A Catholic Guide to Praying the Psalms

About this book

You have prayed the Psalms more times than you realize.Every Mass you have ever attended has woven them through its prayer: the Responsorial Psalm, the antiphons, and the ancient language of worship. Christ Himself prayed them, sang them at the Last Supper, and cried them out from the Cross. Yet many Catholics were never taught how to pray the Psalms personally: how to take words written for a shepherd-king three thousand years ago and mean them today as your own voice lifted to God.A Catholic Guide to Praying the Psalms teaches you how.Rooted in the Church's ancient understanding of the Psalter, this book shows that every psalm is prayed in Christ: as His voice, as the voice of His Church, and as your own voice joined to both. With that key in hand, you will learn how to approach the major kinds of psalms: praise, thanksgiving, lament, penitence, trust, wisdom, pilgrimage, and the psalms that speak of Christ the King.Inside, you will learn: - why the Psalms are the Church's great prayer book- how Christ Himself prayed the Psalms- how to pray psalms of praise, thanksgiving, lament, penitence, trust, wisdom, pilgrimage, and kingship- how to approach the difficult imprecatory psalms with honesty and Catholic restraint- how to pray a psalm through lectio divina- how to build a simple morning and evening psalm habit- how Our Lady's Magnificat gathers the spirit of the Psalter- which psalms to turn to in anxiety, grief, illness, temptation, gratitude, Confession, Mass, family burdens, and fear of deathThe book closes with the Psalter for Life: forty ordinary human situations, each paired with a psalm, a reason it fits, and one line you can pray on the spot.Every psalm and Scripture verse is quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible, giving this guide a traditional Catholic voice and cadence.Whether you are beginning's Magnificat gathers the spirit of the Psalter- which psalms to turn to in anxiety, grief, illness, temptation, gratitude, Confession, Mass, family burdens, and fear of deathThe book closes with the Psalter for Life: forty ordinary human situations the Liturgy of the Hours, returning to Scripture prayer, or simply wanting to pray more deeply without a heavy Bible-study program, this book will help you open the Psalter as what it truly is: the prayer book God gave His people so they could give His words back to Him.