Making friends with the psalms

Cloister in West Springfield Monastery

During the season of Lent, I hope you are making friends with the psalms.

In the monastic culture, the psalms are the daily prayers of the monastic nun. Seven times a day, the community gathers to sing the psalms in chant through the established Hours of Prayer: Matins, Laudes, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. As you sing the psalms day after day, they not only become familiar, they become your friend.

Because the psalms express the emotions we all share. And if your prayer is not full of the emotions you have in your heart, then your prayer lacks. 

The psalms not only teach us how to prayer, but offer us an example of the words we should use. As we pray with the psalms, we find that they are indeed very earthy, human, and authentic.

Best of all, when we least think of it, verses will come to mind.

When I am lost and lonely, perhaps psalm 22 will come to mind: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

I am grateful for God's blessings, and feel overwhelmed with God's goodness. Perhaps psalm 33:5 will pop into my head: "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord."

I finally come through a difficult period in life, and psalm 40 keeps repeating itself: "I waited, waited for the Lord, who bent down to me and heard my cry, Drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud of the swamp, Set my feet upon rock, and made my footsteps sure. And put a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God."

Can any prayer rival such sentiments?

Of late, I find the verse from psalm 31:4 keeps coming to mind: "You are my rock and my fortress; for your name's sake lead  me and guide me." Yes, lead me and guide me.

What ever lent means to you, however you observe it, I encourage all of us to make friends with the psalms. They have so much to teach us about prayer. They can change our lives and the way we pray.