Tag: Psalm 149

God Delights in Us!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, joy, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality4 Comments

Memorial of Padre Pio 

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149, a call to praise God in festive celebration because God will enjoy that!

Praying with that thought today, I ask myself:

Is my God a happy God?

Our psalm says “Yes!” – a Lover of song, joy, praise, dance, timbrel and harp!

Hallelujah!
Sing to the Lord a new song; 
sing the praises of God in the company of the faithful. 
Let Israel rejoice in their maker;
let the children of Zion be joyful in their sovereign. 
Let them praise the name of the Lord in the dance;
let them sing praise to God with timbrel and harp. 
For the Lord takes pleasure in this people.

Psalm 149:1-4

Only a happy God could have imagined the beautiful gift of Creation we have been given. Stop today to listen, watch, and feel that happiness in sun, rain, wood scent, birdsong, cat purr, baby breath, child play, elder eyes, or the thousand other ways God will try to touch your soul today.

( Praying for the safety of all our friends in Australia with the earthquakes and for people of the Canary Islands.❤️🙏)

Poetry: The Creation of Birds – Renee Yann, RSM

O, the wonderful mood that seized You,
God, as you created birds;
you dancing there, twirling in light,
flinging your crystal arms to infinite music,
flicking your hands like magic fountains,
feathers and colors splashing out from your fingertips,
chattering, rainbowed profusions
of your Boundless Life.

Your inexhaustible, joy-filled soul laughing out
the soaring beings into the still universe,
peals of you infusing them each
to their measure with notes of your inner song.
O, I see your Holy Eyes flash color to them
as they fly, strobing their feathers
with shards of your prismed white light.

This morning, seeing only one, 
free and jubilant in a thin sycamore,
I consume it as part of your Delightful Essence,
this day’s communion with you, 
grey and orange wafer filling me 
with mysteries of the primal dance 
from which we both were born.

Music: You Delight in Me – Life Center Worship

Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, ordinary time, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality, ThanksgivingLeave a comment

Monday, August 23, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149, the beautiful praise song which is part of the rousing conclusion of this Book:

Let them praise God’s name in the festive dance,
    let them sing praise to God with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves this people,
    and adorns the lowly with victory.

Psalm 149: 3-4
Let them praise God’s Name in festive dance,
for the Lord takes delight in them.
Psalm 149: 3-4

Walter Brueggemann describes these final psalms here:

One of the richest deposits of such hymns of praise is at the conclusion of the Psalter in Psalms 146–150, in which the particulars of psalmic praise wanes, and the exuberance of praise becomes more vigorous and bold. In Psalm 148, the singers can imagine all creation, all creatures, including sea monsters and creeping things, united in praise of YHWH. By the culmination of the sequence in Psalm 150, there is a total lack of any specificity, and users of the psalm are invited to dissolve in a glad self-surrender that is to be enacted in the most lyrical way imaginable. Such praise is a recognition that the wonder and splendor of this God—known in the history of Israel and in the beauty of creation—pushes beyond our explanatory categories so that there can be only a liturgical, emotive rendering of all creatures before the creator.

Walter Brueggemann: From Whom No Secrets Are Hid

For me, these final psalms are like a resounding cymbal crash at the masterpiece’s end. It is a prayer simply to let these glorious lines sing and dance in our hearts:

Hallelujah!
Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing the praises of God in the beloved community. 
Let us rejoice in our maker;
let us be joyful in our sovereign God.
Let us praise the name of the Lord in the dance;
let us sing praise to God with timbrel and harp. 
For the Lord takes pleasure in this people
and adorns the poor with victory. 
Let the faithful rejoice in triumph;
let them be joyful even as they rest.

Psalm 149

No poem today. Instead two pieces of music to delight in Psalm 149

  1. Total Praise: One of my favorite hymns beautifully performed here in sign language.

2. Psalm 149 by Antonín Leopold Dvořák, original Czech. English version and sample of music below.

English

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Faith, Mercy, ordinary time, Poetry, Prayer, PsalmsLeave a comment

May 28, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149 exhorting us to praise God out loud. And we can do that. We’ve all been part of that kind of glorious praise with the help of our wonderful choirs, musicians, and praise dancers.

However, the psalm today is set between two intriguing readings that may cause us to think more deeply about our “praise”.

Sirach offers a cryptic description of who might be remembered as a godly person, ultimately saying it is the one whose virtues are unforgettable.

So the practice of virtue is presented as the most important act of praise.

Yet these also were godly persons
    whose virtues have not been forgotten;
Their wealth remains in their families,
    their heritage with their descendants;

Sirach 14: 10-11

In our Gospel, we meet what at first might appear as a moody, frustrated Jesus. Hungry one morning, he curses a figless fig tree. We might be inclined to focus on the poor zapped tree, but that would be to miss the point. 

