PRAYING TO GOD OUR FATHER
There are many situations in which we do not know how to pray to God our Father. We lack words. We can pray with the psalms, like the first communities, in Jesus spirit. To initiate in the prayer, to teach how to pray (Lk 11,1), is a part of the evangelization.
WITH THE PSALMS
1. - The palms are poems, songs and prayers (see Ps 104,33-34): “The psalms are Israel’s prayer, human experience expression looking towards God” (Schökel). In the psalms, everything (people and individual life) turns into prayer, alive and diverse, by the action of different authors who transforms the experience into prayer.
2. - The Book of the Psalms is simple and familiar. Nevertheless, it presents difficulties. An anonymous chain of authors has composed psalms. They reach us like a collection of five sets. Some are duplicated or ill divided, so the number of 150 is approximated. Besides, Hebrew text implies some problems and this partially explains translations´ diversity. We should place its origin in the monarchy first years (X century b.C.) and its flourishing in the period that goes to the middle of the VII century b.C.. In many cases, prayer with the psalms is subject to routine and simple repetition.
3. - There is no psalms logic order: “It is true that, sometimes, we find some psalms that have been ordered according some kind of logic: there are, for instance, groups of individual lamentations (Ps 5-7; 54-57; 61-64; 69-71;140-143), psalms of thanksgiving (Ps 40s), hymns (Ps 65s; 95-100; 103-105; 134-136; 145-150), royal songs (Ps 20s), communitarian lamentations (Ps 89s), wisdom proverbs (Ps 127), alphabetic psalms (Ps 111s). The group of psalms 74-83 talks about Israel´s destiny, psalms 1’5-106 contain narrations, psalms 46-48 have scatological contains. But the absence of an internal relationship between consecutive psalms is much more frequent, inclusive in the enclosure of the group of psalms 120-124, known as peregrination songs, exist very divers styles” (Gunkel).
4. - The book of the psalms does not appear like and isolated work, but it is part of the religious poetry in and out of Israel (Babylon, Asir, Egypt), from the third millennium before Christ until the time of christianism diffusion. There are many poems that go into this context: Moses´ sea song (Ex 15); Deborah’s song (Jdg 5); Ann’s thanksgiving song (1S2); David´s (2S 22), that reappears in psalm 18, Jonas´ song (Jon 2) and that of Hezekiah (Is 38,9 folls); some verses of Chonicles (1Chr 16,8 folls); Tobias songs (Tob 13) and Judith’s (Jdt 16); Azariah and the three youngsters songs (Dan 3). And in the same New Testament, Mary´s songs (Lk 1,46 folls), Zechariah (Lk 1,67folls) and those of the Revelation (Rev 4,11; 5,9 folls; 15,3 folls; 19,6 folls).
5. - The book of the psalms shows the track of the different epochs by which Israelite’s religiosity has been walking. The biggest influence came from the prophets. The authors of some psalms use styles created by the prophets and, following their example, they announce God’s will (Ps 50) and the feeling of the future (Ps 82). In all, the most meaningful effect of the prophetic influence was the little value given to the external cult: “The pious men learnt to tune their songs aside from any external action and independently of the official cult” (Gunkel).
6. - It is true that, in its origin, prophecy has nothing to do with the religious poetry. But, in a given moment, prophets use psalms poetry to better express its message. In this manner they tune lamentations to express people or individual suffering (Jer 14,1-6; 7-9;19-22: Is 63, 11 folls; Mic 7,7 folls;Jer 11,18-20; 12,1-6; 15,15-21; 17,12-18; Lm 3.5), they compose songs and hymns and they place them in the mouth of the future Israel that will sing them when, free of their evils, celebrate with joy the feast dedicated to his God (Is 12; 25,1 folls; 26,1 folls; 42, 10-12; 49,13;52,9 folls).
7. - Israel’s cult is the origin of the psalms. Nevertheless, there are many (in fact, most of them) in which no allusion is made to the cultural context or the reference to it is very scarce. These psalms have their origin in the private prayer and have a more personnel character.
8. - Psalms prayer changes according to the individual or collective situation provoking it. Since their situations are typical, repetitive, the prayers that come out can be distinguished and grouped by their themes and motives, their style and language, the situation of their origin or destiny, showing the literary styles. They can be classified (in a flexible way, (since there are also mixed styles), in several groups:
The Hymn is a praising song to God because of His works in creation and in history. It usually consists in an introduction, a central part that proclaims God’s actions and a conclusion (Ps 8; 65; 136): According to the theme, the hymn can be: song to the Lord´s royalty, in which – in one or other way – “the Lord reigns” is sung (Ps 47; 99), and Zion´s song, in which we sing to the saint city, the temple mountain, in the occasion of a peregrination or a feast in Jerusalem (Ps 48; 87; 84; 122). Sometimes it is identified with the thanksgiving action (Ps 18; 116).
The prayer of request, like that of praising and the one of thanksgiving, can be individual or collective. After the invocation to God, the psalm’s central part can reflect a disgrace situation (Ps 79), the complain presented to the Lord (Ps 74,11), sins confession (Ps 51) or innocence confession (Ps 44,18). Frequently, the prayer includes a confidence act and, to the end, a thanksgiving promise. It can be the pursued prayer (Ps 35), that of an ill man (Ps 41), or of an innocent unjustly prosecuted who appeals to God’s tribunal (Ps 7; 17). Confidence psalm came out of the one of petition; it can express confidence in God, serene and sure, or the effort to fortify a confidence in crisis (Ps 16; 23; 27).
Warship Psalms reflect a religious feast, a communitarian celebration (Ps 15, 24; 118). And the sapiential psalms exude wisdom in its reflexive tone and his didactic style (Ps 1; 37; 49) or its meditation on Israel’s history (Ps 78; 105; 106).
9. - Once situated the psalm in its style, we can proceed to its comprehension, Every one of the psalms has a unity, giving sense to it, and can present very diverse resources. Besides, each psalm is unique and contains some distinctive feature. There are psalms that we do not forget. To that, attitudes, worries, voice tone, spiritual and corporal resonance are added. Senses can symbolize spiritual experiences: not only to hear and to see, but also to taste and to touch (PS 34; 63). Message aside, the believer makes psalms feelings and language as of himself. It is what is called appropriation: “The psalm stays open and ready, for the transcendental jump too, when the psalms praying is, without loosing the Jewish precedent sense, Jesus Christ. In Augustine explanation, Jesus Christ pronounces some psalms like God, others like a singular man, others like the head of the Church. Since Jesus becomes the psalms praying, he feels them with a new sense for the Christians. From this comes the Christian lecture of the psalms that could be named Christian prayer. The reading begins seeking if the psalm is cited in the New Testament, for instance the psalm 22 in the passion. Afterwards, he will examine the symbols and his transformation presence, looking, afterwards, for equivalent situations in Church’s life” (Schökel)
10. - The psalms are, before all, a prayer repertory. To understand the psalms to the end, we must pray personally with them. Israel has the conviction of being a people who talks with God, with an alive God who talks with the man: He reveals his word to Jacob, his precepts and judgements to Israel (Ps 147,19).
* What do the psalms mean to us? How do we pray with the psalms?