Prayer, our human emotions and the importance of the Psalms for prayer and intimacy with God

Recently I have been getting my directees to read one psalm each day, to meditate on it and use it for their mental prayer. This is because the psalms beautifully teach us how to fully pray with all our emotions and to have an intimate boldness with God in prayer that we often forget He wants with us. This is why Jesus himself gives us the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1 - 8, and we see his own intimacy with the Father in prayer in Luke 22:39 - 46 & John 17:1 - 25. 

My directee emailed me to share some new insights on prayer and this was my response to him.

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That is wonderful to hear! Praise God!

Yes that sounds like the typological/allegorical interpretation - this is how you look at the symbolism in the psalms or any part of scripture, and you look for the deeper spiritual/mystical/symbolic meaning. Often these symbolic meanings you will begin to discover recur throughout all of scripture. These themes, imaghes and particular words/terms then foreshadow or are pointers towards their fulfilment in the person and life of Jesus the Messiah, this is what is meant by typology. (CCC# 115-119).

For example... if we look at Psalm 22. The beginning of this Psalm is what Jesus is praying on the cross when he says "My God My god, why have you forsaken me?"  (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). But he is praying it in Aramiac and so the people misunderstood him and thought he was calling for Elijah to help him. This is because in Aramaic he prayed "Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani". So in Hebrew and Aramaic, the name Elijah sounds like "Eloi-ih-yah". This is because the name Elijah (Eliyahu) literally means "Yahweh is God" (El is the generic semitic term for deity/god, this is why in Arabic God is Allah, El and Al are the same word but slightly different due to dialect difference between Hebrew and Arabic, but they have a common origin as a Semitic language)

Elijah fought as a Prophet to restore Israel back to true worship to Yahweh and to stop idolatry to Baal, so his name literally also shows his purpose/mission/vocation and also his identity as a person (1 Kings 18:21, 2 Chronicles 21:12-15, Malachi 4:1-6, Sirach 48:1-10). This is a common theme in scripture, and is why Simon's name is changed to Peter by Jesus, he establishes him and calls him the ":Rock" (Matthew 16:8) who will strengthen the faith of his brethren (John 22:32) and feed the sheep as entrusted to him by our Good Shepherd himself (John 21:15-17). This is the basis for the popes as successors of St Peter and the Petrine ministry in the Catholic Church. (CCC# 881- 883, 891, 895-896, 936-937)

This is why we have salvation in the name of Jesus. Because Jesus is a slightly different version of the name Joshua, this name literally means "Yahweh saves" or "Yahweh is salvation" - this is why in the Gospel of Matthew the Archangel Gabriel says "you will call him Jesus because he shall save his people from his sins" (Matthew 1:21). when you start to understand these things it opens up your eyes spiritually and it is like and explosion in your brain and you go "WOW!! why has no one ever told me this before?"  Then you sit then in awe and amazement - and that is what contemplation is! (CCC# 2709, 2712, 2715, 2717). Just sitting silently in awe, wonder and amazement of God and the awesomeness of the Holy Trinity that made us, knows us, and loves us. So we sit in silence in that love, just like a child held in the hands of their mother or father and we learn to feel peace beyond all understanding.(Philippians 4:6-9, Romans 15:13, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Coloassians 3:12-16, Psalm 46:10)

Going back to Psalm 22 that Jesus prayed on the cross, so often people tend to only focus on the feeling of abandonment that Jesus experienced on the cross. While this is true in one sense, and especially the surface reading of the text. But when you understand that it is Psalm 22 that he is praying and not words of despair, then you realise that the Psalm ends as a song of praise and victory!! (Psalm 22:19, Psalm 22:19, Psalm 22:24-25). Thus the whole of Psalm 22 now takes on Messianic prophetic meaning, we see it is fulfilled in the New Testament and recorded in the Gospel as evidence for our faith and testimony/witness according to the Spirit, water and the blood of Jesus in his crucifixion (1 John 5:5 - 12, 1 John 19:31 - 35).

So Jesus was still teaching us while on the cross!! He shows us and demonstraytes that even in the worst moments of our life that literally kill us or feel like they are, we can still praise God and trust in his promises and know that he is victorious. Amen Amen! 

When we declare the praises of the Lord before others, He is our strength and we know He listens to us - He will grant us justice for He himself is Just, and promises us eternal life if we are faithful to Him.

