Prayers for Every Mood and Occasion The psalms have a universal appeal. The joyful shouts of praise and thanksgiving, the cries of distress, and the petitions and entreaties to God are all common responses arising out of the hearts of men and women everywhere. Who of us has not at some time or another echoed the groan “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1) or reveled with gratitude in the goodness of God, singing, “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart” (Psalm 138:1)? While joy, sorrow, praise, and lament are the most dominant themes pervading the entire Psalter, scholars recognize several major “types” of psalms and variously classify them according to content, structure, and life settings. The main classifications are wisdom psalms, hymns of praise, individual and collective laments, thanksgiving hymns, and royal and messianic psalms. Within these broad categories, several specific types are identifiable, among them penitential psalms, creation hymns, psalms recounting Israel’s history, victory songs, and a royal wedding psalm. In some psalms, classifications or distinctions may overlap, blur, or run together. Many of the psalms were probably composed as public liturgical prayers to be used in the Temple services in Jerusalem. Sometime after the fifth century b.c., the Jewish community also began to worship in local synagogues. The liturgy of the synagogues was a liturgy of the word that included readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the singing of psalms. When Christian communities began to form, they imitated the worship of their Jewish brothers and sisters. Despite their public use, most of the psalms contain a very personal note, including strong emotions such as joy or anguish. Some may have begun as the personal private prayers of an individual and were later adapted for congregational use. As Pope Benedict XVI noted in a catechesis on the psalms, the whole complexity of human life is distilled in the complexity of the different literary forms of the various Psalms: hymns, Introduction | page 13
the_psalms_text.indd 13
11/14/12 2:50 PM