Ribbon Placement:

Office of Readings for Monday in Week 3 of Easter

God, come to my assistance.

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

HYMN

Most ancient of all mysteries,

When heaven and earth were still unmade,

You were not born; there was no source

How wonderful creation is,

Most ancient of all mysteries,

PSALMODY

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

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, alleluia.

Ant. 2 Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, alleluia.

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, alleluia.

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

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, alleluia.

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.

My heart and my flesh, alleluia.

READINGS

First reading

I, John, saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth; they held in check the earth’s four winds so that no wind blew on land or sea or through any tree. I saw another angel come up from the east holding the seal of the living God. He cried out at the top of his voice to the four angels who were given power to ravage the land and the sea, “Do no harm to the land or the sea or the trees until we imprint this seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”

I heard the number of those who were so marked—one hundred and forty-four thousand from every tribe of Israel: twelve thousand from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand from the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand from the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand from the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand from the tribe of Joseph, and twelve thousand from the tribe of Benjamin.

After this I saw before me a huge crowd which no one could count from every nation and race, people and tongue. They stood before the throne and the Lamb, dressed in long white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation is from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb!”

All the angels who were standing around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures fell down before the throne to worship God. They said: “Amen! Praise and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving and honor, power and might, to our God forever and ever. Amen!”

Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people all dressed in white? And where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you should know better than I.” He then told me, “These are the ones who have survived the great period of trial; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“It was this that brought them before God’s throne: day and night they minister to him in his temple;

RESPONSORY Revelation 7:13, 14; 6:9

Who are these people clothed in white robes? Who are they and where have they come from? I said to him:

I saw beneath the altar the spirits of those who had been slain because of their witness to the word of God.

Second reading

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood. This praise was given long ago by Moses to the ancient people of God, and now the apostle Peter rightly gives it to the Gentiles, since they have come to believe in Christ who, as the cornerstone, has brought the nations together in the salvation that belonged to Israel.

Peter calls them a chosen race because of their faith, to distinguish them from those who by refusing to accept the living stone have themselves been rejected. They are a royal priesthood because they are united to the body of Christ, the supreme king and true priest. As sovereign he grants them his kingdom, and as high priest he washes away their sins by the offering of his blood. Peter says they are a royal priesthood; they must always remember to hope for an everlasting kingdom and to offer to God the sacrifice of a blameless life.

They are also called a consecrated nation, a people claimed by God as his own, in accordance with the apostle Paul’s explanation of the prophet’s teaching: My righteous man lives by faith; but if he draws back, I will take no pleasure in him. But we, he says, are not the sort of people who draw back and are lost; ,we are those who remain faithful until we are saved. In the Acts of the Apostles we read: The Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God which he bought with his own blood. Thus, through the blood of our Redeemer, we have become a people claimed by God as his own, as in ancient times the people of Israel were ransomed from Egypt by the blood of a lamb.

In the next verse, Peter also makes a veiled allusion to the ancient story, and explains that this story is to be spiritually fulfilled by the new people of God, so that, he says, they may declare his wonderful deeds. Those who were freed by Moses from slavery in Egypt sang a song of triumph to the Lord after they had crossed the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army had been overwhelmed; in the same way, now that our sins have been washed away in baptism, we too should express fitting gratitude for the gifts of heaven. The Egyptians who oppressed the people of God, and who can also stand for darkness or trials, are an apt symbol of the sins that once oppressed us but have now been destroyed in baptism.

The deliverance of the children of Israel and their journey to the long-promised land correspond with the mystery of our redemption. We are making our way toward the light of our heavenly home with the grace of Christ leading us and showing us the way. The light of his grace was also symbolized by the cloud and the pillar of fire, which protected the Israelites from darkness throughout their journey, and brought them by a wonderful path to their promised homeland.

RESPONSORY 1 Peter 2:9; Deuteronomy 7:7; 13:5

You are a chosen race, a holy nation, a people God has claimed as his own.

The Lord chose you and freed you from the land of slavery.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Grant,

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.