Psalm 22: 19 - 28 

19 But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20 Deliver me from the sword,
    my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
    save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
    Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or scorned
    the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
    but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
    before those who fear you[f] I will fulfill my vows.
26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek the Lord will praise him—
    may your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
28 for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

So this is what I hope that you slowly start to understand, enter into, and slowly the Holy Spirit will guide you and take you deeper in your prayer with the psalms and meditation. Plus the psalms teach us how to pray fully and integrate our emotions into prayer (CCC#1767 - 1770) having frank, bold, intimate and even argumentative prayer with God (CCC#2587-2589)!! This boldness in prayer is what I call the "rights" we have with God as his children and citizen's as the Kingdom of God. The same way that in America people always talk about their constitutional rights and uphold them even while getting arrested by the police and will state their rights and argue whilst being put in handcuffs! So the same with us as Catholics, we have formal prayer, liturgy, devotions, mental prayer, praise, singing, spiritual reading - but we also need to pray WITH our emotions, just like David does in the Psalms,(CCC# 2590 -2597) When we are happy or sad or angry or scared or frustrated we need to use these emotions and pray to God in those moments and talk to him, vent to him, complain to him. We need to share these emotions with God and have total honesty and a type of "rawness" with him in prayer - so that like Jacob, we wrestle with God and say "I will not let you go until you bless me" (Genesis 32:22-31). Jacob was then given the new name of Israel which means "he that wrestles/fights with God" or another interpretation is that "he who sees God" - so the Hebraic people descended from Jacob/Israel became known as the ancient kingdom nation of Israel, and now the Catholic Church is the New Israel - the People of God!! (CCC# 781- 782, Lumen Gentium #9, Galatians 6:16, cf St Justin Martyr in his "Dialogue with Trypho" Chapter 11)

 

I am not sure if you had a chance to watch my video of the talk I gave on "Marian Mysticism according to St Titus Brandmsa" but if you haven't had the chance, try to listen to it when you can. Because I discuss his teachings on the importance of our personality and our humanity that should not be separated from prayer and mysticism, Instead the more human we become and fully accept ourselves with our weaknesses and vices (lust, anger, pride, sloth, jealousy etc) - the more that we honestly accept these thorns of the flesh in prayer, humility and trust in Divine Providence (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Romans 8:28), using them in the moments of our weakness as reminders to pray and turn to God for strength and consolation (Matthew 26:41, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 2 Thessalonians 3:3), then our prayer becomes more authentic and real. God then can work in us more freely because in this acceptance of our weakness (this is true humility, and also the "self knowledge" that St Teresa of Avila talks about) then the more that grace can build upon our nature, and so the Holy Spirit will sanctify, vivify us, transform and transfigure us into the image of Christ and we can then gloriously shine with the light of Jesus (1 John 3:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:10, Colossians 3:9-10, Philippains 3:21) - just like the stained glass window analogy I mentioned to you in our last session. 

As stained glass windows make the light more beautiful as it shines through them in their different shapes, sizes, hues of colour - so too God has created us as unique individuals, and the more we become most fully ourselves and accept our individuality, then the light of Christ shines through us more powerfully, more beautifully and God somehow gets MORE glory through us as we become more alive in him and we become more full of the Holy Spirit as his Temples and as we are conformed to the Image of Christ. But we all remain unique and different even when we are united in the Holy Spirit and the Communion of Saints, as the Mystical Body of Christ in the Church (CCC# 954-959). We remain unique and different even in our unity, because the Holy Spirit brings unity, communion and harmony - not conformity or the destruction of our unique individual personhood (CCC# 356- 372, CCC# 733-741, CCC# 813-14, 845, CCC# 997-1004 CCC# 1934-1937) Just as St Therese of Liseux teaches that all the flowers in the garden of God are beautiful because they are unique and different, so the lily or the violet does not take away the beauty of the rose - instead they all have their own inherent beauty. 

