TUESDAY - WEEK V
Office of Readings
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: Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.
or:
Antiphon: Today if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.
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.
HYMN
Lenten Hymns:Antiphon 1:
The Lord is just, he will defend the poor.
Psalm 10
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are the poor; the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Luke 6:20)
I
Lord, why do you stand afar off
and hide yourself in times of distress?
The poor man is devoured by the pride of the wicked:
he is caught in the schemes that others have made.
For the wicked man boasts of his heart's desires;
the covetous blasphemes and spurns the Lord.
In his pride the wicked says: "He will not punish.
There is no God." Such are his thoughts.
His path is ever untroubled;
your judgment is far from his mind.
His enemies he regards with contempt.
He thinks: "Never shall I falter:
misfortune shall never be my lot."
His mouth is full of cursing, guile, oppression;
mischief and deceit are under his tongue.
He lies in wait among the reeds;
the innocent he murders in secret.
His eyes are on the watch for the helpless man.
He lurks in hiding like a lion in his lair;
he lurks in hiding to seize the poor;
he seizes the poor man and drags him away.
He crouches, preparing to spring,
and the helpless fall beneath such strength.
He thinks in his heart: "God forgets,
he hides his face, he does not see."
Arise then, Lord, lift up your hand!
O God, do not forget the poor!
Why should the wicked spurn the Lord
and think in his heart: "God will not punish"?
But you have seen the trouble and sorrow,
you note it, you take it in hand.
The helpless trusts himself to you;
for you are the helper of the orphan.
Break the power of the wicked and the sinner!
Punish their wickedness till nothing remains!
The Lord is king for ever and ever.
The heathen shall perish from the land he rules.
Lord, you hear the prayer of the poor;
you strengthen their hearts; you turn your ear
to protect the rights of the orphan and oppressed:
so that mortal man may strike terror no more. Glory...
Psalm Prayer: Rise up, Lord, in defense of your people, do not hide your face from our troubles. Father of orphans, wealth of the poor, we rejoice in making you known; may we find comfort and security in times of pain and anxiety.
Antiphon 2
Lord, you know the burden of my sorrow.
Antiphon 3
The words of the Lord are true, like silver from the furnace.
Psalm 12
Help, O Lord, for good men have vanished;
A cry for God's help against powerful opponents
The Father sent His Son into the world to defend the poor (St. Augustine)
truth has gone from the sons of men.
Falsehood they speak one to another,
with lying lips, with a false heart.
May the Lord destroy all lying lips,
the tongue that speaks high-sounding words,
those who say: "Our tongue is our strength;
our lips are our own, who is our master?"
"For the poor who are oppressed and the needy who groan
I myself will arise," says the Lord,
"I will grant them the salvation for which they thirst."
The words of the Lord are words without alloy,
silver from the furnace, seven times refined.
It is you, O Lord, who will take us in your care
and protect us for ever from this generation.
See how the wicked prowl on every side,
while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men.
Glory....
Psalm Prayer: Your light is true light, Lord, and your truth shines like the day. Direct us to salvation through your life-giving words. May we be saved by always embracing your word.
Antiphon 3
The words of the Lord are true, like silver from the furnace.
This is the favorable time.
- This is the day of salvation.
FIRST READING
From the letter to the Hebrews 3:1-19
Jesus, the apostle of our faith
Holy brothers, sharing in a heavenly calling, reflect on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was "faithful in all his house." But he is worthy of more glory than Moses, as the founder of a house has more honor than the house itself. Every house is founded by someone, but the founder of all is God. Moses was "faithful in all his house" as a servant to testify to what would be spoken, but Christ was faithful as a son placed over his house. We are his house, if only we hold fast to our confidence and pride in our hope.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you would hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion
in the day of testing in the desert,
where your ancestors tested and tried me
and saw my works for forty years.
Because of this I was provoked with that generation
and I said, 'They have always been of erring heart,
and they do not know my ways.'
As I swore in my wrath,
They shall not enter into my rest.'"
Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. Encourage yourselves daily while it is still "today," so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin. We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end.
When Scripture says,
"Today, if you would hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion,"
who were those who rebelled when they heard? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was he "provoked for forty years"? Was it not those who had sinned, whose corpses fell in the desert? And to whom did he "swear that they should not enter into his rest," if not to those who were disobedient? And we see that they could not enter for lack of faith.
RESPONSORY Hebrews 3:6; Ephesians 2:21
As a faithful son, Christ looks after his Father's house;
- and we are that house.
Through him the whole fabric is bound together,
and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
- And we are that house.
SECOND READING
From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope
(Sermo 8 de passione Domini, 6-8; PL 54, 340-342)
The cross of Christ is the source of all blessings, the cause of all graces
Our understanding, which is enlightened by the Spirit of truth, should receive with purity and freedom of heart the glory of the cross as it shines in heaven and on earth. It should see with inner vision the meaning of the Lord’s words when he spoke of the imminence of his passion: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Afterward he said: Now my soul is troubled, and what am I to say? Father, save me from this hour. But it was for this that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your Son. When the voice of the Father came from heaven, saying, I have glorified him, and will glorify him again, Jesus said in reply to those around him: It was not for me that this voice spoke, but for you. Now is the judgment of the world, now will the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.
How marvellous the power of the cross; how great beyond all telling the glory of the passion: here is the judgement-seat of the Lord, the condemnation of the world, the supremacy of Christ crucified.
Lord, you drew all things to yourself so that the devotion of all peoples everywhere might celebrate, in a sacrament made perfect and visible, what was carried out in the one temple of Judea under obscure foreshadowings.
Now there is a more distinguished order of Levites, a greater dignity for the rank of elders, a more sacred anointing for the priesthood, because your cross is the source of all blessings, the cause of all graces. Through the cross the faithful receive strength from weakness, glory from dishonor, life from death.
The different sacrifices of animals are no more: the one offering of your body and blood is the fulfilment of all the different sacrificial offerings, for you are the true Lamb of God: you take away the sins of the world. In yourself you bring to perfection all mysteries, so that, as there is one sacrifice in place of all other sacrificial offerings, there is also one kingdom gathered from all peoples.
Dearly beloved, let us then acknowledge what Saint Paul, the teacher of the nations, acknowledged so exultantly: This is a saying worthy of trust, worthy of complete acceptance: Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.
God’s compassion for us is all the more wonderful because Christ died, not for the righteous or the holy but for the wicked and the sinful, and, though the divine nature could not be touched by the sting of death, he took to himself, through his birth as one of us, something he could offer on our behalf.
The power of his death once confronted our death. In the words of Hosea the prophet: Death, I shall be your death; grave, I shall swallow you up. By dying he submitted to the laws of the underworld; by rising again he destroyed them. He did away with the everlasting character of death so as to make death a thing of time, not of eternity. As all die in Adam, so all will be brought to life in Christ.
RESPONSORY Colossians 2:14-15; John 8:25
Christ has cancelled the decree that was against us
by nailing it to the cross.
- He disarmed the principalities and powers,
and made of them a public spectacle,
leading them off captive in his triumphal procession.
When you have lifted up the Son of Man,
you will know that I am he.
- He disarmed the principalities and powers,
and made of them a public spectacle,
leading them off captive in his triumphal procession.
COLLECT
Grant us, we pray, O Lord,
perseverance in obeying your will,
that in our days the people dedicated to your service
may grow in both merit and number.
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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