The Direction of IntentionMy 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 accept

all the difficulty I may meet therein.

St. Ann, Pray for us.St. Francis de Sales, Pray for us.

OverviewJune 5: Introduction to the Book of PsalmsJune 12: Psalms of PraiseJune 19: Psalms of Lamentation

June 26: No SessionJuly 3: No SessionJuly 10: Psalms of ThanksgivingJuly 17: The Theology of the PsalmsJuly 24: Learning to Pray the Psalms –

Liturgy of the Hours

Lament: • To express grief for or

about; mourn: • To regret deeply;

deplore• To grieve audibly; wail.• To express sorrow or

regret.

Psalms of Lamentation – LamentAn Overview

The function of a Lament or Psalm of Petitionary Praise To provide a structure for crisis, hurt, grief, or

despairTo 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 movementIt may take the form of psychological or liturgical

experienceIt is not necessarily a physical deliverance from the

crisis, although that is often anticipated. The movement "out of the depths"

Psalm 13

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

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

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

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

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: ֶסלָה, also transliterated as selāh) is a word used 74 times in the Hebrew Bible that means GOD HAS SPOKEN.

Psalms of ImprecationWhat 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.

Understanding the Psalms of Lament

Suffering, pain, grief, loss, doubt, guilt, are part of the human experienceThe psalmist does not reject or ignore suffering, but

faces it in faith and trustRecognize 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)