Once when I was a young Brother, someone asked me how my community prayed. I said we use the Divine Office and the man’s reply was that we were outdated because for him it was meaningless since he had found a spontaneous way of praying to the Lord. As a young Brother in a community of mostly elderly Brothers, to expect the latter to do away with the Divine Office was not impossible [since those Brothers were surprisingly more open and detached than I thought] but rather unnecessary. Out of curiosity I decided to survey the state and especially the style of the prayer life of the elderly Brothers. My conclusion was that they were not only men of deep prayer but had well integrated lives of Christian simplicity, compassion, generosity and total abandonment to the will of God.
Psalm 32 mentioned about ‘giving thanks to the Lord’ and singing a ‘song that is new’.
Can praying the same old Psalms every few weeks be a way of thanking the Lord and like singing a song that is new? For those who believe, the word of God is certainly alive and active. Each time we break the word, it is like unrolling the scroll which contains a new song – a song of the Lamb. Its newness is evident in that it renews the life of the pray-er helping him or her not only to praise and honor God but also walk in newness of life in Christ each day – and a life of deeper relationship with the Blessed Trinity resulting in gracious Christian living.
It seems two things are needed when we praise God using the Psalms:
first, the pray-ers need to have a repentant heart. Second, the pray-ers need to have a combination of fidelity and docility.
For the elderly Brothers who had faithfully prayed the living word of God, in savouring God’s word and being nourished by it every day, I noticed they were graced with the Spirit of Faith. In Lasallian terms, it means that they would not look upon anything except with the eyes of faith; not do anything but in view of God and attributing all to God. In this way, they were always able to enter into the sentiment of Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased the Lord, so it is done”.
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Stay tuned for the next post by Bro Gregory Chan on 23rd Oct 2009.
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