Ribbon Placement:

Office of Readings for Friday in Week 3 of Easter

God, come to my assistance.

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

HYMN

Glory be to Jesus,

Grace and life eternal

Blest through endless ages

Abel's blood for vengeance

Oft as earth exulting

Lift we then our voices;

PSALMODY

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

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 not those who hope in you 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, alleluia.

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

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, alleluia.

Ant. 3 Seek the Lord and you will live, alleluia.

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, 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.

Christ Jesus you have risen from the dead, alleluia.

READINGS

First reading

I, John, saw another mighty angel come down from heaven wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow about his head; his face shone like the sun and his legs like pillars of fire. In his hand he held a little scroll which had been opened. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and then gave a loud cry like the roar of a lion. When he cried out, the seven thunders raised their voices too. I was about to start writing when the seven thunders spoke, but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have spoken and do not write it down!”

Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and took an oath by the One who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and earth and sea along with everything in them: “There shall be no more delay. When the time comes for the seventh angel to blow his trumpet, the mysterious plan of God, which he announced to his servants the prophets, shall be accomplished in full.”

Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the open scroll from the hand of the angel standing on the sea and on the land.” I went up to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little scroll.” He said to me, “Here, take it and eat it! It will be sour in your stomach, but in your mouth it will taste as sweet as honey.” I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. In my mouth it tasted as sweet as honey, but when I swallowed it my stomach turned sour. Then someone said to me, “You must prophesy again for many peoples and nations, languages and kings.”

RESPONSORY Revelation 10:7; Matthew 24:30

When the trumpet sounds, God will have accomplished the mysterious plan,

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and majesty.

Second Reading

Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.

Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure.

At length he came upon Eve, the mother of all the living. She was that vineyard whose enclosure her own hands had enabled death to violate, so that she could taste its fruit; thus the mother of all the living became the source of death for every living creature. But in her stead Mary grew up, a new vine in place of the old. Christ, the new life, dwelt within her. When death, with its customary impudence, came foraging for her mortal fruit, it encountered its own destruction in the hidden life that fruit contained. All unsuspecting, it swallowed him up, and in so doing released life itself and set free a multitude of men.

He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his cross above death’s all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognize the Lord whom no creature can resist.

We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.

Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of us all.

RESPONSORY 1 Corinthians 15:55-56, 57; 2 Corinthians 4:13, 14

Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? It is sin that gives death its sting.

We have the spirit of faith by which we believe that he who raised Jesus to life will also raise us up with Jesus.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Grant,

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.