PRAYER OF THE DAY

Prayer to God the Father of All Life

Eternal God, You have revealed Yourself as the Father of all Life.

We praise You for the Fatherly care which You extend to all creation,

and especially to us, made in Your image and likeness.

Father, extend Your hand of protection to those threatened by abortion, and save them from its destructive power.

Give Your strength to all fathers, that they may never give in to the fears that may tempt them to facilitate abortions.

Bless our families and bless our land,

that we may have the joy of welcoming and nurturing the life of which You are the source and the Eternal Father.

Amen.

DAILY MASS READINGS

Monday, Weekday in Ordinary Time

Reading

2 Sm 5:1-7, 10

All the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said:

"Here we are, your bone and your flesh.

In days past, when Saul was our king,

it was you who led the children of Israel out and brought them back.

And the LORD said to you, 'You shall shepherd my people Israel

and shall be commander of Israel.'"

When all the elders of Israel came to David in Hebron,

King David made an agreement with them there before the LORD,

and they anointed him king of Israel.

David was thirty years old when he became king,

and he reigned for forty years:

seven years and six months in Hebron over Judah,

and thirty-three years in Jerusalem

over all Israel and Judah.

Then the king and his men set out for Jerusalem

against the Jebusites who inhabited the region.

David was told, "You cannot enter here:

the blind and the lame will drive you away!"

which was their way of saying, "David cannot enter here."

But David did take the stronghold of Zion, which is the City of David.

David grew steadily more powerful,

for the LORD of hosts was with him.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 89:20, 21-22, 25-26

R. My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him.

Once you spoke in a vision,

and to your faithful ones you said:

"On a champion I have placed a crown;

over the people I have set a youth."

R. My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him.

"I have found David, my servant;

with my holy oil I have anointed him,

That my hand may be always with him,

and that my arm may make him strong."

R. My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him.

"My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him,

and through my name shall his horn be exalted.

I will set his hand upon the sea,

his right hand upon the rivers."

R. For they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

Gospel

Mk 3:22-30

The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said of Jesus,

"He is possessed by Beelzebul," and

"By the prince of demons he drives out demons."

Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,

"How can Satan drive out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

And if a house is divided against itself,

that house will not be able to stand.

And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided,

he cannot stand;

that is the end of him.

But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property

unless he first ties up the strong man.

Then he can plunder his house.

Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies

that people utter will be forgiven them.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit

will never have forgiveness,

but is guilty of an everlasting sin."

For they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

SAINT OF THE DAY

January 23

Blessed Mother Marianne Cope (1838-1918)

Though leprosy scared off most people in 19th-century Hawaii, that disease sparked great generosity in the woman who came to be known as Mother Marianne of Molokai. Her courage helped tremendously to improve the lives of its victims in Hawaii, a territory annexed to the United States during her lifetime (1898).

Mother Marianne’s generosity and courage were celebrated at her May 14, 2005, beatification in Rome. She was a woman who spoke “the language of truth and love” to the world, said Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. Cardinal Martins, who presided at the beatification Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, called her life “a wonderful work of divine grace.” Speaking of her special love for persons suffering from leprosy, he said, “She saw in them the suffering face of Jesus. Like the Good Samaritan, she became their mother.”

On January 23, 1838, a daughter was born to Peter and Barbara Cope of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany. The girl was named after her mother. Two years later the Cope family emigrated to the United States and settled in Utica, New York. Young Barbara worked in a factory until August 1862, when she went to the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Syracuse, New York. After profession in November of the next year, she began teaching at Assumption parish school.

Marianne held the post of superior in several places and was twice the novice mistress of her congregation. A natural leader, three different times she was superior of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, where she learned much that would be useful during her years in Hawaii.

Elected provincial in 1877, Mother Marianne was unanimously re-elected in 1881. Two years later the Hawaiian government was searching for someone to run the Kakaako Receiving Station for people suspected of having leprosy. More than 50 religious communities in the United States and Canada were asked. When the request was put to the Syracuse sisters, 35 of them volunteered immediately. On October 22, 1883, Mother Marianne and six other sisters left for Hawaii where they took charge of the Kakaako Receiving Station outside Honolulu; on the island of Maui they also opened a hospital and a school for girls.

