Replace Zion with the Church in Psalm 48 from today's morning prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours (on-line version) and what do you get? You get down on your knees, I bet, and sing His praises.Go round Zion, see it all, count every tower. Feel its strength, visit its palaces, So that you you can tell the next generation: Here is God, our God here he remains for ever; and forever he will lead us and guide us.
As St. Augustine writes in his commentary on this Psalm,
The title of this Psalm is, "A song of praise, to the sons of Korah, on the second day of the week." Concerning this what the Lord deigns to grant receive ye like sons of the firmament. For on the second day of the week, that is, the day after the first which we call the Lord's day, which also is called the second week-day, was made the firmament of Heaven. Genesis 1:6-8 ...The second day of the week then we ought not to understand but of the Church of Christ: but the Church of Christ in the Saints, the Church of Christ in those who are written in Heaven, the Church of Christ in those who to this world's temptations yield not.
For they are worthy of the name of "firmament." The Church of Christ, then, in those who are strong, of whom says the Apostle, "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak," Romans 15:1 is called the firmament. Of this it is sung in this Psalm. Let us hear, acknowledge, associate, glory, reign. For Her called firmament, hear also in the Apostolic Epistles, "the pillar and firmament of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15
And then, in the short reading from Isaiah 45:8, the mission of the Church Militant: To save souls and bring them to the King—
Send victory like the dew, you heavens, and let the clouds rain it down. Let the earth open up for salvation to spring up. Let deliverence, too bud forth which I, the Lord, shall create.
Aye, aye, Sir, and Amen!
Semper Fidelis
