Ribbon Placement:

Christian Prayer:

Office of Readings for Friday in Ordinary Time

God, come to my assistance.

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

HYMN

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me by the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of my Lord for ever.

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 I am worn out with crying, with longing for my God.

Psalm 69:2-22; 30-37

I

Save me, O God,

I have sunk into the mud of the deep

I am wearied with all my crying,

More numerous than the hairs on my head

How can I restore

Let those who hope in you not be put to shame

It is for you that I suffer taunts,

When I afflict my soul with fasting

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

Ant. I am worn out with crying, with longing for my God.

Ant. 2 I needed food and they gave me gall; I was parched with thirst and they gave me vinegar.

II

This is my prayer to you,

Save me from the waters of the deep

Lord, answer, for your love is kind;

You know how they taunt and deride me;

For food they gave me poison;

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

Ant. I needed food and they gave me gall; I was parched with thirst and they gave me vinegar.

Ant. 3 Seek the Lord and you will live.

III

As for me in my poverty and pain

I will praise God’s name with a song;

The poor when they see it will be glad

For God will bring help to Zion

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

Psalm-prayer

God our Father, to show the way of salvation, you chose that the standard of the cross should go before us, and you fulfilled the ancient prophecies in Christ’s Passover from death to life. Do not let us rouse your burning indignation by sin, but rather, through the contemplation of his wounds, make us burn with zeal for the honor of your Church and with grateful love for you.

Ant. Seek the Lord and you will live.

Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell) – a moment to reflect and receive in our hearts the full resonance of the voice of the Holy Spirit and to unite our personal prayer more closely with the word of God and public voice of the Church.

The Lord will teach us his ways.

READINGS

First reading

The Israelites again offended the Lord, who therefore delivered them into the power of the Philistines for forty years.

There was a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren and had borne no children. An angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Though you are barren and have had no children, yet you will conceive and bear a son. Now, then, be careful to take no wine or strong drink and to eat nothing unclean. As for the son you will conceive and bear, no razor shall touch his head, for this boy is to be consecrated to God from the womb. It is he who will begin the deliverance of Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

The woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me; he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed. I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. But he said to me, ‘You will be with child and will bear a son. So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb, until the day of his death.’” Manoah then prayed to the Lord. “O Lord, I beseech you,” he said, “may the man of God whom you sent, return to us to teach us what to do for the boy who will be born.”

God heard the prayer of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field. Since her husband Manoah was not with her, the woman ran in haste and told her husband. “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me,” she said to him; so Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he reached the man, he said to him, “Are you the one who spoke to my wife?” “Yes,” he answered. Then Manoah asked, “Now, when that which you say comes true, what are we expected to do for the boy?” The angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife is to abstain from all the things of which I spoke to her. She must not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor take wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean. Let her observe all that I have commanded her.”

Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Can we persuade you to stay, while we prepare a kid for you?” But the angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “Although you press me, I will not partake of your food. But if you will, you may offer a holocaust to the Lord.” Not knowing that it was the angel of the Lord, Manoah said to him, “What is your name, that we may honor you when your words come true?” The angel of the Lord answered him, “Why do you ask my name, which is mysterious?” Then Manoah took the kid with a cereal offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, whose works are mysteries.

While Manoah and his wife were looking on, as the flame rose to the sky from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell prostrate to the ground; but the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah, realizing that it was the angel of the Lord, said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God.” But his wife pointed out to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a holocaust and cereal offering from our hands! Nor would he have let us see all this just now, or hear what we have heard.”

The woman bore a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up and the Lord blessed him; the spirit of the Lord first stirred him in Mahaneh-dan, which is between Zorah and Eshtaol.

RESPONSORY Luke 1:13, 15; Judges 13:5

The angel said to Zechariah: Your wife will bear you a son, and you must name him John; he will drink no wine or any strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.

The angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah and said to her: You shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor must touch his head.

Second reading

Christ clearly laid down an additional rule to bind us by a certain contractual condition: we ask that our debts be forgiven insofar as we forgive our own debtors. Thus we are made aware that we cannot obtain what we ask regarding our own trespasses unless we do the same for those who trespass against us. This is why he says elsewhere: The measure you give will be the measure you get. And the servant who, after his master forgives all his debt, refuses to forgive his fellow servant is thrown into prison. Because he refused to be kind to his fellow servant, he lost the favor his master had given him.

Along with his other precepts Christ lays this down even more forcefully with a most vigorous condemnation. He says: When you stand up to pray, if you have anything against anyone, let it go, so that your heavenly Father may also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. You will have no excuse on the day of judgment, for then you will be judged just as you have judged, and you will suffer whatever you have done to others.

God bids us to be peace-loving, harmonious and of one mind in his house; he wants us to live with the new life he gave us at our second birth. As sons of God, we are to abide in peace; as we have one Spirit, we should be one in mind and heart. Thus God does not receive the sacrifice of one who lives in conflict, and he orders us to turn back from the altar and be first reconciled with our brother, that God too may be appeased by the prayers of one who is at peace. The greatest offering we can make to God is our peace, harmony among fellow Christians, a people united with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

When Cain and Abel first offered their sacrifices, God considered not so much the gifts as the spirit of the giver: God was pleased with Abel’s offering because he was pleased with his spirit. Thus Abel the just man, the peacemaker, in his blameless sacrifice taught men that when they offer their gift at the altar they should approach as he did, in the fear of God, simplicity of heart, ruled by justice and peaceful harmony. Since this was the character of Abel’s offering, it was only right that he himself should afterward become a sacrifice. As martyrdom’s first witness and possessing the Lord’s qualities of justice and peace, he foreshadowed the Lord’s passion in the glory of his own death. Such, then, are the men who are crowned by the Lord and will be justified with him on the day of judgment.

But Saint Paul and the sacred Scriptures tell us that the quarrelsome man and the troublemaker, who is never at peace with his brothers, cannot escape the charge of internal dissension even though he may die for Christ’s name. For it is written: He who hates his brother is a murderer, nor can he attain the kingdom of heaven. God cannot abide a murderer. He cannot be united with Christ, who has preferred to imitate Judas rather than Christ.

RESPONSORY Ephesians 4:1, 3, 4; Romans 15:5, 6

I implore you to lead a life worthy of the vocation to which you have been called. Be careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

May God grant you to live in harmony with one another, so that together you may glorify God with one voice.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.