Saturday, January 12, 2013

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Prayer to St. Marguerite Bourgeoys

O Mother Bourgeoys, you,
whose compassionate power is ever increasing,
show us your way of Truth, Faith and Holiness.

Make us humble enough to abandon ourselves to the Will of God,
generous enough to find in the Cross the joy of the Loving Giver.

May your fidelity to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament lead us ever nearer to this source of light and peace.
May your spirit of openness help us to be concerned for our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Finally,
may Our Lady of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
bring us to this unity of eternal grace to which God has called you for all eternity.

Amen.


DAILY MASS READINGS

Saturday after Epiphany

Reading
1 Jn 5:14-21

Beloved:

We have this confidence in him
that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask,
we know that what we have asked him for is ours.
If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly,
he should pray to God and he will give him life.
This is only for those whose sin is not deadly.
There is such a thing as deadly sin,
about which I do not say that you should pray.
All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.

We know that anyone begotten by God does not sin;
but the one begotten by God he protects,
and the Evil One cannot touch him.
We know that we belong to God,
and the whole world is under the power of the Evil One.
We also know that the Son of God has come
and has given us discernment to know the one who is true.
And we are in the one who is true,
in his Son Jesus Christ.
He is the true God and eternal life.
Children, be on your guard against idols.


Responsorial Psalm
Ps 149:1-2, 3-4, 5-6a And 9b

R. The Lord takes delight in his people.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Sing to the LORD a new song
of praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in their maker,
let the children of Zion rejoice in their king.

R. The Lord takes delight in his people.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Let them praise his name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise to him with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves his people,
and he adorns the lowly with victory.

R. The Lord takes delight in his people.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy upon their couches;
Let the high praises of God be in their throats.
This is the glory of all his faithful. Alleluia.

R. The Lord takes delight in his people.
or:
R. Alleluia.


Gospel
Jn 3:22-30

Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea,
where he spent some time with them baptizing.
John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim,
because there was an abundance of water there,
and people came to be baptized,
for John had not yet been imprisoned.
Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew
about ceremonial washings.
So they came to John and said to him,
“Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan,
to whom you testified,
here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him.”
John answered and said,
“No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven.
You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Christ,
but that I was sent before him.
The one who has the bride is the bridegroom;
the best man, who stands and listens for him,
rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.
So this joy of mine has been made complete.
He must increase; I must decrease.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

January 12

St. Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620-1700)


“God closes a door and then opens a window,” people sometimes say when dealing with their own disappointment or someone else’s. That was certainly true in Marguerite’s case. Children from European as well as Native American backgrounds in seventeenth-century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God’s providence.

Born the sixth of 12 children in Troyes, France, Marguerite at the age of 20 believed that she was called to religious life. Her applications to the Carmelites and Poor Clares were unsuccessful. A priest friend suggested that perhaps God had other plans for her.

In 1654, the governor of the French settlement in Canada visited his sister, an Augustinian canoness in Troyes. Marguerite belonged to a sodality connected to that convent. The governor invited her to come to Canada and start a school in Ville-Marie (eventually the city of Montreal). When she arrived, the colony numbered 200 people with a hospital and a Jesuit mission chapel.

Soon after starting a school, she realized her need for coworkers. Returning to Troyes, she recruited a friend, Catherine Crolo, and two other young women. In 1667 they added classes at their school for Indian children. A second trip to France three years later resulted in six more young women and a letter from King Louis XIV, authorizing the school. The Congregation of Notre Dame was established in 1676 but its members did not make formal religious profession until 1698 when their Rule and constitutions were approved.

Marguerite established a school for Indian girls in Montreal. At the age of 69, she walked from Montreal to Quebec in response to the bishop’s request to establish a community of her sisters in that city. By the time she died, she was referred to as the “Mother of the Colony.” Marguerite was canonized in 1982.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)

Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

Come, let us rejoice in the Lord,
let us acclaim God our salvation.
Let us come before him proclaiming our thanks,
let us acclaim him with songs.

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

For the Lord is a great God,
a king above all gods.
For he holds the depths of the earth in his hands,
and the peaks of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his: he made it;
and his hands formed the dry land.

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

Come, let us worship and bow down,
bend the knee before the Lord who made us;
for he himself is our God and we are his flock,
the sheep that follow his hand.

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

If only, today, you would listen to his voice:
“Do not harden your hearts
as you did at Meribah,
on the day of Massah in the desert,
when your fathers tested me –
they put me to the test,
although they had seen my works.”

