Benedictine Oblates Reflect on the Rule

There is no shortage of ways to be in dialogue with God. Prayers like “please,” and “thank you,” simple as they are, count. Being present to the Divine while taking a walk or meditating counts. And reading Scripture – especially the Psalms – counts. In fact, the Psalms provide such a rich source of spiritual nourishment that those who know them often turn to them daily. Here are the thoughts of some Oblates who pray them regularly.

Ric Smith: I pray Lauds almost every morning according to the Benedictine pattern. As I walk home for lunch every day, I sing Psalm 134. The Psalms run the gamut of human emotional communication with God, so there’s always a beginning there for whatever it is I need to say to God. Having those emotions all documented and available also gives me access to pray for and with others what I don’t necessarily feel myself.

Marion Lardner: I discovered the Psalms with Sr. Joan Chittister’s help in “The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year.” She provides one psalm a month with a daily reflection which tends to head straight to the heart. For example, Sr. Joan chose Psalm 30 for the month of March: You changed my mourning into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. She says joy and sorrow come from the same place, and that only what we love can really make us suffer: “It’s there in that place where loss and lesson wait.” Getting acquainted with the Psalms this way has become a daily look-forward-to-it time in my life.

Madeleine Callahan: One of the most important contemporary ways of doing sacred reading of the Psalms is to hold the Psalm in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand. This Lent I decided to read the Psalms of Lauds while imagining that I was a Christian in Iraq. I know those ancient laments are amazingly true in our days! I believe people are choosing to say that God’s compassion and “hesed” (the Hebrew word for "lovingkindness") overcome all evil. The Psalms are very current and important for us to study and to pray in a serious manner.

Deacon Tim Granet: Actually being songs themselves, the Psalms often lift my heart and soul in songful prayer. Even the penitential Psalms are comforting in their humble crying out to a loving and merciful God. The fact the Jesus himself prayed the Psalms means something to me as well. Praying the Psalms ties me to generations of faith-filled people standing humbly before our God. There is power in that kind of prayer, I think. I can’t imagine my prayer life without the Psalms.

Amy Carr: The Psalms help me walk with the wildness of the many-sided human heart - my own, and that of all others. There are different degrees and textures to prayer with a psalm on any given day. One good kind of prayer with a psalm occurs when a line or image from the psalm intersects with a raw honest prayer arising in oneself. But less earnest-feeling days with a psalm can simply involve the habit of turning one’s attention in another direction and letting oneself be shaped by something from the psalm. This gesture can trigger a space in which to place or bear everything else going on within or without one at that moment.

Pray the Psalms with the Benedictine Sisters of St. Mary Monastery