Psalm 95

When I was 18 and had just graduated high school, I headed to Rockbridge, a Young Life camp in Goshen, VA where I was scheduled to work for a month as a work crew member. Something happened when I got there that I was very unprepared for. Beyond “just” anxiety, I believe I was under significant spiritual attack and I did not have the tools to battle it. Less than 2 weeks after arriving, I returned home. It was incredibly humbling and my eyes were opened to a part of my own humanity that I had never met. While I was there, I had several mentors trying to guide me through this experience, one of which encouraged me to read the Psalms. I remember feeling like that was a poor solution to my problem, but I also remember feeling comforted that I found my pain and anxiety in some of them.

Not too many years later, I ended up in Paris for a summer semester. Thankfully, I had grown and evolved since my trip to Rockbridge and it took several weeks for me to experience any real homesickness. In trying to figure out what would “remind me of home”, I decided to attend Mass. As I climbed the steps of Sacre Cour and entered the Church, I felt similar to arriving at home. Even though it was in French, when the Mass began, it too felt like home. In a unique way, I felt especially connected to the Psalms. I knew enough French to know those and to be able to say them and, for the first time in a long time, I found myself looking forward to attending the liturgy.

For many years, the Shane & Shane Psalm albums have been amongst my favorite music on Spotify. I play them all the time when I am working, writing, designing, and praying. I do not know why it has taken me such a long time to really dive into what the Psalms may mean to me – and to the Church – but this June when I was on a retreat and assigned Psalm 139, it was as if everything changed for me. I prayed with that Psalm every single morning for the rest of the summer and have continued to return to it over the past few weeks. Shortly after, I also discovered that my Bible’s introduction to the Psalms concludes with, “They not only provide us with models to follow, but inspire us to voice our deepest feelings and aspirations.” Simply put, I fell in love with the fact that all of humanity is found in the Psalms.

When I began to dig, I loved how the Catechism beautifully explains their role:

CCC 2587: The words of the Psalmist, sung for God, both express and acclaim the Lord's saving works; the same Spirit inspires both God's work and man's response. Christ will unite the two. In him, the psalms continue to teach us how to pray.

CCC 2588: The Psalter's many forms of prayer take shape both in the liturgy of the Temple and in the human heart. Whether hymns or prayers of lamentation or thanksgiving, whether individual or communal, whether royal chants, songs of pilgrimage or wisdom meditations, the Psalms are a mirror of God's marvelous deeds in the history of his people, as well as reflections of the human experiences of the Psalmist. Though a given psalm may reflect an event of the past, it still possesses such direct simplicity that it can be prayed in truth by men of all times and conditions.

CCC 2589: Certain constant characteristics appear throughout the Psalms: simplicity and spontaneity of prayer; the desire for God himself through and with all that is good in his creation; the distraught situation of the believer who, in his preferential love for the Lord, is exposed to a host of enemies and temptations, but who waits upon what the faithful God will do, in the certitude of his love and in submission to his will

Composed over time for liturgical worship, they express sorrow, gratitude, trust, hope, cries for help, and so much more. They are the best example of how we are to pray. As the Catechism says, “God tirelessly calls each person to this mysterious encounter with Himself. Prayer unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation as a reciprocal call between God and man” (2591). How many times have I glazed over the Psalms at Mass? Forgotten to respond or sing them? Ignored what they had for me that day? Not reciprocated God’s call to me?

This upcoming Sunday, we will pray Psalm 95: “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” I recall Tucker’s lesson last week on Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent. Fertile ground is not rock hard. Fertile ground is conducive to life. If we want to receive what the Lord has for us, we have to be fertile ground. The demands and constraints of this world have a way of hardening me. My rock-hard walls are built on worry, anxiety, fear of being without, and the pressures of this world and of my own expectations.

This week, I pray to have the joy of kneeling before the Lord with gratitude and confidence that He will shepherd me with care and provide my every need in the same way He did in Massah and Meribah. May my heart be softened to receive His love.

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The Psalm for Sunday, September 10 • https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091023.cfm

“Psalm 95” by Poor Bishop Hooper on Spotify • https://open.spotify.com/track/2C23y9fMl9cnzYYWXHQpjX?si=e2cdc18ca14c47fd