In 1888, Mother Marianne and two sisters went to Molokai to open a home for “unprotected women and girls” there. The Hawaiian government was quite hesitant to send women for this difficult assignment; they need not have worried about Mother Marianne! On Molokai she took charge of the home that Blessed Damien de Veuster [May 10, d. 1889] had established for men and boys. Mother Marianne changed life on Molokai by introducing cleanliness, pride and fun to the colony. Bright scarves and pretty dresses for the women were part of her approach.

Awarded the Royal Order of Kapiolani by the Hawaiian government and celebrated in a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mother Marianne continued her work faithfully. Her sisters have attracted vocations among the Hawaiian people and still work on Molokai.

Mother Marianne died on August 9, 1918 and was beatified in 2005. A second miracle was officially confirmed in December 2011; to date, Mother Marianne's canonization has not yet been scheduled.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.

And my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Invitatory Psalm

Psalm 99 (100)

Let us come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

– Let us come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,

and serve him with joy.

Exult as you enter his presence.

– Let us come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

Know that the Lord is God.

He made us and we are his

– his people, the sheep of his flock.

– Let us come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

Cry out his praises as you enter his gates,

fill his courtyards with songs.

Proclaim him and bless his name;

for the Lord is our delight.

His mercy lasts for ever,

his faithfulness through all the ages.

– Let us come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

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 come before the Lord and proclaim our thanks.

Hymn

Our limbs refreshed with slumber now,

And sloth cast off, in prayer we bow;

And while we sing thy praises dear,

O Father, be thou present here.

To thee our earliest morning song,

To thee our hearts’ full powers belong;

And thou, O Holy One prevent

Each following action and intent.

As shades at morning flee away,

And night before the star of day;

So each transgression of the night

Be purged by thee, celestial light!

Cut off, we pray Thee, each offence,

And every lust of thought and sense;

That by their lips who thee adore

Thou mayst be praised forevermore.

Grant this, O Father ever One

With Christ, thy sole-begotten Son,

And Holy Ghost, whom all adore,

Reigning and blest forevermore.

Psalm 49 (50)

True reverence for the Lord

Our God comes openly, he keeps silence no longer.

The Lord, the God of gods has spoken:

he has summoned the whole earth, from east to west.

God has shone forth from Zion in her great beauty.

Our God will come, and he will not be silent.

Before him, a devouring fire;

around him, a tempest rages.

He will call upon the heavens above, and on the earth, to judge his people.

“Bring together before me my chosen ones, who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice.”

The heavens will proclaim his justice; for God is the true judge.

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.

Our God comes openly, he keeps silence no longer.

Psalm 49 (50)

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.

Listen, my people, and I will speak;

Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

I will not reproach you with your sacrifices,

for your burnt offerings are always before me.

But I will not accept calves from your houses,

nor goats from your flocks.

For all the beasts of the forests are mine,

and in the hills, a thousand animals.

All the birds of the air – I know them.

Whatever moves in the fields – it is mine.

If I am hungry, I will not tell you;

for the whole world is mine, and all that is in it.

Am I to eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

Offer a sacrifice to God – a sacrifice of praise;

to the Most High, fulfil your vows.

Then you may call upon me in the time of trouble:

I will rescue you, and you will honour me.

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.

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.

Psalm 49 (50)

I want love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.

To the sinner, God has said this:

Why do you recite my statutes?

Why do you dare to speak my covenant?

For you hate what I teach you,

and reject what I tell you.

The moment you saw a thief, you joined him;

you threw in your lot with adulterers.

You spoke evil with your mouth,

and your tongue made plans to deceive.

Solemnly seated, you denounced your own brother;

you poured forth hatred against your own mother’s son.

All this you did, and I was silent;

so you thought that I was just like you.

But I will reprove you –

I will confront you with all you have done.

Understand this, you who forget God;

lest I tear you apart, with no-one there to save you.

Whoever offers up a sacrifice of praise gives me true honour;

whoever follows a sinless path in life will be shown the salvation of God.

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 want love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.

Listen, my people, and I shall speak.

– I am God, your God.