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

“For forty years they wearied me,
that generation.
I said: their hearts are wandering,
they do not know my paths.
I swore in my anger:
they will never enter my place of rest.”

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.


Hymn

Bethlehem, of noblest cities
none can once with thee compare:
thou alone the Lord from heaven
didst for us Incarnate bear.
Fairer than the sun at morning
was the star that told his birth;
to the lands their God announcing,
hid beneath a form of earth.
By its lambent beauty guided,
see, the eastern kings appear;
see them bend, their gifts to offer,
gifts of incense, gold and myrrh.
Solemn things of mystic meaning:
incense doth the God disclose;
gold a royal Child proclaimeth;
myrrh a future tomb foreshows.
Holy Jesu, in thy brightness
to the Gentile world displayed,
with the Father and the Spirit
endless praise to thee be paid.


Psalm 105 (106)
The Lord's goodness and his people's infidelity

O Lord, remember us: 
come to us with your help

Give praise to the Lord, for he is good,
for his kindness is for ever.
Who shall tell of his powerful deeds?
Who shall proclaim the praises of the Lord?
Blessed are they who keep his decrees,
who do right at all times.
Remember us, Lord, in your love for your people,
and bring us your salvation,
so that we may see the good things you have kept for your chosen ones,
that we may rejoice in the joys of your people,
that we may glory with those whom you have made your heirs.
Like our fathers, we too have sinned:
we have done wrong, we have transgressed.
Our fathers, in Egypt, did not understand your miracles;
they did not remember the abundance of your mercies,
but rebelled as they approached the Red Sea.
Still he saved them, for his own name’s sake,
and to make known his mighty power.
He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up.
He led them through its depths as if through a desert.
He saved them from the hands of those who hated them,
he set them free from slavery at the hands of their enemies.
The water covered their oppressors:
not one was left alive.
Then they believed his word,
and they sang his praises.
But soon they forgot what he had done,
and refused to submit to his direction.
They embraced desire in the desert
and put God to the test in the waterless places.
He gave them all they requested,
he filled their hearts with his abundance.
But in the camp, they grew jealous of Moses
and Aaron, consecrated to the Lord.
The earth opened and swallowed Dathan,
covered the party of Abiram.
Fire broke out against them,
flames burnt up the sinners.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

O Lord, remember us: 
come to us with your help


Psalm 105 (106)

Take care you do not forget the covenant the Lord your God has made with you.

At Horeb they made a calf
and worshipped a statue.
They exchanged the glory of their people
for the likeness of a bull, that eats grass.
They forgot their God, who had saved them,
who had done great miracles for them in Egypt,
wonders in the land of Ham,
terrors at the Red Sea.
Then he said that he would destroy them,
but Moses, his chosen one, was there:
he stood in the breach before him
to turn aside his wrath,
to prevent the destruction.
To them, the Promised Land meant nothing,
they did not believe the Lord’s word.
They stayed muttering in their tents,
they were deaf to the voice of the Lord.
So he raised his hand against them
to crush them in the desert,
to scatter their seed among the nations,
to disperse them in foreign lands.
They made themselves followers of Baal-Peor,
they ate the sacrifices of the dead.
They angered the Lord by their actions,
and a plague broke out among them.
Then Phinehas stood up and gave judgement,
and the plague was stopped.
For this, he is revered as one of the just,
from generation to generation,
for all eternity.
At the waters of Meribah they so angered the Lord
that Moses suffered on their account:
they so embittered his spirit
that his lips spoke rash words.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Take care you do not forget the covenant the Lord your God has made with you.


Psalm 105 (106)

O Lord, save us; 
gather us from among the nations.

They did not destroy the peoples
as the Lord had told them they must.
They mingled themselves with the peoples,
and learned to do as they did.
They served the same idols
until it became their undoing.
They sacrificed their own sons
and their daughters to demons.
They poured out innocent blood.
The blood of their own sons and daughters
was sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.
Their blood polluted the land,
and their actions defiled them.
They devoted themselves to whoring.
The Lord blazed out in anger against his own people,
he detested his own chosen race.
He gave them into the hands of foreigners,
they were conquered by those who hated them.
Their enemies persecuted them
and humbled them beneath their hands.
Many times he freed them,
but they turned him against themselves
by falling back into wickedness.
Still he looked upon their distress
when he heard their cries.
He remembered his covenant,
and in his infinite kindness he repented.
He made them an object of pity
and kindness to all their captors.
Save us, O Lord, our God,
and gather us from among the nations,
so that we may proclaim your holy name,
and rejoice as we praise you.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from the beginning and for all time.
And all the people shall cry, “Amen!”

