Ordinary Time

WEEK 12 - SATURDAY

Office of Readings



Invitatory
The Invitatory opens the first Office of the day. If Morning Prayer is the first Office of the day, begin below.

Lord, open my lips.
 - And my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Psalm 95 is the traditional Invitatory Psalm. Psalm 24, 67, or 100 may be substituted.

Antiphon: Let us listen to the voice of God; let us enter into his rest.





Office of Readings
Psalter, Saturday Week IV

God, come to my assistance.
 - Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
 -  as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.
Amen. (Alleluia.)


HYMN

Praise the Lord: ye heavens, adore Him;
Praise Him, angels in the height.
Sun and moon, rejoice before Him;
Praise Him, all ye stars of light.
Praise the Lord, for He hath spoken;
Worlds His mighty voice obeyed.
Laws which never shall be broken
For their guidance He hath made.

Praise the Lord, for He is glorious;
Never shall His promise fail.
God hath made His saints victorious;
Sin and death shall not prevail.
Praise the God of our salvation;
Hosts on high, His power proclaim.
Heaven and earth and all creation,
Laud and magnify His Name.

Worship, honor, glory, blessing,
Lord, we offer unto Thee.
Young and old, Thy praise expressing,
In glad homage bend the knee.
All the saints in heaven adore Thee;
We would bow before Thy throne.
As Thine angels serve before Thee,
So on earth Thy will be done.
Text: Foundling Hospital Collection, Stanza 3, Edward Ostler; Melody: Austria 87.87. D Franz Joseph Haydn


PSALMODY

Antiphon 1: The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment upon his people.

Psalm 50
Genuine love of God
I have come not to abolish the law but to bring it to perfection in myself. (Matthew 5:17)

                     I
The God of gods, the Lord,
has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion's perfect beauty he shines.

Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.

Before him fire devours,
around him tempest rages.
He calls on the heavens and the earth
to witness his judgment of his people.

"Summon before me my people
who made covenant with me by sacrifice."
The heavens proclaim his justice,
for God himself is the judge. Glory...

Antiphon 1 The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment upon his people.


Antiphon 2 Come to me in your distress and I will save you.

                       II
"Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you,
for I am God, your God.
I accuse you, lay the charge before you.

I find no fault with your sacrifices,
your offerings are always before me.
I do not ask more bullocks from your farms,
nor goats from among your herds.

For I own all the beasts of the forest,
beasts in their thousands on my hills.
I know all the birds in the sky,
all that moves in the field belongs to me.

Were I hungry, I would not tell you,
for I own the world and all it holds.
Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God
and render him your votive offerings.
Call on me in the day of distress.
I will free and you shall honor me."    Glory...

Antiphon 2 Come to me in your distress and I will save you.


Antiphon 3 A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.

                     III
But God says to the wicked:

"But how can you recite my commandments
and take my covenant on my lips,
you who despise my law
and throw my words to the winds,

you who see a thief and go with him;
who throw in your lot with adulterers,
who unbridle your mouth for evil
and whose tongue is plotting crime,

you who sit and malign your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
You do this , and should I keep silence?
Do you think that I am like you?

Mark this, you who never think of God,
lest I seize you and you cannot escape;
a sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me
and I will show God’s salvation to the upright."  Glory...

Psalm Prayer: Father, because Jesus, your servant, became obedient even unto death, his sacrifice was greater than all holocausts of old. Accept the sacrifice of praise we offer you through him and may we show the effects of it in our lives by striving to do your will until our whole life becomes adoration in Spirit and truth.

Antiphon 3 A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.


We are always praying earnestly for you.
- That you may have a deep knowledge of God's will.


FIRST READING

From the first book of Samuel       1 Samuel 26:5-25

David shows his generosity in forgiving Saul

David himself then went to the place where Saul was encamped and examined the spot where Saul and Abner, son of Ner, the general, had their sleeping quarters. Saul's were within the barricade, and all his soldiers were camped around him.

David asked Ahimelech the Hittite, and Abishai, son of Zeruiah and brother of Joab, "Who will go down into the camp with me to Saul?" Abishai replied, "I will." So David and Abishai went among Saul's soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade, with his spear thrust into the ground at his head and Abner and his men sleeping around him.

Abishai whispered to David: "God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!" But David said to Abishai, "Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the Lord'S anointed and remain unpunished? As the Lord lives," David continued, "it must be the Lord himself who will strike him, whether the time comes for him to die, or he goes out and perishes in battle. But the Lord forbid that I touch his anointed! Now take the spear which is at his head and the water jug, and let us be on our way."
 
So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul's head, and they got away without anyone's seeing or knowing or awakening. All remained asleep, because the Lord had put them into a deep slumber.

