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The Direction of Intention

The Direction of Intention. My God, give me the grace to perform this action with you and through love for you. In advance, I offer to you all the good that I will do and accept all the difficulty I may meet therein. St. Ann , Pray for us. St. Francis de Sales, Pray for us. Overview.

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The Direction of Intention

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  1. The Direction of Intention My God, give me the grace to perform this action with youand through love for you.In advance, I offer to you all the good that I will do and acceptall the difficulty I may meet therein.St. Ann, Pray for us. St. Francis de Sales, Pray for us.

  2. Overview • June 5: Introduction to the Book of Psalms • June 12: Psalms of Praise • June 19: Psalms of Lamentation • June 26: No Session • July 3: No Session • July 10: Psalms of Thanksgiving • July 17: The Theology of the Psalms • July 24: Learning to Pray the Psalms – • Liturgy of the Hours

  3. Lament: To express grief for or about; mourn: To regret deeply; deplore To grieve audibly; wail. To express sorrow or regret.

  4. Psalms of Lamentation – LamentAn Overview • The function of a Lament or Psalm of Petitionary Praise • To provide a structure for crisis, hurt, grief, or despair • To move a worshipper from hurt to joy, from darkness to light, from desperation to hope. • This movement from hurt to joy is first and foremost a spiritual movement • It may take the form of psychological or liturgical experience • It is not necessarily a physical deliverance from the crisis, although that is often anticipated. • The movement "out of the depths"

  5. Psalm 13

  6. Psalms of Lament • General format of a Psalm of Lament • An address to God; a complaint; a request • Usually an expression of trust. • Kinds of complaints include:  • Concerns with the psalmists own thoughts and actions • Concerns with the actions of an enemy or prevailing attitude • Concerns with God's action or inaction

  7. Types of Psalm of Lament • Types of laments: • Corporate Lament • Expressing deep sorrow for the travails of a nation and as a group asking for God's blessing or intervention. • Commonly found in printed form following major natural disasters, plague, or oppression by surrounding nations. • Psalm 58

  8. Types of Psalm of Lament • Types of laments: • Personal Lament • Spoken in the first person • Cries of despair, anger, protest and doubt directed toward God • Not something the biblical writers or God himself were ashamed to put into Holy Scripture. • Psalm 77

  9. Types of Psalm of Lament • Types of Laments: • Lament of Repentance • Express sorrow for personal sin • Repentance is where we start our relationship with God (message of John the Baptist and Jesus) • 7 Penitential Psalms - 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143 • The fifty-first Psalm (Miserere) was recited at the close of daily morning service in the primitive Church. • Psalm 51

  10. Types of Psalm of Lament • Types of Laments: • Lament of Imprecation • An appeal to some supernatural power to inflict evil on someone or some group • If you really don't like someone you can shout out an imprecation at them. • More than simply the use of bad language (although that can be involved, too) • An imprecation is a damning curse wishing them nothing but ill. • Psalms of Imprecation: 35,69, 83, 88, 109, 137, 140 • Psalm 137 • Psalm 140 • Selah (Hebrew: סֶלָה‎, also transliterated as selāh) is a word used 74 times in the Hebrew Bible that means GOD HAS SPOKEN.

  11. Psalms of Imprecation • What are we to make of curses? • There is constant tension in the Bible between love of people and hatred of evil. • Apathy about evil is worse thank ignorance of it. • So what must we do about evil? • We must uproot selfish vindictiveness (Gal.5:15, Ja.4:13-16) • We must love the enemies of God (Isa.48:9; 2Pet.3:9; Col.1:21; Rom.5:10) • We must hate & resist evil (1Cor.10:3-5 & Eph.6:12) but trust God to take care of any retribution • In none of the Psalms of Imprecation does the author hope to mete out retribution from his or her own hand.

  12. Understanding the Psalms of Lament • Suffering, pain, grief, loss, doubt, guilt, are part of the human experience • The psalmist does not reject or ignore suffering, but faces it in faith and trust • Recognize the role of anger in dealing with suffering. • It is in these issues before God that true healing may begin. • Psalms of Lament are not meant to be politically correct but to express to God how life really is. • Placing pain, sorrow, grief and anger before God is the only place these things will ever make sense. • It is only God who can transform them. (see: The Cross)

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