A project of the Spirituality Committee of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
“A legend in the Talmud describes how, when he was king, David would wake up at midnight to play his harp. There is no mention of this in the Bible, but the legend crops up in various early Jewish sources. When they heard David play, all the sages in his kingdom would arise and gather together to study God’s word. It is this secret chord that David played which “pleased the Lord’ in the opening stanza of Cohen’s Hallelujah…. The Hebrew word Hallelujah means praise God. It occurs only in the book of Psalms and indeed in only 15 of that book’s 150 odes. So, although. it is very familiar, cropping up over and over again in both Christian and Jewish liturgy, Hallelujah is, biblically speaking, quite an unusual word. It’s one of very few words in the Hebrew language made up of two words run together. Strictly we should translate it as one word: PraiseGod.”
from Harry Greedman Leonard Cohen The Mystical Roots of Genius London 2021 p.61
We offer the Sunday Responsorial Psalm as a focus for prayer and reflection during the week ahead
for yourself or to share with others. You could note your own thoughts as a possible personal journal.
Acknowledgements: Excerpts from The Psalms: A New Translation © 1963 The Grail (England) published by HarperCollins.
Sunday 7 April 2024 Second Sunday of Easter
Sunday 14 April 2024 Third Sunday of Easter
