Pauca Verba is Latin for A Few Words.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

I lift up my eyes...


Graham Owen photographer ~ California Hills in Spring

There are 150 psalms (poem-prayers of ancient Israel) in the Old Testament. They are a wonderful way to jump-start prayer. Jesus would have known the psalms by heart. A psalm is always prayed at Mass between the first reading and the Gospel. Father Ronald Knox has given us a very wonderful translation of the entire Bible in which the Psalms are beautiful, fresh and alive. Here is Psalm 120. We might pray this psalm these days of danger, insecurity and discouragement. 

I lift up my eyes to the hills to find deliverance;
from the Lord deliverance comes to me,
the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Never will he who guards thee allow thy foot to stumble;
never fall asleep at his post!
Such a guardian has Israel,
one who is never weary, never sleeps;
it is the Lord that guards thee,
the Lord that stands at thy right hand to give thee shelter.
The sun's rays by day, the moon's by night
shall have no power to hurt thee.
The Lord will guard thee from all evil;
the Lord will protect thee in danger;
the Lord will protect thy journeying and thy homecoming,
henceforth and forever.



Msgr. Ronald Knox ~ 1888 - 1957