O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
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.
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
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.
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
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.
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
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.”
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
“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.”
– Let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
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 give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy lasts for ever.
Hymn
When God of old came down from heaven,
In power and wrath he came.
Before his feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame;
But when he came the second time,
He came in power and love.
Softer than gale at morning prime
Hovered his holy Dove.
The fires that rushed on Sinai down
In sudden torrents dread,
Now gently light, a glorious crown,
On every sainted head.
And when the Spirit of our God
Came down his flock to find,
A voice from heaven was heard abroad,
A rushing, mighty wind.
It fills the Church of God, it fills
The sinful world around;
Only in stubborn hearts and wills
No place for it is found.
Come Lord, come Wisdom, Love and Power,
Open our ears to hear.
Let us not miss the accepted hour!
Save, Lord, by love or fear.
I am consumed with zeal for your house
Psalm 68 (69)
I am wearied with all my crying as I await my God.
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I am stuck in bottomless mud;
I am adrift in deep waters
and the flood is sweeping me away.
I am exhausted with crying out, my throat is parched,
my eyes are failing as I look out for my God.
Those who hate me for no reason
are more than the hairs of my head.
They are strong, my persecutors, my lying enemies:
they make me give back things I never took.
God, you know my weakness:
my crimes are not hidden from you.
Let my fate not put to shame those who trust in you,
Lord, Lord of hosts.
Let them not be dismayed on my account,
those who seek you, God of Israel.
For it is for your sake that I am taunted
and covered in confusion:
I have become a stranger to my own brothers,
a wanderer in the eyes of my mother’s children –
because zeal for your house is consuming me,
and the taunts of those who hate you
fall upon my head.
I have humbled my soul with fasting
and they reproach me for it.
I have made sackcloth my clothing
and they make me a byword.
The idlers at the gates speak against me;
for drinkers of wine, I am the butt of their songs.
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.
I am wearied with all my crying as I await my God.
Psalm 68 (69)
For food they gave me poison, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
But I turn my prayer to you, Lord,
at the acceptable time, my God.
In your great kindness, hear me,
and rescue me with your faithful help.
Tear me from the mire, before I become stuck;
tear me from those who hate me;
tear me from the depths of the waters.
Do not let the waves overwhelm me;
do not let the deep waters swallow me;
do not let the well’s mouth engulf me.
Hear me, Lord, for you are kind and good.
In your abundant mercy, look upon me.
Do not turn your face from your servant:
I am suffering, so hurry to answer me.
Come to my soul and deliver it,
rescue me from my enemies’ attacks.
You know how I am taunted and ashamed;
how I am thrown into confusion.
You can see all those who are troubling me.
Reproach has shattered my heart – I am sick.
I looked for sympathy, but none came;
I looked for a consoler but did not find one.
They gave me bitterness to eat;
when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink.
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.
For food they gave me poison, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Psalm 68 (69)
Seek the Lord, and he will give life to your soul.
I am weak and I suffer,
but your help, O God, will sustain me.
I will praise the name of God in song
and proclaim his greatness with praises.
This will please the Lord more than oxen,
than cattle with their horns and hooves.
Let the humble see and rejoice.
Seek the Lord, and your heart shall live,
for the Lord has heard the needy
and has not despised his captive people.
Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and all that swims in them.
For the Lord will make Zion safe
and build up the cities of Judah:
there they will live, the land will be theirs.
The seed of his servants will inherit the land,
and those who love his name will dwell there.
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.
Seek the Lord, and he will give life to your soul.
The Lord will teach us his ways
– and we shall walk in his paths.
Reading
Judges 13:1-25
Again the Israelites began to do what displeases the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren, she had borne no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her, ‘You are barren and have had no child. But from now on take great care. Take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb. It is he who will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has just come to me; his presence was like the presence of the angel of God, he was so majestic. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not reveal his name to me. But he said to me, “You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day.”’
Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord and said, ‘I beg you, Lord, let the man of God that you sent come to us once again and instruct us in what we must do with the boy when he is born.’ The Lord heard Manoah’s prayer for favour, and the angel of the Lord visited the woman again as she was sitting in the field; her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly and told her husband: ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again.’ Manoah rose and followed his wife, and he came to the man and said to him, ‘Are you the man who spoke to this woman?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ Manoah went on, ‘When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the boy’s rule of life? How must he behave?’ And the angel of the Lord answered Manoah, ‘The things that I forbade this woman, let him refrain from too. Let him taste nothing that comes from the vine, let him take no wine or strong drink, let him eat nothing unclean, let him obey all the orders I gave this woman.’ Manoah then said to the angel of the Lord, ‘Do us the honour of staying with us while we prepare a kid for you.’ For Manoah did not know this was the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘Even if I did stay with you, I would not eat your food; but if you wish to prepare a holocaust, offer it to the Lord.’ Manoah then said to the angel of the Lord, ‘What is your name, so that we may honour you when your words are fulfilled?’ The angel of the Lord replied, ‘Why ask my name? It is a mystery.’’ Then Manoah took the kid and the oblation and offered it as a holocaust on the rock to the Lord who works mysteries.’’ As the flame went up heavenwards from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame in the sight of Manoah and his wife, and they fell face downwards on the ground. After this, the angel of the Lord did not appear any more to Manoah and his wife, by which Manoah understood that this had been the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We are certain to die, because we have seen God.’ His wife answered him, ‘If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a holocaust and oblation from our hands; he would not have told us all these things.’ The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the spirit of the Lord began to move him in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Responsory
The angel said to Zechariah, ‘Your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John: he shall drink no wine nor any strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, for the boy shall be a Nazirite dedicated to God.’
The angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah and said to her, ‘You shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite dedicated to God.’
Reading
St Cyprian's treatise on the Lord's Prayer
As God's children, let us remain in the peace of God.
Christ has clearly added a law here, binding us to a definite condition, that we should ask for our debts to be forgiven us only as much as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that we cannot obtain what we seek in respect of our own sins unless we ourselves have acted in exactly the same way to those who have sinned against us. This is why he says in another place: By whatever standard you measure, by that standard will you too be measured. And the servant who had all his debt forgiven him by his master but would not forgive his fellow-servant was cast into prison: because he would not forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that his master had granted him.
And Christ makes this point even more strongly in his teaching: When you stand up to pray, he says, if you have anything against anyone, forgive it, so that your Father who is in heaven may forgive your sins. But if you do not forgive, nor will your Father in heaven forgive you. On the day of judgement there are no possible excuses: you will be judged according to your own sentence, and whatever you have inflicted, that is what you will suffer.
For God commands us to be peacemakers, and to agree, and to be of one mind in his house. What he has made us by the second birth he wishes us to continue during our infancy, that we who have begun to be children of God may abide in his peace, and that having one spirit we should also have one heart and one mind. Thus God does not accept the sacrifice of one who is in disagreement but commands him to go back from the altar and first be reconciled with his brother, so that God may be placated by the prayers of a peacemaker. Our peace and concord are the greatest possible sacrifice to God – a people united in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Not even when Abel and Cain were making the first sacrifice – not even then did God pay attention to their gifts. He looked into their hearts, and the gift that was acceptable was the one offered by the one who was acceptable in his heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence to God, taught the rest of us that when we bring our gift to the altar we should come, like him, with the fear of God, with a heart free of deceit, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. He sacrificed in such a way, and so he was worthy to become, afterwards, himself a sacrifice to God: he who bore witness through the first martyrdom, who initiated the Lord’s passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord’s righteousness and the Lord’s peace. Such are those who are crowned by the Lord at the end; such are those who will sit and judge with him on the day of judgement.
But he who quarrels and stirs up discord, he who is not at peace with his brethren – the Apostle and holy Scripture together testify that even if he meets death for the sake of Christ’s name, he will still be held guilty of fraternal dissension, for it is written, whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and the murderer cannot attain the kingdom of heaven or abide with God. No-one can be with Christ who preferred to imitate Judas rather than Christ.
Responsory
I implore you, for the sake of the Lord, to lead a life worthy of your vocation. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: when called, you were all called into the one and same hope.
May God grant you to live in such harmony with one another that together you may glorify God with one voice: when called, you were all called into the one and same hope.
Let us pray.
Lord God, strength of those who hope in you,
support us in our prayer:
because we are weak and can do nothing without you,
give us always the help of your grace
so that, in fulfilling your commandments,
we may please you in all we desire and do.
We make our prayer 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.
