Objective:
The middle school youth will learn that there is an external expression of prayer as well as an internal expression, and they will have the opportunity to offer their praise and worship to God.
Overview:
In addition to taking time to pray internally and allow God’s love to grow in our hearts, God desires that there is an outward expression of prayer.
[…] God seeks worshippers in Spirit and Truth, and consequently living prayer that rises from the depths of the soul. He also wants the external expression that associates the body with interior prayer, for it renders him that perfect homage which is his due (CCC 2703)
Singing songs of praise and worship is one such way to express prayer externally. God is the creator of the universe, yet He loves us intimately. We praise him not only for all He has done, but simply for who He is.
Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, 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” (CCC 2639).