Praise and Worship (V): Creation in the Silence

---continuing

In the last post we mentioned that Worship is the self-giving act of God and the self-giving act of ourselves in totality. Just as the temple was designed with different degrees of holiness or consecreation, so is the praise and worship session. The movement of praise and worship is the movement of consecrating oneself to God step by step, litlte by litle, until in worship, we give ourselves totally and wholly to God.

In this time of communion with God, in this time of setting ourselves apart wholly for God, we have come face to face with God. And as we come face to face with God, we can only bow down and worship Him in silent adoration. In this worship there are no words left, only adoration and love.

The church teaches that

(CCC 2628) ... Adoration is homage of the spirit to the "King of Glory," respectful silence in the presence of the "ever greater" God.

We adore God in silence before the presence of the "ever greater" God! And in a true adoration, a true sacrifice takes place. In other words, true self-giving takes place.

(CCC 2099) It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice."¹⁶

In silent Adoration, we learn to give ourselves, we learn to Love. Loving is self-giving. To love is to give oneself. To love is to sacrifice oneself.

And St. Therese of Avilla once said about prayer

Prayer is an act of love, words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love."

All that is needed is the will to love. Prayer is an "act of love". Love is the essence of prayer. And to love is to give onself, and to give oneself is to worship. Maybe that's the reason why worship is an imporant element in a "prayer" meeting.

But it is interesting that St. Therese said, "words are not needed". And I guess this is very true when we worship God from our whole being. Just as Jesus stretched out his hands with his head bowed down in his total self-giving to the Father and to us, so too in worship. Words are not needed.

In this worship we give ourselves, and in giving ourselves we are in communion with God. In this total communion with God, we enter into the silence as the Lord of Lords comes to take his place in our hearts.

In the writing of the prophets, "silence" always precedes and heralds the coming of the Lord (NJB study bible notes on Rev 8:1).

Zach 2
[10] Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion;
for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of you, says the LORD.
[11] And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of you, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
... [13] Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD; for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

We are invited to "sing and rejoice" because He is coming, he is coming into our hearts! After all the songs and the rejoicing, this is what is said, "be silent, .... all flesh". We enter into silence as the Lord of hosts comes and dwells in our hearts and lives.And as the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings comes and dwells in our hearts, we can only give ourselves totally in return.

And maybe this is the reason why we all pray in silence after we receive communion. Because in this very moments the God of the Universe comes with Love to meet us, to be in union with us. It is a union when God gives himself to us, but also as we give ourselves to God in return.

Fr. Gino once taught us in a workshop that Worship in a catholic tradition is "silence". Worship for us catholics is not yelling and screaming, but silence. Worship for us is not a state of "high emotion" or the "feeling" of deep worship. For us, worship is adoration, respectful silence for the Lord who is coming, it is a receiving attitude to the Lord who gives himself, but also a self-giving act of ourselves, worship is a decision.

What else can we do before the Lord of Lords other than to adore him? What is the best adoration other than being in silence? But what do we do in silence? This is what we do: we allow ourselves to be embraced by the Lord who is coming with Love. This is what we can do, to embrace him in return with our whole being.

In this worship, we learn to be in silence. And in this silence we enter into the Holy of Holies. The inner most of the temple where God dwells!

The Hebrew words for Holy of Holies can also be translated as "Oracles" or God's voice. This is the place where God speaks. It is only in silent worship that we enter into the Holy of Holies and encounter the voice of God. And so the Psalmist says

Ps. 95
[7b] O that today you would hearken to his voice!
[8a] Harden not your hearts

In silence, we encounter the voice of God. In silence, we encounter the God who speaks. I am aware that many of us feel that they are unable to "hear" this voice. But we often "listen" using the wrong ears. We tend to use our physical and intellectual ears, but not the ears of our hearts.

Sometimes we forget that his voice is no ordinary voice. His words is no ordinary words. His voice is the voice that creates the universe, it is the voice that says "Let there be light", and "there was light". It's the Powerful voice of God that always "creates" a new.

Ps. 33
[6] By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
[9] For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood forth.

The Word of God creates! This word of God is Jesus! (John 1:1). This Word, this voice of God, that we encounter is not just a sound, it is a "person". And together with the Word is the "breath of his mounth" (Ps 33:6). When the word is spoken, the breath is sent forth. The Hebrew word for "breath" is Ruah which also means "Spirit". And so together with Jesus, the voice of God, is also the Holy Spirit, the breath of God.

