Liturgy of the Word: The Responsorial Psalm

This next installment we will explain the Responsorial Psalm which follow the first reading. After hearing God’s word proclaimed in the first reading, we respond next, not with our own meager, human words, but with God’s own inspired words of praise and thanksgiving from the book of Psalms.

Our recitation or singing of the psalms helps to create an atmosphere of prayer conducive for meditation on the reading. Using the psalms in our worship of God is quite natural. The tradition of using psalms as a form of prayer goes back to the practices of private and public worship in the Temple. And in the third century, psalms were being recited at Mass with the cantors singing the psalms and the people giving a response.

In the book of Revelation, St. John envisions thousands of angels in heaven praising the Lord with all the creatures replying, “Amen.” These heavenly shouts of praise and affirmation express the awe-filled Joy of the angels and saints in the presence of God. Since we are in the presence of God today at Holy Mass, let us remember when we recite or sing the psalms that we are praising and thanking him for all that is good in our lives.