The Psalms are full of an array of emotions. They can be uplifting or they can be full of darkness. They can be joyful or they can be sad. They can make us happy or they can make us melancholic. The Psalms reflect all of our life experiences. They are as timely today as they were in the time of David. The words of the Psalms seep into the very core of our being. They become part of our life's journey and stay with us throughout the day. In the midst of our daily work, our private prayer, our conversation, a line or word we chanted may suddenly jump from out of nowhere, and we know this is God's gentle whisper. "Benedictines become so close to the psalms that they become...like a heartbeat...Internalizing the psalms in this way allows contemporary Benedictines to find personal relevance in this ancient poetry."(Norris, The Cloister Walk)
So day in and day out we come to sing our gratitude for God's call, our longing for a deeper relationship with God, and our cry for a peaceful world. We pray for ourselves, for the world, and for those unable to pray. Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister (The Rule of St. Benedict,Insights for the Ages)sums it up perfectly: "Prayer...if we sing praise wisely, or well, or truly, becomes a furnace in which every act of our lives is submitted to the heat and purifying process of the smelter's fire so that our minds and our hearts, our ideas and our lives, come to be in sync, so that we are what we say we are, so that the prayers that pass our lips change our lives, so that God's presence becomes palpable to us."
"O search me, God,
and know my heart.
O test me and know my thoughts.
See that I follow not the wrong path
and lead me in the path of life eternal."
Psalm 138
"That in All Things God May be Glorified."
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