Jesus. The psalms now invite us to be a part of that prayer. That is why we
include a psalm, as a prayerful reflection or response, in our Liturgy of the Word.
Unfortunately, sometimes the translations of words in the
psalms make it more difficult for us to realise that Jesus used, is using, a
psalm as prayer. One such word in translation is “Lord”. We need to
remember that “Lord” in the psalms always refers to the Lord God
who is the Father of Jesus. Instinctively, when we hear or see the word
‘Lord” in a prayer we might think that it refers to Jesus, the Lord
Jesus. While this can be the case in other prayers, “Lord” in the
psalms always refers to the Lord God to whom Jesus spoke and prayed. We are
invited to be a part of that conversation, reflection and prayer.