I wonder why Psalm 95 is the usual invitatory psalm for the Divine Office, a.k.a the Liturgy of the Hours? (Unfamiliar with it? Lots of info) Since the invitatory is prayed every single day that you pray the Liturgy of the Hours, that’s a lot of Psalm 95 — I’m sure most people who do the DO have it memorized by now.
Here’s Psalm 95 as it appears in Christian Prayer (the one-volume breviary published by the Daughters of St. Paul, which uses the ICEL translation), with the antiphon for Holy Week inserted:
Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us. Let us approach him with praise and thanksgiving and sing joyful songs to the Lord.
(Antiphon) Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
The Lord is God, the mighty God, the great king over all the gods. He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the highest mountains as well. He made the sea; it belongs to him, the dry land, too, for it was formed by his hands.
Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
Come, then, let us bow down and worship, bending the knee before the Lord, our maker. For he is our God and we are his people, the flock he shepherds.
Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
Today, listen to the voice of the Lord: Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, Although they had seen all of my works.
Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
Forty years I endured that generation. I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not know my ways." So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest."
Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake indured temptation and suffering.
The main point of the invitatory, it seems, is "a call to praise God," since one has the option of substituting any of Psalms 100 (Cry out with joy to the Lod, all the earth), 67 (Let the peoples praise you, O God), or 24 (O gates, lift high your heads… Let him enter, the king of glory!).
Still, Ps. 95 is the default psalm. The whole psalm is used, not just the first part that is mainly praise — although in other parts of the DO, occasionally, parts of psalms are used. Why the stuff about enduring "that generation" and God swearing that they "shall not enter" into his rest? It’s a bizarre note to end on, if your point is praise. Unless one of the things you want to praise God for is, well, exclusion of the undeserving. Which may be all well and good — it has to be, if it’s an aspect of the divine — but isn’t generally something we tend to highlight.
The fact that we read Ps. 95 day in, day out, every day that we pray the office, though, may mean something. Maybe the bit about the forty years in the desert is a reminder not to get discouraged, even when picking up the breviary and starting the Invitatory is the same old same old same old thing. We endure God, and He endures us, too. Do not grow stubborn. Harden not your hearts.
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