[The Divine Office begins the Liturgical Day with “A Call to Praise God” in the form of the Invitatory Psalm, usually Psalm 95, in stanzas, or strophes, separated by an antiphon. For Monday of Week II in the Four-Week Psalter the antiphon is “Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord”.]
[Prior to the Psalm is an introductory phrase taken from Psalm 51 and a quote from the Letter to the Hebrews]
Lord, open my lips.
— And my mouth will proclaim Your Praise.
Encourage each other daily, while it is still today (Hebrews 3:13)
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
Come, let us sing to the Lord
and shout with joy to the Rock Who Saves us.
Let us approach Him with Praise and Thanksgiving
and sing joyful songs to the Lord.
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
The Lord is God, the Mighty God,
the Great King over all the gods,
He holds in His Hands the depths of the earth
and the highest mountains as well.
He made the sea; it belongs to Him,
the dry land, too, for it was formed by His Hands.
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
Come then, let us bow down and worship,
bending the knee before the Lord, our Maker.
For He is our God, and we are His People,
the Flock He Shepherds.
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
Today, listen to the Voice of the Lord:
Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did
in the wilderness,
when at Meribah and Massah
they challenged me and provoked me,
Although they had seen all of my works.
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
Forty years I endured that generation.
I said, “They are a People whose hearts go astray
and they do not know My Ways.”
So I swore in my anger,
“The shall not enter into my rest.”
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.
Amen.
Come, Let Us Sing Joyful Songs to the Lord
[The Divine Office also indicates that Psalm 100, Psalm 67 or Psalm 24 may be used, providing translations for those psalms as well. And it indicates that the psalm may be omitted when the Invitatory precedes Morning Prayer. An added note provides that, in individual recitation, the antiphon may be said once, at the beginning, rather than with each strophe.]
[As can be seen, the psalm presents a a wide-ranging encounter with God’s Greatness and our Relationship to Him. We are exhorted to approach God, to sing and shout with joy, praise and thanksgiving. God is Almighty and our Creator, indeed holding creation in His Hands.
We are to worship and follow Him in His Greatness. Yet He also is a Person Whose Voice we are to listen to and follow, Who Shepherds us as His Flock. At times, there are those who stubbornly failed to follow him, challenging Him and provoking His Wrath. In particular, with the reference to Meribah and Massah, the psalm recalls the Israelites grumbling and challenging God at points during their exodus in the desert.]
Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours] (43, 3). However, Benedict states that in the first place prayer is an act of listening (Prol. 9-11), which must then be expressed in action. “The Lord is waiting every day for us to respond to his holy admonitions by our deeds” (Prol. 35). Thus, the monk’s life becomes a fruitful symbiosis between action and contemplation, “so that God may be glorified in all things” (57, 9). In contrast with a facile and egocentric self-fulfilment, today often exalted, the first and indispensable commitment of a disciple of St Benedict is the sincere search for God (58, 7) on the path mapped out by the humble and obedient Christ (5, 13), whose love he must put before all else (4, 21; 72, 11), and in this way, in the service of the other, he becomes a man of service and peace. In the exercise of obedience practised by faith inspired by love (5, 2), the monk achieves humility (5, 1), to which the Rule dedicates an entire chapter (7). In this way, man conforms ever more to Christ and attains true self-fulfilment as a creature in the image and likeness of God. …”