And so this "hearken to his voice" is the "encounter" with God himself. And how should we "listen" then? We need to accept Him, we need to embrace Him, and to allow him to "speak" with the words that "creates" us anew. We need to allow him to change us! This "change" is what the Evangelist called in Greek, metanoia, or simply means "con-version".

And so the Word of God together with the Spirit of God come to those who give themselves to God...and God will create them anew.

Ps. 104
[30] When thou sendest forth thy Spirit,
they are created;
and thou renewest the face of the ground.

In worship, something happens! In worship, as we enter into silence, we will encounter the voice of God, Jesus is the voice of God. And as we encounter the voice of God, we will surely be renewed, changed, transformed, refreshed, and born again! And this is the promise that will never fail!

Is. 55
[10] "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and return not thither but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
[11] so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

This is what we are doing in a praise and worship session. We are called to move from our "world" to God, to set ourselves apart, to be consecrated, to give ourselves wholly to God. And as we give ourselves in silent worship, we will surely encounter the God who loves us, we will surely encounter His voice, encounter his embrace of Love. It is the moment when we are loved. This loves "changes" us, this love drives us for a "conversion", for a "change of lives", for a change to be "more like Christ" every day.

Just as mankind came into being when God "breathed" his "breath" or his "spirit" into the man's nostrils, so are we in the time of worship. The Spirit is "breathed" when God speaks. And when the spirit is breathed, our lives will never be the same again. We begin to live the life that God wants us to be. And this is the life that God wants us to be

Joh 15:12 "... that you love one another as I have loved you.

Every time we come out from a prayer meeting meeting, this is what must happen in our lives, that we want more and more to love as God has loved us. And this is how God Loves us, he died and rose again, so that forever he can say to you and to me, "This is my body,...given for you.., and this is my blood,...poured out for you".

Let us close with an invocation for the "breath of God" that changes and renews us as we learn to listen to "His voice" daily.

Come, O Holy Spirit
Fill the hearts of your faithful
and enkindle in them the fire of your Love
Send forth your spirit O Lord,
and they shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.

your brother in His love,
oka

Praise and Worship (IV): Praise brings true Worship

---continuing

In the last article we discussed how the Temple was designed and how that helps us to see the flow of the Praise and Worship. The temple was designed with different degree of "Holiness", and the inner most is the Holy of Holies. The Praise and worship is also designed with different degrees of "Holiness". What is meant is how the heart of the people are "set apart" for the Lord. From Thanksgiving, where we start to enter as through a gate, and then we start to gaze on the Lord in Praise, and as we look at him, how can we fail not to worship him? And so the psalmist says

Ps. 95
[6] O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
[7] For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

As we start to gaze on the Lord, we are invited to "Worship". In fact, the literal meaning of worship is to "bow down". In this worship, we enter into the Holy of Holies, we began to "set ourselves apart" wholly to God. In Praise, we begin to set aside our world to enter into God's presence. Here in worship, we are truly in God's presence. As the temple was designed with the inner most as the Holiest, so in Worship, we are called to "set apart" ourselves wholly to God. I guess the key word is "wholly".

In Praise we see How beautiful this God is, how kind, and how loving he is. And this gaze drives us to "give ourselves" wholly to God. This is Holiness, wholly set apart for the Lord.

And that's why I feel verse 7 of Psalm 95 explains a lot of Worship.

[7] For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.

The main thing in worship is the "self-giving". And this is what the Psalmist said, "for he is our God". This reminds us of what God says, "You shall be my people, and I will be your God" (Jer 30:22) . God says that he wills to be our God. This God gives himself to us! And he truly gives everything to us, even his own body. And maybe that's the reason why the highest worship of our catholic faith is the Holy Eucharist as Jesus says

This is my body, given for you

This is my blood, poured out for you

God has given everything, and there is nothing that he has not given to us. And in this time of worship, as much as it is the time of God's self-giving act, it is also the time for us to respond to this wonderful self-giving act of God.

and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand

Now, we are His! We are his people, the sheep of His hand. In Worship we give ourselves to God. And we are not invited only to give part of ourselves, but we are invited to give ourselves "wholly" and "totally" just as Christ gives himself for us "wholly" and "totally".

And so in Praise and Worship, we are led to this "total self-giving" which we find its most meaning in "Worship". I believe this is what Worship is.

