5th Sunday of Easter
R. I will praise you Lord, in the assembly of your people.
Written by Br. John-Marmion
Praise. In our familiarity with this word, we might have lost a sense of its deeper meaning. If were to review this word in Psalm 22:26, we would find the Hebrew word תְּהִלָּה (tehillah). This word might be defined as “singing hallels.” What are hallels, and why do we sing them? Hallels are clamorous and celebratory songs in worship of God (cf 1 Chr 16:4); as a matter of fact, Psalms 113-118 are designated as the Hallel Psalms, and it suggested that these were sung at the conclusion of the Lord’s Last Supper (cf Mt 26:30; Mk 14:26). Hallels become tehillah when the song is new (cf. Ps 40: 4; Eph 5:19) and spontaneous (not previously written or sung) that flows out from a heart deeply intoxicated by the Spirit (cf Acts 2:1-15). With these in mind, we can now understand our Psalm Refrain slightly differently: “I will tehilla-praise you Lord,” or “I will sing spontaneously of you, Lord, with lots of gusto!” And then you might suddenly come to your senses and put on your prudent-thinking cap on: “But in the assembly of the people? I can’t do that! What are they going to think? I don’t want to look foolish at Church; I don’t want to be disruptive or cause a scene, so I’ll just whisper-sing this quaint melody from my pew in the back of the church.” What does an understanding of tehillah-praise mean for me?
CCC 2639-2643 has some great kernels of wisdom worth reflecting on, but let me just cite a small portion from there:
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.
Praise is an important and beautiful aspect of our faith. This praise takes on musical shape in our Eucharistic liturgy. Today’s Psalm refrain doesn’t describe praise like a funeral dirge! It is a lively and energetic form of praise. Tehilla is uniquely special not only because God is enthroned in praise (cf Ps 22:3 NIV), but “He inhabits the praises of Israel” in this way. (cf Ps 22:3 KJV). Meaning, God becomes present in tehilla-praise in a unique way.
There have been a few times in my life when I have heard tehilla-praise and it sounds like what I imagine heavenly worship will sound like. It wasn’t the sound of a well-trained choir singing Palestrina or Tallis, Lauridsen or Biebl in perfect harmony. It initially sounded like cacophony because everyone was singing their own spontaneous song; but the more I listened, the more I heard a mystical quality of individual tonal melodies using non-conceptual language creating harmonic resonances with ethereal dynamics that can only be described as the song of angels.
What if this was our experience with music when we attended mass? Or maybe, what is our experience at mass was more of a ‘full-bodied mystical experience,’ where we could get a mere glimpse into the heavenly worship that awaits us? Maybe it could very well be that the beauty of the intensity of worship like this can indeed change the world!
Br. John-Marmion is a monk with Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage and Monastery in Berryville, AR. He released his first EP, Five Loaves, in 2020 and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Care and Counseling. Learn more about his community here and here.
Pray with today’s psalm.