Day 339: Prayer of Praise (2639-2649)

• It’s Day 339!!

• PRAYER OF PRAISE

• Paragraph 2639 says, “Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the ‘one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.’”

• Prayers of thanksgiving is giving God thanks for what He has done or what He does

• Prayers of praise is giving God glory for who He is

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we do give you praise. We give you glory for who you are.  You are eternal God. You are the good God. You are the God who is love. You are the God who is justice, and you are mercy in one. And we give you thanks for the ways in which you have given us your justice and revealed to us your mercy, the ways in which you have called us to be your sons and daughters and made us so by the Holy Spirit. Receive our praise right now, receive our prayer of praise in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2639 says, “Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the ‘one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.’”

• Let praise go up first

• What is praise?

• We praise God for who He is

• So who is God?

• We can say, “Jesus, you are Lord. God, you are Father. God, you are one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

• Basically we are telling God who He is

• “God, you are the Lord of Lords. You are the King of kings. You are the Prince of peace. You are the great I Am.”

• “Lord Jesus, you are the Son of Man and Son of God. You are the Savior.”

• “Holy Spirit, you are the Sanctifier.”

• “Father, you are the Creator of all.”

• We are describing God’s attributes in so many ways

• Praise encompasses all other forms of prayer

• When we turn to the Lord in petition and intercession, we turn to the Lord with blessing Him and giving Him that glory

• Prayer of praise embraces all of that

• There is a kind of prayer that we do on a regular basis, maybe even every day

• This prayer encompasses and expresses every other form of prayer

• Paragraph 2643 says, “The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is ‘the pure offering’ of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of God’s name and, according to the traditions of East and West, it is the ‘sacrifice of praise.’”

• The Eucharist is the sacrifice of thanks too

• If we go back to the Old Covenant there were all sorts of sacrifices

• Sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving, intercession, petition, etc.

• There is one sacrifice that the rabbis would say 

• The rabbis said, “There is one kind of sacrifice that will exist in the age to come, in the kingdom to come when the Messiah has returned and made all things new.”

• Every other sacrifice would cease except for the TODAH offering aka the thanksgiving sacrifice

• In the New Covenant, there is no more sacrifice of the Old Covenant

• There is no place in the world you go where there is Jewish sacrifice

• There is only one sacrifice that remains

• THE EUCHARIST

• It is the sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise

• We get to participate in the Eucharist every day if we want

• Paragraph 2642 says, “The Revelation of ‘what must soon take place,’ the Apocalypse, is borne along by the songs of the heavenly liturgy but also by the intercession of the ‘witnesses’ (martyrs). The prophets and the saints, all those who were slain on earth for their witness to Jesus, the vast throng of those who, having come through the great tribulation, have gone before us into the Kingdom, all sing the praise and glory of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb. In communion with them, the Church on earth also sings these songs with faith in the midst of trial. By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against all hope and gives thanks to the ‘Father of lights,’ from whom ‘every perfect gift’ comes down. Thus faith is pure praise.”

• No matter the season you are going through, every time you pray you are joining your heart, your faith, your life, to the lives of the saints who have gone before us

• Faith is pure praise

• If you ever want to strengthen your faith, one way is to simply give God praise for who He is and thanks for what He does

• Give yourself a pause of silence for 30 to 60 seconds and just pray your prayer of praise

• This is about transformation

• Everything in this Pillar is not just knowing more about prayer, but exercising prayer

• It is about deepening that relationship with God

• Offer God your praise and glorify Him for who He is once you hit STOP today

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…