The Psalms are a collection of hymns written and chose n for worship in the Second Temple. They contain "notations" on how to chant them, but that information is lost to us. They actually comprise five songbooks, in emulation of the five books of the Torah. Generally, they transition from laments into praise.
We know that the Babylonians had a new year's festival in autumn, when they symbolically renewed the enthronement of their deity, proclaimed his dominion anew, and renewed their covenant with him. This is the context of Psalm 46, which incorporated the same new year's time-frame and the elements celebrating God. Psalm 46 is the quintessential such enthronement psalm, in which we see that God resides in the Temple and safeguards his holy city, and that waters flow to purify and nourish it into a Second Eden.
In the beginning, God subdued all the disorderly primal forces of the universe that were making our human life impossible. Thus, there was creation victory, and Zion is where it was remembered and proclaimed. Unruly forces raged outside the Temple but those holy buildings made a visible statement to God's Chosen People that God is orderly and powerful over all that is chaotic and anti-human.
Indeed, God remains our "refuge and strength" and in Lent we have all that we need to renew our commitment to service and to take better care of ourselves to be strong witnesses for Christ.
[Our Saint-du-jour is James Loyd Breck who went ffar rom the East Coast to Wisconsin as a brave missionary and converted the Chippewa Nation, and also served in the founding of two Episcopal seminaries: Nashotah House and Seabury. Later, he founded a number of parishes out in California. His focus was always the right one for a priest, to be an instrument of empowering of others for their ministries]
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