So this is the basis for my analogy of the stained glass window - all the different shapes, colours, sizes, shades and hues together in harmony (while being separate and unique) make the light shining through them somehow more beautiful than if that same light was just shining through a clear pane of glass. Each piece of stained glass with its variations of size and colour, is united together as one singled bigger picture of stained glass and only when united together in order and harmony does each little piece make sense and have purpose - the Holy Spirit unites us and provides this unity in the bond of charity for us in the Church, so that together as the Mystical Body of Christ we all form together the New Jerusalem that we are the building blocks of (Ephesians 2:14 - 22, 1 Corinthians 3:9 - 17, 1 Peter 2:4 - 8, Revelation 21:1 - 4) . This is how we all should be in the Church, united in Christ and conformed to his image - whilst still remaining unique from eachother, different personality, different temperament etc.. and even when we struggle with our sins and weakness, as we humbly accept our nothingness before God, the more we understand our dependency and need for grace, and we ask for grace and we appreciate it. Then the more God can work in us, purifying our memory, intellect and will - and we can more confidently walk in the Freedom of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17, Galatians 5:16), living in the Spirit and as Children of the Father we can confidently trust in him that whatever happens he can and will use it for our sanctification and his glory if we confirm to his will (1 thessalonians 4:3) - because of all creation groans in expectation (Romans 8:18-27) for the revealing of us as the Sons/Children of God at the Final Coming of Jesus (Parousia) [CCC#668 - 682]

All of this is what I have been slowly trying to teach you and to help you understand. Even your anxiety and fears can be moments of prayer if you use them to turn towards God and talk to him. But most of the time we give into our fears and anxieties, we run away from God and we turn away from him (Luke 5:8, Psalm 139:7-10, Genesis 3:8-10), and the anxieties, fears and temptations overwhelm us and we fall into sin and choose sin, instead of choosing to turn to God in trust and love. This "self sabotage" behaviour that we all do, then weakens our wills (CCC#1863) and so we then repeat the vicious cycle of choosing sin instead of choosing to love God and to choose the way of virtue and holiness. But until we renew our mind (Romans 12:12) and allow the Holy Spirit to pray in us when we don't know how (Romans 8:26-27), then we will not experience prayer and intimacy with God as rest (Matthew 11:29, Psalm 23:2, Psalm 46:10), and so we will continue to fall for the lies of the devil (John 8:44, Matthew 4:1-11, Genesis 3:1-13, 2 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:13-14 ) and choose sin instead of loving God (love = to will the good of another). So we are our own worst enemy, this is the "sinful/corrupt nature" and the "old adam" that scripture talks about (Ephesians 4:22, Romans 6:6, Colossians 3:9, John 3:6-7, Romans 8:7-8, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15). The more we understand that even our faith is a gift from God, it is also a virtue and so needs to be cultivated and protected (CCC#1812 - 1829, #1841-1844). So little acts of faith throughout the day, strengthen our will and help us to choose God and virtue more and more, so when temptation comes through loneliness of anxiety - we are more able to resist it and rebuke it, because our faith, hope and love have been cultivated and so we can choose to worship with Lord (Joshua 12:15,Matthew 4:8-10, 1 Kings 18:21)  and choose life (Deuteronomy 30:15-20, John 2:17, Hebrews 3:14-19, Psalm 95:1-11) instead of sin and death. This is how we live our baptismal priesthood (CCC#1265 - 1274) and the threefold charism/Office (Christ had this fully, so we as Christians through baptism are shares of this in and with him) of priest, prophet and king (CCC# 787). The less we are bound in slavery to sin and vice (Romans 6:1-7, Romans 6:22, Romans 8:2, 1 Peter 1:13-21), the more freedom we have in the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17), we have fullness of life (John 10:10) and are able to already live in the Kingdom here (Luke 17:20) and now with peace and joy as a Child of God (Ephesians 5:1, Ephesians 8-17, Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 5:45, John 1:12, Romans 8:14-16, John 16:20-33, Romans 14:17). 

This is what it means to be a Catholic, this is what should excite us!! If we all lived like this, then the world would be changed and set alight with the glory of God and set on fire for Christ (Luke 12:49) as St Catherine of Siena says. This is the key to reform and renewal in the Church, it is what all the saints teach and taught, and is the beauty of holiness that brings others to Christ as Pope Benedict XVI used to teach - the reform of holiness.