If you ever attend a catholic charismatic prayer meeting, you might see that people usually open up their hands as they worship. Some people feel that it is a bit unusual for catholics. But we find this gesture of "hands opened and lifted up" mostly in a catholic priest as he celebrates the mass. How often does he open up his arms and pray! And in some parishes, the congregation also pray the Our Father with their hands opened and lifted up (see figure).



And in the book "Introduction to Christianity", Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) states that this gesture is the gesture of how the early Christians pray!
Even the church has a name for it, since the church tries to "preserve" the gesture in the liturgy. We usually call it the "orantes" gesture.

The early Fathers of the Church see that this gesture of prayer and worship points to the gesture of Christ on the Cross. Pope Benedict then said that this shows that Christ is the true worshiper!

And for me, this shows again the meaning of worship. That the true worship can be seen on the Cross, on the man Jesus who gave himself for us totally and completely.

This is the worship that we are invited to, the worship to give ourselves totally to God. We are invited to give him our worries, our burdens, our hurts, our joy, our whole life, to give him our dreams and future, but also our presents and past, to give every area in our life, our needs and difficulties, our family, and our health, everything, and everything.

To this God, and in this worship, do we give our whole being. Not reserving anything for the "I" of our ego. Just as St. Paul writes,

it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Gal 2:20


And this is worship, that it is no longer I, but it is Christ. I live by faith in the Son of God. And Pope Benedict once said that faith is about standing and giving our whole being to stand on this ground of our whole being. In this worship we learn not to stand on ourselves, but to stand on Jesus, the meaning of our whole being, our love, our God, on Jesus who loves us and gives himself for me out of love. This love, that he gives himself for me, is the one that drives me to give my whole self back to Him in return, that is in worship. And no wonder we shouldn't worship only in a Prayer Meeting.

Worship is a decision, to stand no longer on I, but on Jesus.

it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Gal 2:20

--to be continued

Praise and Worship (III): Giving thanks leads to Praise

---continuing

As we have seen earlier, the psalmist starts by inviting the people to "give thanks" to the Lord. And then, he invites them to make a joyful noise with "songs of praise". Psalm 100, which is also used as an alternative "invitation to praise" in the liturgy says

Ps. 100
[4] Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him,
bless his name!

I think it helps to see how the Temple of Jerusalem was designed to understand the flow of Praise and Worship (We know in detail mostly the last temple which was built around 35BC, which is much later than the time when the psalm was written, but I hope it helps to give a glimpse of the design) . If you see the plan of the Jerusalem temple, it is constructed with several areas or layers. The outer most is the "Court of the Gentile", then moving inward, there are various courts, and then in the inner most of the temple, there is the Holy of the Holies, where no one can enter, and even the priest can only enter once a year. This is the holiest place for the Jews, where they put the ark of the covenant. This is the place of God's presence.

Psalm 100 tells us that the Jews enter the gate of the temple with "Thanksgiving". Then they come into the courts with Praise!

The temple of Jerusalem was built with different degrees of Holiness, from the holiest inside (God's presence) to the least holy at the outside (that is the world, this is how they see). You might wonder what this means, and how it is related to our flow of Praise and Worship.

I guess we need to understand the meaning of "Holy". It comes from the word "consecrated" or literally means "set apart". So this is how the temple is designed. From the outside, that is the world and the gentile, we come into the courts of the Israelites, that is God's chosen people in the world. Israel is "consecrated" or "set apart" for the Lord.

[6] "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
Deut 7:6

Then moving inward, only priests can come to the Court of Priest. Priests are the "consecrated" people among the Israelites, they are "set apart" for the Lord among the Israelites.

Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things, that he and his sons for ever should burn incense before the LORD, and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name for ever.
1 Chr 23:13

And then the inner most is the Holy of the Holies, where God dwells. It is the holiest place because God as the Creator of everything is set apart from the creation, but the beauty is that he set himself apart "for" us, his creation. This place is the presence of God for the Jews.

Of course, for us, the new testament people, we are God's Holy Temple. St. Paul said

1Cor 3.
[16] Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
[17] If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are.

And so the flow of the praise and worship helps us to achieve the same thing. Just as the Temple is designed with different degrees of "holiness", so the praise and worship is also designed to bring the people's "heart" to different degrees of "consecration" to God, that is bringing the hearts of the people to be set apart for the Lord, to be consecrated for the Lord, to be Holy for the Lord our God little by little, or step by step, until we truly enter the inner most of the temple, that is God's dwelling place, where we consecrate ourselves fully to God.

