our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God,’2’ testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the ‘one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist’.’22

2640 St Luke in his gospel often expresses wonder and praise at the marvels of Christ and in his Acts of the Apostles stresses them as actions of the Holy Spirit:
the community ofJerusalem, the invalid healed by Peter and John, the crowd that gives glory to God for that, and the pagans of Pisidia who ‘were glad and glorified the word of God’.’23 2641 ‘~Address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.”24 Like the inspired writers of the New Testament, the first Christian communities read the Book of Psalms 2587 ~i a new way, singing in it the mystery of Christ. In the newness of the Spirit, j they also composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard-of event tthat God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered ~death, his Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of the Father.’25 Dox ology, the praise of God, arises from this ‘marvellous work’ of the whole economy of salvation.126 z642 The Revelation of ‘what must soon take place’, the Apocalypse, is borne long by the songs of the heavenly liturgy’27 but also by the intercession of the 1137 ~witnesses’ (martyrs).128 The prophets and the saints, all those who were slain on krth for their witness to Jesus, the vast throng of those who, having come ~irough the great tribulation, have gone before us into the Kingdom, all sing be praise and glory of him who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb.’29 In ommunion with them, the Church on earth also sings these songs with faith in be midst of trial. By means of petition and intercession, faith hopes against all ~pe and gives thanks to the ‘Father of lights’, from whom ‘every perfect gift’ ~mes down.”° Thus faith is pure praise.

~43 The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is re pure offering’ of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of hod’s name’3’ and, according to the traditions of East and West, it