Friday, January 23, 2009

Prayer of the Day

Prayer to the Holy Spirit, Giver of Life

Come Holy Spirit, Creator of all things...You who breathed over the waters at the dawn of creation and brought forth all living beings...You who filled the apostles when the Risen Lord breathed on them on the first Easter night, giving them the power to restore life to those dead in sin...You who, on the last day, will breathe again over all the dead and raise them from the grave--Come! Come and breathe on our world again, immersed as it is in the Culture of Death! Come, O Lord and Giver of Life! Defeat the works of death in our midst, that abortion may no longer stain our land.

We worship You, O Holy Spirit, and we rejoice in You. We know that no matter how strong the forces of death may be, we can still find in You the endless source of life. Renew that life in each of us, and make us worthy apostles of the Culture of Life in our day!

Amen.

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
Heb 8:6-13

Brothers and sisters:
Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry
as he is mediator of a better covenant,
enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless,
no place would have been sought for a second one.
But he finds fault with them and says:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of
Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers
the day I took them by the hand to lead
them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they did not stand by my covenant
and I ignored them, says the Lord.
But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizen and kin, saying,
“Know the Lord,”
for all shall know me, from least to greatest.
For I will forgive their evildoing
and remember their sins no more.

When he speaks of a “new” covenant,
he declares the first one obsolete.
And what has become obsolete
and has grown old is close to disappearing.



Responsorial Psalm
Ps 85:8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14

R. (11a) Kindness and truth shall meet.

Show us, O LORD, your mercy,
and grant us your salvation.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.

R. Kindness and truth shall meet.

Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.

R. Kindness and truth shall meet.

The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and salvation, along the way of his steps.

R. Kindness and truth shall meet.



Gospel
Mk 3:13-19

Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted
and they came to him.
He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles,
that they might be with him
and he might send them forth to preach
and to have authority to drive out demons:
He appointed the Twelve:
Simon, whom he named Peter;
James, son of Zebedee,
and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges,
that is, sons of thunder;
Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus;
Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean,
and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

Saint of the Day

On the day of 23 January

At Caesarea in Mauritania, of the sainted martyrs Severianus and Aquila, husband and wife, who were burned alive by fire.