Let us say it again, the movement of praise and worship is the movement of our hearts to be set apart for the Lord step by step until we come to the full consecration for the Lord in the deepest of our selves, until we give ourselves set apart for the Lord wholly and fully.

We enter the presence of God with thanksgiving, just as the Jews enter through the gates with thanksgiving. As we give thanks, we passes through from "our world" to "God", just as the Jews enter from the "world" to the "temple" through the gate.

Do you know what happen when you give thanks? You start to look in your life, and in your world, where God is, where his blessings are, where you have received grace upon grace. And for all that God has given to us, we give him Thanks! And as we give thanks, we "enter through the gate" into what God is doing, into the kindness and the love of God. And only with this awareness, can we start to Praise God for who he is. We praise God because he deserves our praise.

Ps. 147
[1] Praise the LORD!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious,
and a song of praise is seemly.

The psalmist says we enter His gate with thanksgiving, and so we start from our worries, our world, our self-centredness, and we turn to what God does for us in our lives. We learn to see what we have received: Love, kindness, grace, and blessings. And for these we give thanks to God. And as we give thanks to God, we start to see who this God is. We started to see the Love that he has for us. And we move on from "the gift" to the "Giver". If in thanksgiving we look into "our lives", then in Praise, we fix our eyes on THE "God".

In praise we start "to set aside" the so called our "world", and we move into the courts of God to gaze in his sanctuary, to see the God who loves us, and the God whom we love.

Ps. 27
[4] One thing have I asked of the LORD,
that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD,
and to inquire in his temple.

And together with the Psalmist, we start to Praise God with our eyes fixed on him!

Ps.150
[1] Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty firmament!
[2] Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his exceeding greatness!
[3] Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
[4] Praise him with timbrel and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
[5] Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
[6] Let everything that breathes praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!

--to be continued

Praise and Worship (II): the structure

-- continuing

Well, in the last post we already mentioned that in the liturgy of the hours, the prayer of the church, the main components are the Psalms, the silent time, and the Word of God. The silent time, in fact, is very important, that they are inserted every time we finish singing a psalm and listening to the Word of God. In fact, Fr. Gino told us that the best worship is "silent".

What do we have in a catholic charismatic prayer meeting? A praise, a worship, and the Word of God. Is it a coincidence?

But let us take sometime to read the Scripture and focus only on the praise and worship session. Let's read Psalm 95, which is usually used an an "invitation to praise" to begin the liturgy of the hours.

Ps.95
[1] O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
[2] Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
[3] For the LORD is a great God,and a great King above all gods.
[4] In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
[5] The sea is his, for he made it;for his hands formed the dry land.
[6] O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
[7] For he is our God,and we are the people of his pasture,and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would hearken to his voice!
[8] Harden not your hearts, as at Mer'ibah,as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
[9] when your fathers tested me,and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
[10] For forty years I loathed that generationand said,
"They are a people who err in heart,and they do not regard my ways."
[11] Therefore I swore in my angerthat they should not enter my rest.

I am aware that we usually have the tendency to skip the scripture passage, but you might want to read it slowly. Well, maybe let us pray the psalm slowly. I hope we can feel the flow and the elements that we have in the Liturgy of the Hours, as well as in the prayer meeting.

The psalm starts by inviting the people to sing and to make a joyful noise (can you figure out what "joyful noise" means? Could it be music?)

[1] O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

And then, the psalmist invites the people to come into God's presence with "Thanksgiving".

[2] Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

But not only with that, he invites them further to make "a joyful noise" with ....? Guess what? He invites them to make a joyful noise to God with "songs of Praise"!

Then the psalmist does not stop only in inviting, but he starts to "praise" God in verse 3 to 5

[3] For the LORD is a great God,and a great King above all gods.
[4] In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
[5] The sea is his, for he made it;for his hands formed the dry land.

This must be a tiring one. If you ever watch the movie "David" and see how they dance and sing before the Lord, you will open wide your eyes. David even took off his clothes and started to dance almost naked! (2 Sam 6)

[14] And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. [15] So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the horn. [16] As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.

Even, David's wife was embarrassed with what David did.

[20] And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants' maids, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"

Maybe some of us also experience the same thing as David. This is how David answer

[21] And David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD -- and I will make merry before the LORD.

It is before the Lord that we dance and sing, that we raise our hands, that we make a joyful noise with musics and clapping hands. It is before the Lord! and we shall make merry before the Lord!

But let us continue. After this, the psalmist invites the people again

[6] O come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
[7a] For he is our God,and we are the people of his pasture,and the sheep of his hand.

