St. Joan of Arc Parish Phoenix issued the following announcement on Aug. 30

The end of August is already here! This summer has flown by (except for those weeks of 110 degrees and greater). I want to offer a humongous thanks to everyone who has participated in our matching gift campaign. We are so grateful to the family who has donated the $27,060 and to each of you for offering a recurring online gift to help us on our way to the match. If you haven’t participated yet, you can still do so through tomorrow (August 31st).

The Psalm that we hear this weekend at Mass is one of my favorites. Psalm 63 is prayed in Morning Prayer on all solemnities throughout the liturgical year. It is also prayed every other Sunday morning. It expresses the desire of our hearts and gives us words to pray with these desires. “O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts.” While it's true that we may not always feel this way, it gives us the words to use to increase this desire. Pope Benedict XVI speaks of this idea in his book Jesus of Nazareth. He writes, “Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way around: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it.” (pg. 131) It is the prayers of the Church that seek to form our minds and hearts. I would recommend praying the Psalms as a regular practice. Whether it's with the Liturgy of the Hours on an app such as iBreviary, or just flipping through the Psalms in your Bible, the recitation of the Psalms is a beautiful way to pray with the Church to God.

Original source can be found here.