Learning to Praise God is one of the most important things we can do in our spiritual life. It is the oxygen for our soul, as St Padre Pio defined prayer and St Gregory Nazianzus says something similar. We are told by St Paul to rejoice always in the Lord, as also to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16 - 18), so that our whole life will become a living sacrifice acceptable to him (Romans 12:1). This is a foundational truth that we need to remind ourselves of continuously. Jesus himself gave us this example on the cross (Hebrews 5:7 - 10) by praying Psalm 22. This Psalm that typologically foreshadows the suffering of an innocent man, is also a Christological prophecy - yet this prophecy is not only fulfilled by Jesus on the cross (Matthew 5:17, Matthew 26:56, Luke 24:26-27, John 17:12, Acts 2:23, Acts 3:18, Acts 28:23, Revelation 19:10), but the prophecy itself that was a written in the Book of Psalms in words, now becomes a life giving and living spoken word (2 Corinthians 3:6, John 6:63) by the Eternal Logos himself, the Word made Flesh! (John 1:1-5, John 1:14, Hebrews 1:1-3, Revelation 21:1-7)

This is why I often repeat to myself the words from Psalm 43:5 "why are you cast down my soul, why groan within me? Hope in God and trust him still, my saviour and my God" Then Psalm 22 it mentions the Lord setting a banquet for us in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 22:5) which is a prophecy of the Eucharist and the Mass, so then the beauty of the Eucharist is the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb (Revelation 19:1-9. Revelation 22:17) that we look forward to at the end of time, but we already participate in it here and now "in the presence of our enemies" (Psalm 25:5, CCC# 2836 -2837). 

To incorporate all of this within the context of spiritual warfare - we know from personal experience and scripture, that the devil is constantly trying to attack us and wear us down day and night (1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:10-11, Revelation 12:10). This is why the sacraments and prayer are so important, because the sacraments themselves are the power and the victory of the Resurrection being dispensed to us and applied in our life here in the battle of sin and spiritual warefare (John 19:20-23, Luke 24:13 - 35, CCC# 1066 - 1073, CCC# 1087 - 1089, CC# 1099 - 1107, CCC# 1116, CCC# 1127 - 1129, CCC# 1373, CCC# 1468, CCC# 2848 -2854). When we are strengthened by the sanctifying grace of Jesus the Bread of Life (John 6:23-39, John 6: 47-51) in the Eucharist which is the fruit of the Tree of Life which is the Cross (Revelation 2:7, Revelation 22:2, CCC# 2836-2837), we can praise God from the pit of hell or while being tortured like the 3 holy youths; Ananaias, Azarias, Misael in the fire (Daniel 3:16-25, CCC# 2639 - 2643) - and we can fulfill in our own lives the words of Psalm 118:14 -15 "The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. There are shouts of joy and victory in the tents of the just". This is how I was able to continue to pray and sing the Divine Office while in hospital in isolation, while feeling like at times I was going to die, and even when I had a mentally in patient bashing on my door threatening to kill me whilst I was still able to look him in the eye and say "I am not scared or afraid of you, you cannot intimidate me. Nothing will stop me from praising my God". 

So I pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to work in your mind, heart and soul (John 16:5 - 15, 1 Corinthians 2:10) - taking you deeper into the mystery of Love that is the Holy Trinity (CCC# 234). Revealing to you and allowing you to encounter the inner mysteries, and mutual outpouring of intimate love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Colossians 3:14, Romans 5:5), so that you may be inserted into the mystery of their inner dynamic of mutual relations, and share in their perichoresis as a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) through the union of your weak and fragile humanity with the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ who prepares a seat for us with him in heavenly places (John 14:3, Ephesians 2:4 - 7).  

This mysterious reality is precisely the reason why God the Holy Trinity created us, from the overflow of divine goodness (CCC# 1 - 3, CCC# 1718 - 1719, CCC# 1726, CCC# 2086). This is why we have also been predestined, redeemed, justified and saved by Our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29 - 38, CCC# 2014 - 2016), and are being sanctified for by the Holy Spirit who is our pledge of future glory (Ephesians 1:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).  We as Catholics seek to strive everyday to love God who loved us first (1 John 4:19), to respond to the invitation of eternal life through prayer, repentance and the sacraments as daily commit to abide in Christ (John 15:9 - 17), so that through him the Father and the Holy Spirit make their home in us, dwell in us and amongst us forever in glory (Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 37:27, Zechariah 8:8, 2 Corinthians 6:16 - 19, John 4:10 - 14,  John 7:37 - 39,  John 14:23, Romans 5:5, Romans 8:9 - 11, Galatians 4:6, Acts 2:22-39, Revelation 3:20 - 21, Revelation 21:3). 

Through the intercession of the Immaculata, may you like Our Lady always say "yes" to the invitation of God and open your heart to him in prayer so you can receive the outpouring of Love (Romans 5:5) you and I were created for.