Going across to an opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops.  He then shouted, "Will you not answer, Abner?" And Abner answered, "Who is it that calls me?" David said to Abner: "Are you not a man whose like does not exist in Israel? Why, then, have you not guarded your lord the king when one of his subjects went to kill the king, your lord? This is no creditable service you have performed. As the Lord lives, you people deserve death because you have not guarded your lord, the Lord'S anointed. Go, look: where are the king's spear and the water jug that was at his head?"

Saul recognized David's voice and asked, "Is that your voice, my son David?" David answered, "Yes, my lord the king." He continued: "Why does my lord pursue his servant? What have I done? What evil do I plan?  Please, now, let my lord the king listen to the words of his servant. If the Lord has incited you against me, let an offering appease him; but if men, may they be cursed before the Lord, because they have exiled me so that this day I have no share in the Lord'S inheritance, but am told: 'Go serve other gods!' Do not let my blood flow to the ground far from the presence of the Lord. For the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea as if he were hunting partridge in the mountains."

Then Saul said: "I have done wrong. Come back, my son David, I will not harm you again, because you have held my life precious today. Indeed, I have been a fool and have made a serious mistake." But David answered: "Here is the king's spear. Let an attendant come over to get it. The Lord will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today, though the Lord delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the Lord'S anointed. As I valued your life highly today, so may the Lord value my life highly and deliver me from all difficulties."

Then Saul said to David: "Blessed are you, my son David! You shall certainly succeed in whatever you undertake." David went his way, and Saul returned to his home.


RESPONSORY          Psalm 54:5,3,8,4
Arrogant men have risen up against me,
and brutal men seek my life.
Save me, O God, by your name,
 - and with your strength defend my cause.

Willingly I shall offer sacrifice to you;
O God, hear my prayer.
 - And with your strength defend my cause.


SECOND READING

From a homily by St. Gregory of Nyssa, bishop
(Orat. 6 De beatitudinibus: PG 44, 1270-1271)

God can be found in man's heart

In our human life bodily health is a good thing, but this blessing consists not merely in knowing the causes of good health but in actually enjoying it. If a man eulogizes good health and then eats food that has unhealthy effects, what good is his praise of health when he finds himself on a sickbed? Similarly, from the Lord's saying: Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God, we are to learn that blessedness does not lie in knowing something about God, but rather in possessing God within oneself.

I do not think these words mean that God will be seen face to face by the man who purifies the eye of his soul. Their sublime import is brought out more clearly perhaps in that other saying of the Lord's: The kingdom of God is within you. This teaches us that the man who cleanses his heart of every created thing and every evil desire will see the image of the divine nature in the beauty of his own soul. I believe the lesson summed up by the Word in that short sentence was this: You men have within you a desire to behold the supreme good. Now when you are told that the majesty of God is exalted above the heavens, that his glory is inexpressible, his beauty indescribable, and his nature transcendent, do not despair because you cannot behold the object of your desire. If by a diligent life of virtue you wash away the film of dirt that covers your heart, then the divine beauty will shine forth in you.

Take a piece of iron as an illustration. Although it might have been black before, once the rust has been scraped off with a whetstone, it will begin to shine brilliantly and to reflect the rays of the sun. So it is with the interior man, which is what the Lord means by the heart. Once a man removes from his soul the coating of filth that has formed on it through his sinful neglect, he will regain his likeness to his Archetype, and be good. For what resembles the supreme Good is itself good. If he then looks into himself, he will see the vision he has longed for. This is the blessedness of the pure of heart: in seeing their own purity they see the divine Archetype mirrored in themselves.

Those who look at the sun in a mirror, even if they do not look directly at the sky, see its radiance in the reflection just as truly as do those who look directly at the sun's orb. It is the same, says the Lord, with you. Even though you are unable to contemplate and see the inaccessible light, you will find what you seek within yourself, provided you return to the beauty and grace of that image which was originally placed in you. For God is purity: he is free from sin and a stranger to all evil. If this can be said of you, then God will surely be within you. If your mind is untainted by any evil, free from sin, and purified from all stain, then indeed are you blessed, because your sight is keen and clear. Once purified, you see things that others cannot see. When the mists of sin no longer cloud the peace and purity of your own heart. That vision is nothing else than the holiness, the purity, the simplicity and all the other glorious reflections of God's nature, through which God himself is seen.


RESPONSORY          John 14:6,9: 6:47
The Lord said:
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
 - Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

Whoever believes in me has eternal life.
 - Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.


COLLECT
Grant, O Lord,
that we may always revere and love your holy name,
for you never deprive of your guidance
those you set firm on the foundation of your love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Let us praise the Lord.
- And give him thanks.



The English translation of Psalm Responses, Alleluia Verses, Gospel Verses from Lectionary for Mass © 1969, 1981, 1997, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL); the English translation of Antiphons, Invitatories, Responsories, Intercessions, Psalm 95, the Canticle of the Lamb, Psalm Prayers, Non-Biblical Readings from The Liturgy of the Hours © 1973, 1974, 1975, ICEL; excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, ICEL. All rights reserved. Used with permission.



 
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