someone gave my mom, who is a Catholic and is in a 'transitional care' facility due to hip-replacement surgery, a book of Psalms. it's small and the print is small, it's like the old missals from when I was young. books like that bring back a lot, not just memories but whole visitations of the sacred as I knew it then. I went to the altar in a Spanish mission that was built in 1772, and I prayed with all my heart to the God I was told would hear me best in that place. so a lot comes with the book. she handed it to me not so much to encourage me to read it as to remove it from her bedside table. I took it and opened it to this:
9. Happy he who shall seize and dash your little ones against the rock!which got my attention you bet. so I looked at the verse just above and saw this:
8. O daughter of Babylon, destructive one, happy he who repays you the evils you have brough upon us!so then of course I looked below the original 'random' passage and found this:
Prayers of Thanksgiving
Psalm 137
I will give thee thanks,O Lord. with my whole heart, for thou hast heard the words of my mouth:it goes on in that vein for some time.
In the presence of the angels I will sing
2.praises to thee, I will prostrate myself toward thy holy temple,
And I will praise thy name because of thy kindness and faithfulness...
I would add only that this is not a 'Christian' document, it is a 'Jewish' document, 'inherited' by Christians.
