August 20, 2013 – Catechism 2581 – 2589

The psalms are such an important part of prayer, and yet I find I struggle with them.  They have never been a part of my prayer life.  If you wonder how important the Psalms are to Catholic prayer life, you have to go no further than the Liturgy of the Hours.  These are the daily prayers required to be done by all ordained ministers in the Church.  It is a daily set of prays, from an intro, morning, day, evening and night sets, plus others you can do and one with readings.  These liturgies are constructed mainly of psalms and responses.  I have tried to get into the habit of doing them hoping it would give me a better feel for praying with the psalms, but I have not kept it up for long.  I do, most the time, go to the readings and non-scripture readings to reflect on them, but I have avoided the psalms as it is too time consuming.  Since, as I am going through this prayer section I am trying to improve this area, maybe I will stop skipping over the psalms and make an effort to do more of the liturgies during the day.