How the Psalms Can Spring to Life Each Day

Our Stability Project continues as we linger a bit more on St. Benedict's specific instructions to his monks on when and how to pray throughout the day. We've been looking for ways to apply these in order to enrich our time at work by looking at when and how we can pray at work. Our last two posts demonstrated  how grounding our daily labors with a regimen of prayer and work can foster stability in our workplace. The key to this, as we saw, is in fixing times for prayer in some form throughout the work day.

We emphasized flexibility, just as St. Benedict allows for some flexibility in the communal prayer of his monks. So we who work out in the world need not think it's not possible or incredibly difficult to fix such times. If we understand the importance and the benefit of so interweaving the spiritual and the practical - our ora et labora (prayer and work), we can do this. And if we do it, we've seen how a workplace grounded in stability founded on calmness and peace will bolster both our spiritual lives and  our business results. 

Let's dig a little deeper now into one way to accomplish the mission of our project: praying the Divine Office. As we saw last time, after years of trying different ways to incorporate regular prayer into my work day, I've only recently settled on praying the Office (the traditional Office) with some modest success. It's a work in progress, but it seems right for me. Again, each of us needs to do what matches both our particular work and our personality.

One of the main components of the Office is the Psalms. St. Benedict recommends praying all 150 Psalms within a week. He so schedules them spread out over the seven "hours" of Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, as well as the night communal prayer of Matins.

Whether prayed via the Divine Office, or in some other fashion, a regular regimen of praying and meditating on the Psalms can be a great source of both spiritual and practical strength and counsel. This application applies to our work as well. What happens if you pray the Psalms thoughtfully, even pausing to think about specific verses that particularly catch your attention? My experience has been that they - no exaggeration - leap off the page and penetrate your mind, your heart, your soul. The literally come alive.

Now, be assured that this may not be your experience at first. Before committing to praying the Psalms during the work day, I prayed them in the morning, one at a time - for many years. While an occasional connection or two might have had some impact, for the most part I was stuck in a kind of rote pattern of one Psalm per day. But that began to change.

One day "something" (Some One?) seemed to tell me to repeat each Psalm, rather than fly through each day after day. So that meant I prayed each Psalm over two days. Of course, I could have continued to fly through them as I had when I prayed one per day. But "something else" told me to not only repeat, but to do my best to slow down. Concentrate. Even linger from time to time. Since all this occurred during my morning routine. the time pressure of "getting through" all my scheduled prayers conflicted with this new "inspiration." What to do? The answer, when it finally "dawned" on me one morning was quite simple, really. I saw to it that the time for praying my Psalm had to be beefed up a bit. If that meant sacrificing a few minutes from my spiritual reading, or study of my Catholic Religion (both part of my morning routine), so be it. After all, it was only a matter of maybe a minute or two. 

As a result, the Psalms suddenly sprung to life. Yes, they're poems written by David and several other authors - inspired by the Holy Spirit, of course - over centuries. Yes, they apparently were originally written to be sung, a special means of praise. And we can certainly appreciate them in their historical context. But now, they were alive, here and now.

Why it took me so long to "stumble" on this solution is a whole other question. It involves personality, pursuing a set pattern for many years, a tendency to "jam" my spiritual exercises into an insufficient block of time, etc. But once I slowed down and adjusted my pattern, the Psalms indeed began to come alive. The wisdom they have carried for us over centuries slowly began to weave its way into my everyday life, and that includes my work. Next time we'll see a specific example of that.

For now, though, whether or not you pray the Divine Office, consider reading and meditating on the Psalms in some fashion. For me, re-reading each on successive days opened the door for the Psalms to take their place in my life. At least slow down when you do read them. Give them the chance they deserve to spring to life each day. That's why they were given to us by God and handed down to us over the centuries by our forbears. Rather than formal prayers we say by rote, they contain the seeds - and many times the specifics - for how we approach God in all our thoughts, words, and deeds throughout the day. As such, their connection with our work becomes not only sensible, but necessary. 

More next time...