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

O Lord, save us; 
gather us from among the nations.


He was the true light
– that enlightens all men.


Reading
Isaiah 66:10-14,18-23

Rejoice, Jerusalem,
be glad for her, all you who love her!
Rejoice, rejoice for her,
all you who mourned her!
That you may be suckled, filled,
from her consoling breast,
that you may savour with delight
her glorious breasts.
For thus says the Lord:
Now towards her I send flowing
peace, like a river,
and like a stream in spate
the glory of the nations.
At her breast will her nurslings be carried
and fondled in her lap.
Like a son comforted by his mother
will I comfort you.
And by Jerusalem you will be comforted.
At the sight your heart will rejoice,
and your bones flourish like the grass.
To his servants the Lord will reveal his hand,
but to his enemies his fury.

I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory. I will give them a sign and send some of their survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put, Lud, Moshech, Rosh, Tubal, and Javan, to the distant islands that have never heard of me or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory to the nations. As an offering to the Lord they will bring all your brothers, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, on dromedaries, from all the nations to my holy mountain in Jerusalem, says the Lord, 
like Israelites bringing oblations in clean vessels to the Temple of the Lord. And of some of them I will make priests and Levites, says the Lord.

For as the new heavens
and the new earth I shall make
will endure before me
– it is the Lord who speaks –
so will your race and name endure.
From New Moon to New Moon,
from sabbath to sabbath,
all mankind will come to bow down
in my presence, says the Lord.


Responsory

I am coming to gather the nations of every language.
They shall come to witness my glory and proclaim it to the nations.

I have made your name known to the men you took from the world to give me:
as you sent me into the world,
I have sent them into the world.
They shall come to witness my glory and proclaim it to the nations.


Reading
A sermon by Faustus of Riez

The marriage of Christ and the Church

On the third day there was a wedding. What wedding can this be but the joyful marriage of man’s salvation, a marriage celebrated by confessing the Trinity or by faith in the resurrection. That is why the marriage took place “on the third day,” 
a reference to the sacred mysteries which this number symbolises.

Hence, too, we read elsewhere in the Gospel that the return of the younger son, that is, the conversion of the pagans, is marked by song, 
and music and wedding garments.

Like a bridegroom coming from his marriage chamber our God descended to earth in his incarnation, in order to be united to his Church which was to be formed of the pagan nations. To her he gave a pledge and a dowry: a pledge when God was united to man; 
a dowry when he was sacrificed for man’s salvation. The pledge is our present redemption; the dowry, eternal life.

To those who see only with the outward eye, all these events at Cana are strange and wonderful; to those who understand, they are also signs. For, if we look closely, the very water tells us of our rebirth in baptism. One thing is turned into another from within, and in a hidden way a lesser creature is changed into a greater. All this points to the hidden reality of our second birth. There water was suddenly changed; later it will cause a change in man.

By Christ’s action in Galilee, then, wine is made, that is, the law withdraws and grace takes its place; the shadows fade and truth becomes present; fleshly realities are coupled with spiritual, and the old covenant with its outward discipline is transformed into the new. For, as the Apostle says: The old order has passed away; now all is new! The water in the jars is not less than it was before, but now begins to be what it had not been; 
so too the law is not destroyed by Christ’s coming, but is made better than it was.

When the wine fails, new wine is served: the wine of the old covenant was good’ but the wine of the new is better. The old covenant, 
which Jews follow, is exhausted by its letter; the new covenant, which belongs to us, has the savour of life and is filled with grace.

The good wine, that is, good precepts, refers to the law; thus we read: You shall love your neighbour but hate your enemy. 
But the Gospel is a better and a stronger wine: My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.


Responsory

Holy City, your light shall shine brightly to all the ends of the earth.
Many nations shall come to you from afar:
they shall bring gifts in their hands for the King of heaven.

From east and west people will come,
from north and south;
they shall bring gifts in their hands for the King of heaven.

Let us pray.

Almighty, ever-living God,
through Christ your Son you made of us a new creation.
Shape us, then, in his likeness,
since in him our human nature now lives with you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.