Why Praise?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

“Let the peoples praise you O God.” This expression comes up often in the psalms, and does in today’s. It’s really amazing how the Word of God is chock-full of words of praise and yet we ourselves as Catholics barely mention the word in regard to God. And yet praising God - that’s our primordial setting as human beings. We are made for praise, we are made for praising the Lord, praising Christ, praising the Father in the Holy Spirit. Yet how often do we do it? It’s essential for our happiness - for it is that for which we were made, and the mode in which we commune with God’s goodness. For that is what praise is: recognising the goodness of God. And the first step of recognising it is to praise him for it. Let us make a time of praise of God - in song, in our heart, in the psalms or the prayer of the Church - a touchstone of our daily activity.

Let us pray:

“O God, life of the faithful,

glory of the humble, blessedness of the just,

listen kindly to the prayers

of those who call on you,

that they who thirst for what you generously promise

may always have their fill of your plenty.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.”