'Acclaim Him All You Peoples!'
Posted by Daria Sockey in Faith on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 6:00 AM
Want to memorize some scripture, or have the kids do so? Start with Psalm 117. It’s the shortest one, so you can have the satisfaction of saying you know a psalm by heart within 60 seconds or so.
Oh Praise the Lord, all you Nations,
Acclaim him all you peoples!
Strong is his love for us,
He is faithful forever.
That’s it. Although you might add the Glory Be at the end when you pray it, since this is the standard refrain for every psalm prayed in the Divine Office. This psalm contains in a nutshell the essence of all the psalms and the highest purpose of prayer: to praise God for his infinite goodness and love.
As a kid I used to wonder why we were supposed to praise God so much. And why did praise seem to consist mainly of telling everyone else to praise him? Was the Lord eternally fishing for compliments? So egotistical that He needed us telling him how wonderful he was all the time? Would his feelings get hurt if we didn’t remember to commend him for goodness regularly?
None of that gelled with Jesus being “meek and humble of heart.” I set the question aside for a few years, leaving it as one of those mysteries, like the Trinity, that we would only completely “get” in heaven.
As the years went by, wise adults led me to wiser authors who had asked the same questions. I learned that God demands our praise not because He needs it, but because we need it.
It’s similar to the question of why we should dress up for Mass. It’s true that “God doesn’t care how I’m dressed” insofar as it does nothing for Him. But it does a lot for us to worship God not just with our minds and lips, but with our bodies and yes, with our clothing. So to the extent that dressing up is good for us, He does indeed care.
As we say at Mass “It is right to give him thanks and praise.”
When we recognize our place in the universe — as mere creatures, and fallen ones at that, who have been miraculously elevated to the status of sons and daughters — praise is the only proper and fitting response. In praising our creator and redeemer, we are conforming ourselves to Reality and taking our rightful places in the universe. To not do so is to live in unreality, to be less than fully human, or rather, to be spiritually disabled humans. So to praise God does far more for us — for our recovery from disability to health and eternal life — than it does for him.
As to praising God by telling others to praise him — this makes perfect sense if we think of what we naturally do whenever something delights us:
“Quick, kids, come out and see the sunset — isn’t it beautiful?”
or
“Look at my new shoes — aren’t they fabulous?”
or
“Hey, listen to this cool song and tell me what you think about it.”
When something strikes us as beautiful, good, or true, praise springs to our lips naturally, as does the desire to share that good thing and elicit similar praise from the people who matter to us. So, if we love God, and are properly bowled over by His goodness, we want to share that with others, and get them to agree with us. Makes all the sense in the world.
Isn’t God amazing? (say Amen!)
—Senior writer Daria Sockey is a mother of seven who writes from her home in Pennsylvania.
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