O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 66 (67)
Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
O God, take pity on us and bless us,
and let your face shine upon us,
so that your ways may be known across the world,
and all nations learn of your salvation.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
Let the peoples praise you, O God,
let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and rejoice,
for you judge the peoples with fairness
and you guide the nations of the earth.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
Let the peoples praise you, O God,
let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has produced its harvest:
may God, our God, bless us.
May God bless us,
may the whole world revere him.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
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.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
Hymn
The dusky veil of night hath laid
The varied hues of earth in shade;
Before thee, righteous Judge of all,
We contrite in confession fall.
Take far away our load of sin,
Our soiled minds make clean within:
Thy sovereign grace, O Christ, impart,
From all offense to guard our heart.
For lo! our mind is dull and cold,
envenomed by sin’s baneful hold:
Fain would it now the darkness flee
And seek, Redeemer, unto thee.
Far from it drive the shades of night,
Its inmost darkness put to flight;
Till in the daylight of the Blest
It joys to find itself at rest.
Almighty Father, hear our cry
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord most high,
Who with the Holy Ghost and thee
Doth live and reign eternally.
In time of defeat
Psalm 43 (44)
You have saved us, Lord, and we shall proclaim your name for all ages.
Our own ears have heard, O God,
and our fathers have proclaimed it to us,
what you did in their days, the days of old:
how with your own hand you swept aside the nations
and put us in their place,
struck them down to make room for us.
It was not by their own swords that our fathers took over the land,
it was not their own strength that gave them victory;
but your hand and your strength,
the light of your face,
for you were pleased in them.
You are my God and my king,
who take care for the safety of Jacob.
Through you we cast down your enemies;
in your name we crushed those who rose against us.
I will not put my hopes in my bow,
my sword will not bring me to safety;
for it was you who saved us from our afflictions,
you who set confusion among those who hated us.
We will glory in the Lord all the day,
and proclaim your name for all ages.
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.
You have saved us, Lord, and we shall proclaim your name for all ages.
Psalm 43 (44)
We are your inheritance, Lord: spare us, do not let us be a laughing-stock.
But now, God, you have spurned us and confounded us,
so that we must go into battle without you.
You have put us to flight in the sight of our enemies,
and those who hate us plunder us at will.
You have handed us over like sheep sold for food,
you have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for no money,
not even profiting by the exchange.
You have made us the laughing-stock of our neighbours,
mocked and derided by those who surround us.
The nations have made us a by-word,
the peoples toss their heads in scorn.
All the day I am ashamed,
I blush with shame
as they reproach me and revile me,
my enemies and my persecutors.
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.
We are your inheritance, Lord: spare us, do not let us be a laughing-stock.
Psalm 43 (44)
Rise up, Lord, and help us. In your mercy, redeem us.
All this happened to us,
but not because we had forgotten you.
We were not disloyal to your covenant;
our hearts did not turn away;
our steps did not wander from your path;
and yet you brought us low,
with horrors all about us:
you overwhelmed us in the shadows of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God,
if we had spread out our hands before an alien god —
would God not have known?
He knows what is hidden in our hearts.
It is for your sake that we face death all the day,
that we are reckoned as sheep to be slaughtered.
Awake, Lord, why do you sleep?
Rise up, do not always reject us.
Why do you turn away your face?
How can you forget our poverty and our tribulation?
Our souls are crushed into the dust,
our bodies dragged down to the earth.
Rise up, Lord, and help us.
In your mercy, redeem 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.
Rise up, Lord, and help us. In your mercy, redeem us.
Lord, to whom shall we go?
– You have the words of eternal life.
Reading
Joshua 5:13-6:21
When Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw a man standing there before him, grasping a naked sword. Joshua walked towards him and said to him, ‘Are you with us or with our enemies?’ He answered, ‘No, I am captain of the army of the Lord, and now I come...’ Joshua fell on his face to the ground and worshipped him and said, ‘What are my Lord’s commands to his servant?’ The captain of the army of the Lord answered Joshua, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy.’ And Joshua obeyed.
Now Jericho had been carefully barricaded against the Israelites; no one came out, no one went in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Now I am delivering Jericho and its king into your hands. All you fighters, valiant warriors, will march round the town and make the circuit once, and for six days you will do the same thing. But seven priests will carry seven trumpets in front of the ark. On the seventh day you will go seven times round the town and the priests will blow their trumpets. When the ram’s horn rings out, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, the whole people must utter a mighty war cry and the town wall will collapse then and there; then the people can storm the town, each man going straight ahead.’
Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, ‘Take up the ark of the covenant, and seven priests are to carry seven trumpets of ram’s horn in front of the ark of the Lord.’ He said to the people, ‘Forward! March round the town and let the vanguard march before the ark of the Lord.’ All was done as Joshua ordered the people. Seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of ram’s horn in front of the Lord moved onwards and blew their trumpets; the ark of the covenant of the Lord came behind them, the vanguard marched in front of the priests with their trumpets, the rearguard followed behind the ark; the men marched, the trumpets sounded.
Joshua had given the people the following order: ‘Do not shout, do not utter even a word; let nothing be heard from you till the day when I say: Raise the war cry. Then you are to shout.’
At Joshua’s command, the ark of the Lord went round the town and made the circuit once; then they returned to the camp and spent the night there. Joshua rose early and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. Bearing the seven ram’s horn trumpets, the seven priests walked before the ark of the Lord sounding their trumpets as they went, while the vanguard marched before them and the rearguard behind the ark of the Lord, and the march went on to the sound of the trumpet.
They marched once round the town on the second day and returned to the camp, and so on for six days. On the seventh day they rose at dawn and marched seven times round the town in the same manner. Only on that day did they march round seven times. At the seventh time the priests blew their trumpets and Joshua said to the people, ‘Raise the war cry, because the Lord has given the town into your hands.
‘The town and everything inside it must be set apart for the Lord under a ban; only the life of Rahab the harlot is to be spared, with all who are in her house, since she hid the messengers we sent. But beware of the ban yourselves; do not be covetous and take anything that is under the ban; that would lay the whole camp of Israel open to the same ban and bring disaster on it. All the silver and all the gold, all the things of bronze and things of iron are consecrated to the Lord and must be put into his treasury.’
The people shouted, the trumpets sounded. When they heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a mighty war cry and the wall collapsed then and there. At once the people stormed the town, every man going straight ahead; and they captured the town. They enforced the ban on everything in the town: men and women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all.
Responsory
Lord, you are my God: I extol you, I praise your name. The town which you have made a ruin will never be rebuilt.
It was through faith that the walls of Jericho fell down when the people had marched round them for seven days. The town which you have made a ruin will never be rebuilt.
Reading
A sermon of Origen
The conquest of Jericho
Jericho is besieged and surrounded but has yet to fall. How is it to be conquered? Not with arrows or swords or battering-ram. Nothing is deployed but the priests’ trumpets, and the walls of Jericho crumble.
In Scripture we often find Jericho used as a symbol of the world. Even in the Gospel, when the traveller from Jerusalem to Jericho is set upon by robbers, is he not an image of Adam, thrown out of paradise into exile in this world? And again, those blind men who were in Jericho, when Jesus came to them to give them sight, are they not an example of those who live in this world, oppressed by the blindness of ignorance until the Son of God enlightens them?
And so this Jericho – this world – must fall. The consummation of this present age has long been prophesied by the sacred books.
How will this consummation come about? By what means? Scripture tells us, at the sound of the trumpet. What trumpet is that? Paul gives you the key to this secret. Listen to him: The trumpet will sound, and the dead who are in Christ will be raised, imperishable. At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Then, therefore, our Lord Jesus will come with trumpets to conquer Jericho and throw it down, so that out of all its people there will survive only the prostitute and her household. Our Lord Jesus will come down, come down with the sound of the trumpet.
May he save that one woman who gave succour to his spies, who received his Apostles in trust and obedience and hid them in her roof. May he take that prostitute and give her a share with the house of Israel. But let us not go over this story again and label her with the name of her past sin. She may have been a prostitute once but now she is a chaste virgin, joined to her chaste spouse, who is Christ. Listen to what St Paul says about her: I arranged for you to marry Christ so that I might give you away as a chaste virgin to this one husband. And he was still speaking of her when he said: There was a time when we too were ignorant, disobedient and misled and enslaved by different passions and luxuries.
Do you want to know more about how the prostitute ceased to be a prostitute? Listen again to Paul: These are the sort of people you were once, but now you have been washed clean, and sanctified, and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God. To enable to escape the destruction of Jericho she received from the spies a powerful sign of safety, the scarlet rope. For it is through the blood of Christ that the whole Church is saved, in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belong glory and power throughout all the ages. Amen.
Responsory
I beckon to the nations and raise my signal for the peoples; then all mankind shall know that I, the Lord, am your saviour and that your redeemer is the Mighty One of Jacob.
When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he; then all mankind shall know that I, the Lord, am your saviour and that your redeemer is the Mighty One of Jacob.
O God, all good things come from you. We ask you to grant us these gifts:
that inspired by you, our thoughts may be righteous;
that guided by you, our actions may match our thoughts.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
Amen.
