Psalms: An Invitation to Prayer

by Kevin Perrotta, Kevin Perrotta (Editor)

Overview

The book of Psalms teaches us to pray with passion, honesty, and zeal. In truth, the book of Psalms is all about open communication with God. Psalms: An Invitation to Prayer will help Catholics learn how to pray openly and honestly using the Psalms as an example.

A Guided Discovery of the Bible
The Bible invites us to explore God’s word and reflect on how we might respond to it. To do this, we need guidance and the right tools for discovery. The Six Weeks with the Bible series of Bible discussion guides offers both in a concise six-week format. Whether focusing on a specific biblical book or exploring a theme that runs throughout the Bible, these practical guides in this series provide meaningful insights that explain Scripture while helping readers make connections to their own lives. Each guide
• is faithful to Church teaching and is guided by sound biblical scholarship
• presents the insights of Church fathers and saints
• includes questions for discussion and reflection
• delivers information in a reader-friendly format
• gives suggestions for prayer that help readers respond to God’s word
• appeals to beginners as well as to advanced students of the Bible
 
By reading Scripture, reflecting on its deeper meanings, and incorporating it into our daily life, we can grow not only in our understanding of God’s word, but also in our relationship with God.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780829414349
Publisher:	Loyola Press
Publication date:	02/28/2000
Series:	Six Weeks with the Bible Series
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.99(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.21(d)

About the Author

Kevin Perrotta is an award-winning Catholic journalist and a former editor of God’s Word Today. In addition to the Six Weeks with the Bible series, he is the author of Invitation to Scripture and Your One-Stop Guide to the Bible. Perrotta lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Read an Excerpt

How to Use This Guide

You might compare this booklet to a short visit to a national park. The park is so large that you could spend months, even years, getting to know it. But a brief visit, if carefully planned, can be enjoyable and worthwhile. In a few hours you can drive through the park and pull over at a handful of sites. At each stop you can get out of the car, take a short trail through the woods, listen to the wind blowing in the trees, get a feel for the place.
Psalms: An Invitation to Prayer

 

From the moment of our conception, an unseen Person has accompanied us through our life. He was at the bedside when we were first placed in our mother’s arms.* [* God, of course, is neither male nor female. I am using the traditional masculine personal pronouns for God to avoid the impersonal tone produced by rigorously avoiding the use of personal pronouns in reference to God. While the Bible often uses masculine metaphors for God, it also uses feminine ones—as in this image from Psalm 131 that compares God to a mother gazing down at her baby.] On every playground where we played, by every classroom desk we sat in, at every table where we ate, he has been with us. He has been there as we worked, as we loved, as we shopped. He has been with us in the moments when we were kind and caring to others—and no less present when we treated others shabbily and unfairly. At all times he has gazed into the murky depths of our heart and has seen our intentions as clearly as brightly colored fish darting before the eyes of a snorkeler in transparent Caribbean waters.
♦ “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” We will begin with psalms that acclaim God’s reign (Week 1).
 The psalms can sustain and deepen our relationship with our Companion—just as they sustained Jesus’ relationship with God from his boyhood in Nazareth to his final moments on Golgotha.
 

 

Week 1
 

Questions to Begin

15 minutes Use a question or two to get warmed up for the reading.

 

 1 What is your favorite prayer? Why?
 

Opening the Bible

5 minutes Read the psalms aloud. Let individuals pray successive verses,
* The translators use an uppercase L and small capital letters for the rest of the word to indicate that the Hebrew text uses not the Hebrew word for lord but the proper name of God (“Yahweh”).

The First Priority

“Hallowed be thy name.” Behind these obsolete English words lies an up-to-date meaning: “May you, God, act so that people will acknowledge you as the great, merciful, wise, trustworthy God that you are!” Jesus summons us to begin our prayer by focusing on God rather than on ourselves, to recognize God’s agenda before presenting our own. So we begin with two psalms of praise.

The Reading

Psalm 96: Hey, Everybody, Acknowledge God!
Psalm 111: Remember What God Has Done
 

Questions for Careful Reading

10 minutes Choose questions according to your interest and time.

 

 1 What clues can you find to indicate who is praying in these psalms and where they might be praying?
 

A Guide to the Reading

If participants have not read this section already, read it aloud. Otherwise go on to “Questions for Application.”

 

The Israelites sang Psalm 96 in the liturgy of the Jerusalem temple (notice 96:8). This psalm resounds with the people’s amazement at God’s grandeur and their awe at his presence with them (96:8–9). Sure, other nations have their gods (96:4), but those gods are nothings, nobodies (96:5). Israel’s God is the real God, for he made the earth (96:10) and the rest of the universe too (96:5). His people in the temple courtyard, the rest of the human race, and even hills and forests should sing his praises. And let the seas accompany the chorus with thundering surf (96:11). Hallowed, hallowed be his name!
 All my heart goes out to the Lord in praise,
 Verse 10 sounds like a teacher’s instruction, which is a reason for thinking that this psalm was designed for a school of some sort. Of course, depending on the mix of personalities, classrooms can be pretty noisy too!
Questions for Application

40 minutes Choose questions according to your interest and time.

 1 Where is the balance between praising God and asking God for what we need?
“During the meeting a candle could be lighted to remind us that when we are reading the Bible, Christ is present in our midst and God our Father is speaking to us.”
Approach to Prayer

15 minutes Use this approach—or create your own!

 

 ♦ Read aloud Philippians 2:5–11; Colossians 1:15–20; and Titus 3:4–7, pausing for a minute of silent reflection after each reading. Then pray together Psalm 96 in praise of God for the coming of his kingdom.

End with the Our Father.

 

Saints in the Making Giving God Quality Time

This section is a supplement for individual reading.

 

I discovered that I was giving a higher priority to good works than to prayer.” That statement could be made by many Christians. In this case it was made by Joseph Bernardin, who at the time was the Catholic archbishop of Cincinnati. “It was not that I lacked the desire to pray or that I had suddenly decided prayer was not important. Rather, I was very busy, and I fell into the trap of thinking that my good works were more important than prayer.”
 

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from " Psalms"
by .
Copyright © 2000 Kevin Perrotta.
Excerpted by permission of Loyola Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

    4    How to Use This Guide

    6    Psalms: An Invitation to Prayer

    12   Week 1
            Hallowed Be Thy Name
            Psalms 96 and 111
    22    Week 2
            Thy Kingdom Come
            Psalms 10 and 80
    32    Week 3
            Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
            Psalms 5 and 6
    42    Week 4
             Forgive Us Our Trespasses
           Psalms 51 and 130
    52    Week 5
            Thank You, Lord
            Psalms 30 and 92
    62    Week 6
             Father!
            Psalms 91 and 131

    72    Your Bridgehead into the Psalms

    76    Suggestions for Bible Discussion Groups

    79    Suggestions for Individuals

    80    Resources