Ribbon Placement:

Christian Prayer:

Office of Readings for Monday in Ordinary Time

God, come to my assistance.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

HYMN

For the beauty of the earth,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

For the beauty of each hour

Lord of all, to thee we raise

For the joy of ear and eye,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

For the joy of human love,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

For each perfect gift of Thine,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 Our God will be made manifest; he will not come in silence.

Psalm 50

I

The God of gods, the Lord,

Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.

“Summon before me my people

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

Ant. Our God will be made manifest; he will not come in silence.

Ant. 2 Offer to God the sacrifice of praise.

II

“Listen, my people, I will speak;

I find no fault with your sacrifices,

For I own all the beasts of the forest,

Were I hungry, I would not tell you,

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

Ant. Offer to God the sacrifice of praise.

Ant. 3 I want a loving heart more than sacrifice, knowledge of my ways more than holocausts.

III

But God says to the wicked:

“But how can you recite my commandments

you who see a thief and go with him;

you who sit and malign your brother

Mark this, you who never think of God,

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

Psalm-prayer

Father, accept us as a sacrifice of praise, so that we may go through life unburdened by sin, walking in the way of salvation, and always giving thanks to you.

Ant. I want a loving heart more than sacrifice, knowledge of my ways more than holocausts.

Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell)

Listen, my people, and I will speak.

READINGS

First reading

Thus says the Lord:

I will heal their defection,

Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?

Let him who is wise understand these things;

RESPONSORY Hosea 14:5; Joel 3:21

I will heal their unfaithfulness, I will love them with all my heart,

I will avenge their blood; the guilty will not go unpunished, and the Lord will dwell in Zion.

Second reading

Of his own free will Jesus ran to meet those sufferings that were foretold in the Scriptures concerning him. He had forewarned his disciples about them several times; he had rebuked Peter for being reluctant to accept the announcement of his passion, and he had made it clear that it was by means of his suffering that the world’s salvation was to be accomplished. This was why he stepped forward and presented himself to those who came in search of him, saying: I am the one you are looking for. For the same reason he made no reply when he was accused, and refused to hide when he could have done so; although in the past he had slipped away on more than one occasion when they had tried to apprehend him.

Jesus also wept over Jerusalem because by her unwillingness to believe she was bent on her own ruin, and upon the temple, once so renowned, he passed sentence of utter destruction. Patiently he put up with being struck in the face by a man who was doubly a slave, in body and in spirit. He allowed himself to be slapped, spat upon, insulted, tortured, scourged and finally crucified. He accepted two robbers as his companions in punishment, on his right and on his left. He endured being reckoned with murderers and criminals. He drank the vinegar and the bitter gall yielded by the unfaithful vineyard of Israel. He submitted to crowning with thorns instead of with vine twigs and grapes; he was ridiculed with the purple cloak, holes were dug in his hands and his feet, and at last he was carried to the grave.

All this he endured in working out our salvation. For since those who were enslaved to sin were liable to the penalties of sin, he himself, exempt from sin though he was and walking in the path of perfect righteousness, underwent the punishment of sinners. By his cross he blotted out the decree of the ancient curse: for, as Paul says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written: “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.” And by his crown of thorns he put an end to that punishment meted out to Adam, who after his sin had heard the sentence: Cursed is the ground because of you; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth for you.

In tasting the gall Jesus took on himself the bitterness and toil of man’s mortal, painful life. By drinking the vinegar he made his own the degradation men had suffered, and in the same act gave us the grace to better our condition. By the purple robe he signified his kingship, by the reed he hinted at the weakness and rottenness of the devil’s power. By taking the slap in the face, and thus suffering the violence, corrections and blows that were due to us, he proclaimed our freedom.

His side was pierced as Adam’s was; yet there came forth not a woman who, being beguiled, was to be the death-bearer, but a fountain of life that regenerates the world by its two streams: the one to renew us in the baptismal font and clothe us with the garment of immortality, the other to feed us, the reborn, at the table of God, just as babes are nourished with milk.

RESPONSORY Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24

He was pierced through for our offenses, he was crushed for our sins; upon him lies the chastisement that gives us peace;

Christ took our sins upon his body, and was nailed to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for holiness.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Almighty ever-living God,

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.