UNDERSTANDING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (for Thursday): Day 281 - How are the Psalms important for our prayer? // How did Jesus learn to pray? How are the Psalms important for our prayer? The Psalms, along with the Our Father, are part of the Churchs great treasury of prayers. In them the praise of God is sung in an ageless way. There are 150 Psalms in the Old Testament. They are a collection of songs and prayers, some of them several thousand years old, which are still prayed today in the Church community in the so-called Liturgy of the Hours. The Psalms are among the most beautiful texts in world literature and move even modern readers immediately by their spiritual power. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How did Jesus learn to pray? Jesus learned to pray in his family and in the synagogue. Yet Jesus broke through the boundaries of traditional prayer. His prayer demonstrates a union with his Father in heaven that is possible only to someone who is the Son of God. Jesus, who was God and man at the same time, grew up like other Jewish children of his time amid the rituals and prayer formulas of his people, Israel. Nevertheless, as the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple demonstrated (Lk 2:41ff.), there was something in him that could not be learned: an original, profound, and unique union with God, his Father in heaven. Like all other men, Jesus hoped for another world, a hereafter, and prayed to God. At the same time, though, he was also part of that hereafter. This occasion already showed that one day people would pray to Jesus, acknowledge him as God, and ask for his grace. (YOUCAT questions 473-474) (CCC section 2598-2599)
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:40:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015