Reading

Deuteronomy 24:1-25:4

Relations with one's neighbor

Supposing a man has taken a wife and consummated the marriage; but she has not pleased him and he has found some impropriety of which to accuse her; so he has made out a writ of divorce for her and handed it to her and then dismissed her from his house; she leaves his home and goes away to become the wife of another man. If this other man takes a dislike to her and makes out a writ of divorce for her and hands it to her and dismisses her from his house (or if this other man who took her as his wife happens to die), her first husband, who has repudiated her, may not take her back as his wife now that she has been defiled in this way. For that is detestable in the sight of the Lord, and you must not bring guilt on the land that the Lord your God gives for your inheritance.

If a man is newly married, he shall not join the army nor is he to be pestered at home; he shall be left at home free of all obligations for one year to bring joy to the wife he has taken.

No man may take a mill or a millstone in pledge; that would be to take life itself in pledge.

If anyone is found kidnapping one of his brothers, one of the sons of Israel, whether he makes him his slave or sells him, that thief must die. You must banish this evil from your midst.

In a case of leprosy, take care you faithfully observe and follow exactly all that the levitical priests direct you to do. You are to keep and observe all that I have commanded them. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam when you were on your way out of Egypt.

If you are making your fellow a loan on pledge, you are not to go into his house and seize the pledge, whatever it may be. You must stay outside, and the man to whom you are making the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. And if the man is poor, you are not to go to bed with his pledge in your possession; you must return it to him at sunset so that he can sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be a good action on your part in the sight of the Lord your God.

You are not to exploit the hired servant who is poor and destitute, whether he is one of your brothers or a stranger who lives in your towns. You must pay him his wage each day, not allowing the sun to set before you do, for he is poor and is anxious for it; otherwise he may appeal to the Lord against you, and it would be a sin for you.

Fathers may not be put to death for their sons, nor sons for fathers. Each is to be put to death for his own sin.

You must not pervert justice in dealing with a stranger or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I lay this charge on you.

When reaping the harvest in your field, if you have overlooked a sheaf in that field, do not go back for it. Leave it for the stranger, the orphan and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings.

When you beat your olive trees you must not go over the branches twice. Let anything left be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow.

When you harvest your vineyard you must not pick it over a second time. Let anything left be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow.

Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. That is why I lay this charge on you.

If men have any dispute they must go to court for the judges to decide between them; these must declare the one who is right to be in the right, the one who is wrong to be in the wrong. If the one who is in the wrong deserves a flogging, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of strokes proportionate to his offence. He may impose forty strokes but no more, lest the flogging be too severe and your brother be degraded in your eyes.

You must not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the corn.

Responsory

Master, you have truly said that God is one; and to love him with all our heart and to love our neighbour as ourselves is far more than any burnt offerings or sacrifices.

A kindness repaid is an offering of flour; the way to please the Lord is to renounce evil, and to love him with all our heart and to love our neighbour as ourselves is far more than any burnt offerings or sacrifices.

Reading

Vatican II, "Gaudium et spes"

The holiness of married life and family life

A man and a woman, who by the marriage covenant of conjugal love ‘are no longer two, but one flesh’, render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions.

Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union, as well as the good of the children, imposes total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them.

Christ the Lord abundantly blessed this many-faceted love, welling up as it does from the fountain of divine love and structured as it is on the model of his union with the Church.

As God of old made himself present to his people through a covenant of love and fidelity, so now the Saviour of men and the spouse of the Church comes into the lives of married Christians through the sacrament of matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so that, just as he loved the Church and handed himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal.

Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church. Thus this love can lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and can aid and strengthen them in the sublime office of being a father or a mother.

For this reason, Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfil their conjugal and family obligations, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ. This spirit suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope, and charity. Thus they increasingly advance their own perfection, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God.

As a result, with their parents leading the way by example and family prayer, children and indeed everyone gathered around the family hearth will find a readier path to human maturity, salvation, and holiness. Graced with the dignity and office of fatherhood and motherhood, parents will energetically acquit themselves of a duty which devolves primarily on them, namely education, and especially religious education.

As living members of the family, children contribute in their own way to making their parents holy. For they will respond to the kindness of their parents with sentiments of gratitude, with love and trust. They will stand by them as children should when hardships overtake their parents and old age brings its loneliness.

Responsory

This is a great mystery, concerning Christ and the Church. Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.

Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.

Let us pray.

All-powerful, ever-living God,

direct our steps in the way of your love,

so that our whole life may be fragrant

with all we do in the name of Jesus, your beloved Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.

– Thanks be to God.