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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 liturgy27 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 hods name3 and,
according to the traditions of East and West, it
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