Thursday, September 17, 2020 –
For our last FORM OF PRAYER, we will be talking about PRAISE. If you remember a few days ago, we had a lovely discussion about blessing and adoration, and there was a crazy tangent by yours truly about a nutty definition found on the website of the Cathedral for my own Diocese. Well, here you go again as a refresher:
Anyhoo, the discussion centered on that not being the definition for blessing and adoration, neither was it the definition for prayers of praise either, which is what I **think** they were going for, but who knows?? I mean, really, nobody needs to nor should they throw their hands in the air and dance like they just don’t care.
Oh, see, there I go again off on another tangent about liturgical dancing…sorry.
What were we discussing? Oh, right! PRAYERS OF PRAISE. By this we mean that you are amazed by God’s greatness, and you pray to praise (honor) God. You recognize God’s greatness and expressing His magnificence in prayer. You are not asking for anything for you (petition) or someone else (intercession, and you are not thanking Him (thanksgiving). You are simply giving glory and honor to God because it is His due and because He is God!
As with our other forms of prayer, the Catechism’s In Brief section puts it best:
2649 Prayer of praise is entirely disinterested and rises to God, lauds him, and gives him glory for his own sake, quite beyond what he has done, but simply because HE IS.
I know you all like lists too, so here if our little list of examples for prayers of praise:
- Basically, anything that falls into the category of “Doxology” (a Doxology is a short prayer or hymn of praise to God)
- The Glory Be (Gloria Patri…)
- The Gloria from Mass (Gloria in excelsis Deo)
- The Divine Praises
- The Apostles’ Creed
- The Magnificat (“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!”)
Let us not forget our standard Catechism quote, but since the section on prayers of praise is longer than the others, I will pull out the best of the best. For those that want the whole section it is 2639 – 2643. For those who want to cut to the chase:
V. PRAYER OF PRAISE
2639 Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS…Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.”
…
2641 …[the first Christian communities]…composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard-of event that God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and Ascension to the right hand of the Father. Doxology, the praise of God, arises from this “marvelous work” of the whole economy of salvation.
2642 …By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against all hope and gives thanks to the “Father of lights,” from whom “every perfect gift” comes down. Thus faith is pure praise.
2643 The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is “the pure offering” of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of God’s name and, according to the traditions of East and West, it is the “sacrifice of praise.”
Okay, now that we have mapped out each of our FORMS OF PRAYER, we are going to spend the next two days covering some specific stuff and how they relate to everything we just learned. Trust me, it will be fun…maybe.
Mother undefiled, pray for us!
