Tag Archive for ‘Liturgy of the Hours’
Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord”
The Commentaries on Psalm 119(118) are interrupted this first week of May as we honor Mary during her month. The following Commentary was offered by Pope Benedict XVI as part of the Commentaries on the Liturgy of the Hours on February 16, 2006. 1. We have now arrived at the final destination of the long [...]
Psalm 119(118): v. 145-152: let Christ be light of day
1. In our already long journey through the Psalms that the Liturgy of Lauds presents, we come to one strophe – to be precise, the 19th – of the longest prayer of the Psalter, Psalm 118[119]. It is a part of an immense alphabetical hymn. In a play on style, the Psalmist divides his work into 22 [...]
Psalm Commentaries to Resume
Dear Friends, Many of you enjoyed the Commentaries on the Psalms by Blessed John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI posted here on the site. While they are all available on the Vatican web site they are difficult to research and to find, which, in my thinking, is a great loss. As a help to the [...]
Couples Praying Together
Many Christian couples do not pray together. They often don’t realize the power and grace of simply sitting down together, regularly, holding hands, and praying from their hearts about the issues of life. They will pray by themselves, they will occasionally say traditional prayers. Facing each other, praying from their hearts, makes them feel uncomfortable. [...]
Psalm 110(109): The Lord bestows divine power and priesthood on the king
We Are Invited to Look to Christ in Order to Understand the Meaning of True Royalty Today I would like to end my catechesis on the prayer of the Book of Psalms by meditating on one of the most famous of the “royal Psalms”, a Psalm that Jesus himself cited and that the New Testament [...]
Psalm 93(92): God is our strength in the storms of life
1. The essential content of Psalm 92 [93] on which we are reflecting today is evocatively expressed by some verses of the Hymn in the Liturgy of the Hours for Vespers of Monday: “O, immense Creator who, in the harmony of the cosmos laid out a path and a limit for the pounding waves of [...]
The Scriptures on your Windows based smartphone
Fr. Paolo Padrini makes the “breviary” into a multimedia application This news is only a few days old. The ‘iBreviary – Pro Terra Sancta’, the most popular app (short for application) in the Catholic world has “landed” on Windows Phone 7 smartphone and is therefore now available on mobiles with Microsoft operating systems. These can [...]
Daniel 3:57-88, 56: Let every creature bless the Lord
1. “Bless the Lord, all works of the Lord” (Dn 3: 57). A cosmic dimension imbues this Canticle taken from the Book of Daniel, which the Liturgy of the Hours proposes for Sunday Lauds in the first and third weeks. This marvellous litany-like prayer is well-suited to the Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord, that [...]
Psalm 118 [117]: In all our trials, God has the last word
1. The sequence of Psalms from 112[111] to 117[118] was sung during the most important and joyful feasts of ancient Judaism, especially during the celebration of the Passover. This series of hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God were called the “Egyptian Hallel” because, in one of them, Psalm 114 A [113], the exodus of Israel [...]
Vespers, Prayer of Sunset
1. We know from numerous testimonies that from the fourth century onwards Lauds and Vespers had become an established institution in all the great Eastern and Western Churches. This is borne out by St Ambrose: “Just as every day, in going to church or devoting ourselves to prayer at home, we start from God and [...]
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