Holy Week - Put Us not to the Test

Week 7, Holy Week –Lead us not into Temptation and Deliver Us from Evil

Psalms of Deliverance

7, 10, 12, 13, 17, 22, 26, 31, 35, 39, 44, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 69, 70, 71, 74, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88, 90, 94, 108, 109, 120, 126, 137, 140, 141, 142

I have long had a love/hate relationship with Holy Week.  I love the liturgies and the Scripture readings; they are so rich in meaning.  However I hate what they entail if you seriously undertake these celebrations.  They require that you go through the gates of death, walk with Jesus during his final hours, endure all that he endured.

Holy Week tests us and I don’t enjoy being tested.  Jesus taught us to pray, put us not to the test.  He knew that the spirit was willing but the flesh weak.  The apostles are put to the test during the final day of Jesus’ life and failed miserably.  None were able to stay awake with Jesus; Peter denied he knew Jesus and all fled out of fear.

Bible Study Week 6 - Forgive as We Forgive

Bible Study -Week 6

Forgive Us our Sins as We Forgive Those who Sin against Us

Penitential Psalms:  6, 25, 32, 38, 50, 51, 102, 106, 130, 143

Forgive us as we forgive.  We get another break this week in that we only have ten psalms to read, however the message is a powerful one, one of forgiveness as we prepare to celebrate Holy Week, the great culmination of Lent.  Along with the traditional penitential psalms: Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143; Fr. Murphy includes Psalms 25, 50 and 106.

           

Psalm 25 is another acrostic psalm with each line beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  The unifying theme is praying for forgiveness and guidance.  Psalm 106 is an historical psalm recounting Israel’s sinfulness in worshipping false idols and complaining against God, and God’s great mercy and forgiveness of them despite their sins.  Psalm 50 sets the stage for Psalm 51.  A charge is brought against the people. 

Bible Study Week 5 - Give Us this Day our Daily Bread

Week 5  – Give Us this Day our Daily Bread

Psalms of Supplication

5, 28, 36, 42, 43, 54, 61, 63, 86, 123

This week and the next we get a break as we prepare for the grand finale of Lent, Holy Week.  We only have ten psalms to focus on this week and next week, but rich ones.  Having recognized God as Father, praised our God in heaven, and prayed for God’s will and kingdom, we now turn to our own needs. 

Jesus instructs us to pray:  give us this day our daily bread.  We are to pray every day for that which we need, not just our bread, but everything.  We are to turn to God in prayer, seeking that which we desire.  The psalms are plaintive as the writers cried to God to hear their prayers.  We are to pray to our Father for all of our needs, trusting that our God who provided bread, manna, in the desert to the Israelites, will provide for our needs as well.  It is a reminder that we can depend on our God, as Jesus tells us:  “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you more important than they?”  (Mt. 6:25-26)

Bible Study week 4: Thy Will Be Done

Bible Study, Week 4 – Thy Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

Wisdom Psalms – 1, 37, 49, 73, 91, 112, 119, 127, 128, 133, 139

Liturgical – 15, 24, 134

Prophetic Exhortations – 14, 52, 53, 75, 81, 95

Historical – 78, 105

Out of all of creation, we are the only ones with the ability to choose ways that are not God’s ways.  We have free will.  And so, we need to choose carefully, trying to align our lives with God’s will for us.

In order to help us in making these choices, we have the wisdom, liturgical, prophetic exhortations and historical psalms.  They focus on God’s law and the need to keep those laws.

The wisdom psalms are a collection of wise sayings, similar to the book of Proverbs.  Sometimes they are loosely held together through a poetic structure, other times they follow an organizing theme.  We hear in the first psalm, “Happy are those who do not follow the way of sinners . . . rather the law of the Lord is their joy.”  They offer us reassurance that those who follow God’s ways will be blessed.