The leafy yet fruitless tree is a symbol of a wordy “faith” without accompanying works. It describes people who, like the Pharisees in the Temple, shout praise without practicing charity and mercy.

Together, the readings help us see true praise in a clear light – as beautiful waving leaves on a tree full of sweet, loving fruitful actions.

Poetry: Judgement Day – R.S. Thomas

Yes, that’s how I was,
I know that face,
That bony figure
Without grace
Of flesh or limb;
In health happy,
Careless of the claim
Of the world’s sick
Or the world’s poor;
In pain craven –
Lord, breathe once more
On that sad mirror,
Let me be lost
In mist for ever
Rather than own
Such bleak reflections,
Let me go back
On my two knees
Slowly to undo
The knot of life
That was tied there.

Music: Good Fruit – Katy Bowser 

Have fun with this, my friends! 🤗

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith4 Comments

May 10, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149, next to the last psalm in the Psalter. I feel the Psalter’s compiler wanted to have a perfectly clear last few words: God really loves us!

“Delight” is such a vibrant word – to be lit up inside by tenderness and joy! Think of God, heart-warmed by us the way a sweet child delights her mother; the way a perfect rose enthralls its gardener.

For today’s prayer, we might choose to imitate the worshippers in our psalm, repeating God’s name in joy, allowing our spirits to dance in gratitude:

Let them praise God’s name in the festive dance,
    let them sing praise to God with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves this people,
    and adorns the lowly with love’s mantle.

Psalm 149: 3-4

Prose: Crazy About You – Max Lucado

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. 
If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it. 
God sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. 
Whenever you want to talk, God listens.
God can live anywhere in the universe, and chooses your heart. 
Face it, friend. 
God’s crazy about you.

Music: God Delights in Me – Sovereign Grace Music

Psalm 149: Let’s Dance Again!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Gospel, joy, Poetry, PsalmsLeave a comment

Saturday after Epiphany

January 9, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149.

Our psalm contains a brief line tucked at its center which foreshadows the entire message of the Gospel. 

Let them praise God’s name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves us,
and adorns the lowly with victory.

We will find a dancing, singing joy when we give ourselves to these truths:

  • God loves us irrevocably
  • We can fully receive this great love to the degree that we become like Christ whose image we find among the poor, lowly, and suffering.

Poetry: Dance from Rumi

Come to me, and I shall dance with you
In the temples, on the beaches, through the crowded streets
Be you man or woman, plant or animal, slave or free
I shall show you the brilliant crystal fires, shining within
I shall show you the beauty deep within your soul
I shall show the path beyond Heaven.
Only dance, and your illusions will blow in the wind
Dance, and make joyous the love around you
Dance, and your veils which hide the Light
Shall swirl in a heap at your feet.

Music: Psalm 149 – Antonín Dvořák

Psalm 149: Let’s Dance!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Faith, joy, ordinary time, PoetryLeave a comment

Thursday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

November 19, 2020

Today’s readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149 which calls the community to sing and dance because God has delivered them.

This happy, celebratory summons is set, contrastingly, between two readings that mention weeping.

Then I saw a mighty angel who proclaimed in a loud voice,
“Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”
But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth
was able to open the scroll or to examine it.
I shed many tears because no one was found worthy
to open the scroll or to examine it.

Revelation 5:2-4

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem,
he saw the city and wept over it, saying,
“If this day you only knew what makes for peace–
but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Luke 19; 41-42

The readings leave us with a sense that there is a secret to eternal life – a secret to which only grace can open our eyes and hearts.

John writes that “the Lion of Judah” has the key:

One of the elders said to me, “Do not weep.
The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed,
enabling him to open the scroll with its seven seals.”

Revelation 5:5-6

Jesus, Uncreated Grace, is the Lion of Judah. He has incarnated the sacred key in his Life, Death, and Resurrection. For those who receive him and share his life, the door is opened, the scroll unrolled.

So what is the path to such union with Jesus? 

Our psalm contains a brief line tucked at its center which foreshadows the entire message of the Gospel. 

Let them praise God’s name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves us,
and adorns the lowly with victory.

We will find a dancing, singing joy when we give ourselves to these truths:

  • God loves us irrevocably
  • We can fully receive this great love to the degree that we become like Christ whose image we find among the poor, lowly, and suffering.

Poetry: Dance from Rumi

Come to me, and I shall dance with you
In the temples, on the beaches, through the crowded streets
Be you man or woman, plant or animal, slave or free
I shall show you the brilliant crystal fires, shining within
I shall show you the beauty deep within your soul
I shall show the path beyond Heaven.
Only dance, and your illusions will blow in the wind
Dance, and make joyous the love around you
Dance, and your veils which hide the Light
Shall swirl in a heap at your feet.

Music:  Psalm 149 – Antonín Dvořák