Ribbon Placement:

Office of Readings for Thursday in Easter, the Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor

God, come to my assistance.

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

HYMN

O God, our help in ages past,

Beneath the shadow of Your throne

Before the hills in order stood,

A thousand ages in your sight

Time, like an ever rolling stream,

O God, our help in ages past,

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 The word of the Lord is a strong shield for all who put their trust in him, alleluia.

Psalm 18

IV

As for God, his ways are perfect;

For who is God but the Lord?

My feet you made swift as the deer’s;

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

Ant. The word of the Lord is a strong shield for all who put their trust in him, alleluia.

Ant. 2 Your strong right hand has upheld me, Lord, alleluia.

V

You gave me your saving shield;

I pursued and overtook my foes,

You girded me with strength for battle;

They cried, but there was no one to save them;

You saved me from the feuds of the people

Foreign nations came to me cringing:

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

Ant. Your strong right hand has upheld me, Lord., alleluia.

Ant. 3 May the living God, my Savior, be praised for ever, alleluia.

VI

Long life to the Lord, my rock!

You saved me from my furious foes.

He has given great victories to his king

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

Psalm Prayer

Lord God, our strength and salvation, put in us the flame of your love and make our love for you grow to a perfect love which reaches to our neighbor.

Ant. May the living God, my Savior, be praised for ever, 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.

You will hear the word from my mouth.

READINGS

First reading

One of the seven angels who held the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the woman who is the bride of the Lamb.”

He carried me away in spirit to the top of a very high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. The city had the radiance of a precious jewel that sparkled like a diamond. Its wall, massive and high, had twelve gates at which twelve angels were stationed. Twelve names were written on the gates, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates facing east, three north, three south, and three west. The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The one who spoke to me held a rod of gold for measuring the city, its gates, and its wall. The city is perfectly square, its length and its width being the same. He measured the city with the rod and found it twelve thousand furlongs in length, in width, and in height.

Its wall measured a hundred and forty-four cubits in height by the unit of measurement the angel used. The wall was constructed of jasper; the city was of pure gold, crystal-clear.

The foundation of the city wall was ornate with precious stones of every sort: the first course of stones was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh hyacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.

The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each made of a single pearl; and the streets of the city were of pure gold, transparent as glass.

I saw no temple in the city. The Lord, God the Almighty, is its temple—he and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb. The nations shall walk by its light; to it the kings of the earth shall bring their treasures. During the day its gates shall never be shut, and there shall be no night.

The treasures and wealth of the nations shall be brought there, but nothing profane shall enter it, nor anyone who is a liar or has done a detestable act. Only those shall enter whose names are inscribed in the book of the living kept by the Lamb.

RESPONSORY See Revelation 21:21; Tobit 13:21, 22, 13

Your streets of gold, Jerusalem, will ring with happy song,

You will shine in splendor like the sun; all men on earth will pay you homage.

Second reading

The Word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible and immaterial, entered our world. Yet it was not as if he had been remote from it up to that time. For there is no part of the world that was ever without his presence; together with his Father, he continually filled all things and places.

Out of his loving-kindness for us he came to us, and we see this in the way he revealed himself openly to us. Taking pity on mankind’s weakness, and moved by our corruption, he could not stand aside and see death have the mastery over us; he did not want creation to perish and his Father’s work in fashioning man to be in vain. He therefore took to himself a body, no different from our own, for he did not wish simply to be in a body or only to be seen.

If he had wanted simply to be seen, he could indeed have taken another, and nobler, body. Instead, he took our body in its reality.

Within the Virgin he built himself a temple, that is, a body; he made it his own instrument in which to dwell and to reveal himself. In this way he received from mankind a body like our own, and, since all were subject to the corruption of death, he delivered this body over to death for all, and with supreme love offered it to the Father. He did so to destroy the law of corruption passed against all men, since all died in him. The law, which had spent its force on the body of the Lord, could no longer have any power over his fellowmen. Moreover, this was the way in which the Word was to restore mankind to immortality, after it had fallen into corruption, and summon it back from death to life. He utterly destroyed the power death had against mankind—as fire consumes chaff—by means of the body he had taken and the grace of the resurrection.

This is the reason why the Word assumed a body that could die, so that this body, sharing in the Word who is above all, might satisfy death’s requirement in place of all. Because of the Word dwelling in that body, it would remain incorruptible, and all would be freed for ever from corruption by the grace of the resurrection.

In death the Word made a spotless sacrifice and oblation of the body he had taken. By dying for others, he immediately banished death for all mankind.

In this way the Word of God, who is above all, dedicated and offered his temple, the instrument that was his body, for us all, as he said, and so paid by his own death the debt that was owed. The immortal Son of God, united with all men by likeness of nature, thus fulfilled all justice in restoring mankind to immortality by the promise of the resurrection.

The corruption of death no longer holds any power over mankind, thanks to the Word, who has come to dwell among them through his one body.

RESPONSORY Jeremiah 15:19, 20; 2 Peter 2:1

You will be my spokesman. I will make you a solid wall of brass to these people.

False teachers will arise. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies and deny the Master who saved them.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Almighty ever-living God,

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.