Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD...

The verses from today's responsorial psalm is one well known -- and well loved by us here at the monastery.  We hear these words each day for the Invitatory Psalm at Vigils.  While the antiphon changes according to liturgical season or feast, the words of the psalm are part of our daily prayer and help form and shape the beginning of our day.

Let us pray these words of Psalm 95 together, and listen with the ear of our heart to hear God's voice speaking to us today and let our hearts be turned to the Lord.

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 hands 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.

Oh, that today you would listen to his voice!

Harden not your hearts as at Meribah;

as on the day at Massah in the desert;

when your fathers put me to the test;

when they tried me, though they saw my work.

 For forty years I was wearied of these people,

and I said:  “Their hearts are astray,

these people do not know my ways.”

Then I took an oath in my anger:

“Never shall they enter my rest.”