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
O Three in One, and One in Three,
Who rulest all things mightily,
Bow down to hear the songs of praise
Which, freed from bonds of sleep, we raise.
While lingers yet the peace of night,
We rouse us from our slumbers light;
That might of instant prayer may win
The healing balm for wounds of sin.
If, by the wiles of Satan caught,
This night-time we have sinned in aught,
That sin thy glorious power today,
From heaven descending, cleanse away.
Let naught impure our bodies stain,
No laggard sloth our souls detain,
No taint of sin our spirits know,
To chill the fervour of their glow.
Wherefore, Redeemer, grant that we
Fulfilled with thine own light may be:
That, in our course, from day to day,
By no misdeed we fall away.
Grant this, O Father ever One
With Christ, thy sole-begotten Son,
And Holy Ghost, whom all adore,
Reigning and blest for evermore.
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
Micah 6:1-15
Now listen to what the Lord is saying:
Stand up and let the case begin in the hearing of the mountains
and let the hills hear what you say.
Listen, you mountains, to the Lord’s accusation,
give ear, you foundations of the earth,
for the Lord is accusing his people,
pleading against Israel:
My people, what have I done to you,
how have I been a burden to you? Answer me.
I brought you out of the land of Egypt,
I rescued you from the house of slavery;
I sent Moses to lead you,
with Aaron and Miriam.
My people, remember:
what did Balak plot, that king of Moab?
What did Balaam answer, that son of Beor?
From Shittim to Gilgal,
for you to know the rightness of the ways of the Lord.
‘With what gift shall I come into the Lord’s presence
and bow down before God on high?
Shall I come with holocausts,
with calves one year old?
Will he be pleased with rams by the thousand,
with libations of oil in torrents?
Must I give my first-born for what I have done wrong,
the fruit of my body for my own sin?’
What is good has been explained to you, man;
this is what the Lord asks of you:
only this, to act justly,
to love tenderly
and to walk humbly with your God.
The voice of the Lord. He is calling to the city:
Listen, tribe, and assembly of the city
whose rich men are crammed with violence,
whose citizens are liars.
Must I put up with fraudulent measure,
or that abomination the short-weight bushel?
Must I hold the man honest who measures with false scales
and a bag of faked weights?
I have therefore begun to strike you down,
to bring you to ruin for your sins.
You will eat but never be satisfied,
store away but never preserve –
and what is preserved I shall give to the sword.
You will sow but never reap,
press the olive but never rub yourself with oil,
press the grape but never drink wine from it.
Responsory
What is good has been explained to you, O man. This is what the Lord asks of you: act rightly and justly and walk humbly with your God.
If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will dwell in the land: act rightly and justly and walk humbly with your God.
Reading
St Pacian's sermon on Baptism
Let us follow a new way of life through the Spirit
The sin of Adam passed on to the whole human race. As St Paul says, Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race. So the righteousness of Christ has to pass on to the whole human race also; and as Adam ruined all his descendants by sin, so must Christ, through righteousness, give life to his entire race. St Paul makes this point, saying As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. Just as sin reigned and brought death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life through righteousness.
Someone might object as follows: “The sin of Adam deservedly passed on his posterity, because they were born of him. And are we then born of Christ, that we can be saved through him?” Stop thinking simply in terms of the body: then you will see in what sense Christ is our parent and we are born of him. In these last days Christ took a soul and body from Mary. It is this flesh that he came to save, that he did not abandon to the underworld: he united it with his own spirit and made it his own. This is the marriage of the Lord, united with the flesh of man, a mystery uniting the two — Christ and the Church — in one flesh.
From this marriage and from the coming of the Spirit of the Lord from above, the Christian people is born. The substance of our souls receives the seed of heaven: we are conceived in the womb of our mother and born of that womb we receive life in Christ. So St Paul says, The first man, Adam, as scripture says, “became a living soul;” but the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. It is through his priests that Christ sows his seed in the Church. St Paul, again, says: It was I who begot you in Christ Jesus. It is the seed of Christ, that is, the Spirit of God, that produces the new man through the priest’s hands, conceived in the womb of his mother and born in the baptismal font under the auspices of faith.
We must receive Christ so that he can give us birth, as the Apostle John says: To all who accepted him he gave power to become children of God. But this cannot be brought about except by the sacrament of cleansing and anointing, the sacrament which the bishop administers. Sins are washed away by the cleansing waters of the font; the Holy Spirit is infused by oil of chrism; and we receive both at the bishop’s hands and through his words. Thus the whole man is born again and made new in Christ: so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. That is, having put behind us the errors of our former life, we should through the Spirit follow a new way of life in Christ.
Responsory
As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be reconciled to God. Just as sin reigned where there was death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ.
God sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. Just as sin reigned where there was death, so grace will reign to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
Almighty, ever-living God,
we confidently call you Father as well as Lord.
Renew your Spirit in our hearts:
make us ever more perfectly your children,
so that we may enter upon the inheritance you have promised us.
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.
