This week we continue our series on the 5 basic forms of Catholic prayer with our penultimate form of prayer, at least as we looked upon them in alphabetical order, prayers of praise.

When we engage in prayers of praise we are praising God for who & what He is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph #2639 says that praise, "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.”

One of the most familiar forms of prayers of praise to us is probably the Psalms. Not all of the Psalms are Psalms of praise, some are Psalms of lament, or intercession, or petition, or repentance, but many of the Psalms (for example checkout Psalm 8 or Psalm 145), were composed as a way & means of praising God for the great things that He has done & the ways that He has worked.

What other forms of prayers of praise might we be familiar with? Certainly there are many hymns, both traditional & contemporary, of praise. At the end of Eucharistic Adoration, one of the prayers that can be prayed is a prayed called the “Divine Praises” (if you’ve never heard of it, check it out). We could also check out Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55, Mary’s great prayer of praise for all that God has done. We can echo any of these prayers of praise in our own life & our own circumstances. We can also echo our own prayers of praise, simply taking the time when we pray to celebrate the greatness & the goodness of our God. Prayers of praise provide us with a wonderful opportunity to spend time realizing & centering ourselves on who God is before we start rattling off our list of needs & desires. God wants us to bring those to Him, most certainly, but we also need to spend time praising God as well.

Have a blessed week & next week we’ll finish off our series on the 5 forms of Catholic prayer as we look at prayers of thanksgiving