Psalm 95

The first psalm of the Church’s day.

Every day of the Divine Office opens with the Invitatory — a call to worship, almost always Psalm 95, prayed before anything else is said. It is an invitation and, halfway through, a warning.

The Psalm

Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
let us shout with joy to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving,
let us joyfully sing psalms to Him.

For the Lord is a great God,
and a great king above all gods;
in His hands are the depths of the earth,
and the tops of the mountains are His.

The sea is His, for He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the Lord who made us,
for He is our God,
and we are the people He shepherds, the flock He guides.

Oh, that today you would hear His voice:
Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
where your fathers tempted Me;
they tested Me though they had seen My works.

The Antiphon

Come, let us worship the Lord, for He is our God.

About This Psalm

The tone changes abruptly at Oh, that today you would hear His voice, and the change is the point: the invitation to worship comes with a caution about what worship is worth if the heart is hard. The Church opens every single day with both halves.