Start Your Day With 95

July 13:  Today is the Memorial of Saint Benedict.

From today's Prayer for the Morning in Magnificat:

"Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart." (Rule of Saint Benedict)

Saint Benedict, the father of Western monasticism, built his own life of prayer and praise on the Word of God. He directed that all those who would follow in his footsteps, whether as monks or, in more recent times, as lay oblates, begin their daily prayer with Psalm 95 so that they might be reminded to keep open the "ear of the heart."

Psalm 95:

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the rock who saves us.
Let us come before him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.

A mighty God is the Lord,
a great king above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his.
To him belongs the sea, for he made it
and the dry land shaped by his hands.

Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice!
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work."