Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Annual Parish Retreat -Day 2

Tonight's session is entitled "SEASONS OF FAITH" -Praying the Psalms.
Sr. Susan began with Psalm 121 Song of Ascents - explaining some of the terms used, Ascents - going up to the mountains/hills (the temple in Jerusalem on the hill). The word Help/Helper appears 6 times from verse 3-8. We then listened to the Psalm as a prayer as the video was shown.
We then proceeded to learn more about the 1st Movement - 'Orientation' - a contented sense of well being that makes one feel grateful to God. We then looked at Psalm 8 and 19 which were Psalms of Orientation- A 2nd Video slide presentation entitled "Creation Calls" was shown, followed by 10 minutes of meditation and writing our own Psalms of 'Faith' - I Believe.... and a Psalm/prayer of Thanksgiving.
In summary, some of the following points were observed:concerning the psalms of orientation (Ps 1, Ps 8, Ps 19 and Ps 121)

  • They are created and communicated by a community of faithful people.
  • Faith is important and satisfying
  • These psalms give witness to God who is trustworthy and reliable
  • Life is not troubled
  • The psalms are expressions of creation faith , a well-ordered world, reliable, lifegiving - God has ordained it and holds it so.
  • They are expressions of trust and gratitude to God for making it so.
  • Creation is not a theory in the Bible - we can observe creation every moment in our lives

  • Day 2 Session on Praying the Psalms

    The First Movement - Orientation

    Writing our own psalms

    Fr. Robert closes the session with a final prayer and blessing

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