He invites us to "Worship" or to "Bow Down" which is the literal meaning of the word worship in Hebrew. Then, after we worship, he invites us to "Listen to His voice".

[7b] O that today you would hearken to his voice!
[8] Harden not your hearts, as at Mer'ibah,as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
[9] when your fathers tested me,and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.

And so this is what the psalmist invites: to give thanks, to praise, to worship, and then to "listen" to his voice. Isn't it wonderful! What we are doing in a catholic charismatic prayer meeting is similar to what the Scripture is teaching us! It is similar to how the Jews prays! It is also similar to how the church prays!

----to be continued

Praise and Worship (I): and how the church prays

I would like to dedicate this reflection for Jesus, to whom we give our worship, and who leads us to worship the Father in spirit and in truth. And I also want to dedicate this reflection for all people who leads God's people to encounter the true and living God, to the worship leaders. And not only to the worship leaders, but to everyone who are involved in this "Prayer", from the musician, to the logistics, and to the people who just come and Pray.

Let me start by saying that, I am not a worship leader (in fact, I am having difficulty to sing in the correct tune). So why would a non-worship leader write something about praise and worship? Well, maybe because to praise and to worship is what God calls each and every one of us to do. This is a personal reflection of what it means to praise and to worship God in my daily lives.

For those going to a catholic charismatic prayer meeting, praise and worship session is something that is common to them. This article is meant to share the things that we do in a charismatic prayer meeting, particularly the praise and worship session. Why do we do what we do? Do we have the same structures or flow all the time? Is quiet or silent moment necessary? What does it mean to praise? or to worship?

Let us start by reflecting on the structure and the elements of Praise and Worship. If you have ever been to several prayer meetings, anywhere, you will be astonished to see that in many variety, we can identify certain elements in a catholic charismatic prayer meeting. We usually start with thanksgiving or praise songs, then after sometime, we start to slow down the tempo and go into worship. And then, certain prayer meetings (a good one hehe) will spend some quiet or silent moment before the Lord. Then, usually the worship leader allows a time for prophecy or words of knowledge. Ah, at this point, usually the praise and worship closes with a song or a prayer which is then continued with a talk or preaching on the word of God. Anyway, of course there are some variety, but this is what I usually encounter.

The very fact that the same elements and structure can be found everywhere is quite astonishing, I would say. It is as if God's spirit is working and shows us what to do. Anyway, my question is "are we copying someone else worship style?" This is quite bothering me actually. Are we, as catholics, just trying to copy some other tradition outside our catholic tradition?

Yes and No, I would say.

Yes, in the sense that we use some of our protestant brothers and sisters' songs. Yes in the sense that we use the "contemporary music" and not a hymn for mass. But I would like to say No in the sense of the elements and the structure of the prayer meeting.

Last Easter, after Good Friday and before Easter vigil mass, I came to my parish for a morning prayer. Well, this is not just my morning prayer. It is the Church official morning prayer. Some people call it liturgy of the hours, some say divine office, etc. Anyway, it is the official prayer of the catholic church.

And as I reflect upon it, I found that there are the same elements just as what we have in a catholic charismatic prayer meeting. In the liturgy of the hours, we usually open with a psalm, called "invitation to praise". The most commonly read or sang is Psalm 95. I will share more about this psalm later on. Another psalm that is usually used for "invitation to praise" is Psalm 100. This "invitation to praise" is only read at the very beginning of the day, and so I believe, it explains what is happening in the liturgy of the hours as a whole.

Anyway, after that, we sing the Psalmody, usually three psalms, after each we usually spend some silent moments. And after we sing the psalmody with the silent prayer, we listen to a scripture passage. If the priest presided the prayer, he usually give a short homily. Then there usually a prayer of intercession and concluded with the Our Father. Then there is a closing prayer and a closing hymn.

Well, I know that's a lot of thing. But basically, the liturgy of the hours are composed of several things: the Psalms, the Word of God, prayers intercessory, and all these intersperse with silent moment. The psalms are usually a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God (sometimes petitions). We pray not just one but Three Psalms to praise God. Then we usually spend some silent moments after we finish each psalm. Then we listen to the Word of God from the scripture and the homily.

Well, if you haven't found any similarities, allow me to share what I reflect. But I would like to use the "invitation to praise" Psalm 95 at the beginning of the liturgy of the hours to show the elements of the prayer of the Church, which also came from the prayer of the Jews.

---to be continued