PRAYER OF THE DAY

Prayer to Saint Jeanne Jugan,

foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor

Jesus, you rejoiced and praised Your Father for having revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. We thank You for the graces granted to Your humble servant, Jeanne Jugan, to whom we confide our petitions and needs.

Father of the Poor, You have never refused the prayer of the lowly. We ask You, therefore, to hear the petitions she presents to You on our behalf.

Jesus, through Mary, Your Mother and ours, we ask this of You, who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and forever.

Amen.

DAILY MASS READINGS

Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Reading

1 Cor 1:1-9

Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

and Sosthenes our brother,

to the Church of God that is in Corinth,

to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy,

with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always on your account

for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,

that in him you were enriched in every way,

with all discourse and all knowledge,

as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,

so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift

as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He will keep you firm to the end,

irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful,

and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Every day will I bless you,

and I will praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Generation after generation praises your works

and proclaims your might.

They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty

and tell of your wondrous works.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds

and declare your greatness.

They publish the fame of your abundant goodness

and joyfully sing of your justice.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Gospel

Mt 24:42-51

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Stay awake!

For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this:

if the master of the house

had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,

he would have stayed awake

and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared,

for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

"Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,

whom the master has put in charge of his household

to distribute to them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.

Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is long delayed,'

and begins to beat his fellow servants,

and eat and drink with drunkards,

the servant's master will come on an unexpected day

and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely

and assign him a place with the hypocrites,

where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."

SAINT OF THE DAY

August 30

St. Jeanne Jugan (1792-1879)

Born in northern France during the French Revolution—a time when congregations of women and men religious were being suppressed by the national government, Jeanne would eventually be highly praised in the French academy for her community's compassionate care of elderly poor people.

When Jeanne was three and a half years old, her father, a fisherman, was lost at sea. Her widowed mother was hard pressed to raise her eight children (four died young) alone. At the age of 15 or 16, Jeanne became a kitchen maid for a family that not only cared for its own members, but also served poor, elderly people nearby. Ten years later, Jeanne became a nurse at the hospital in Le Rosais. Soon thereafter she joined a third order group founded by St. John Eudes (August 19).

After six years she became a servant and friend of a woman she met through the third order. They prayed, visited the poor and taught catechism to children. After her friend's death, Jeanne and two other women continued a similar life in the city of Saint-Sevran. In 1839, they brought in their first permanent guest. They began an association, received more members and more guests. Mother Marie of the Cross, as Jeanne was now known, founded six more houses for the elderly by the end of 1849, all staffed by members of her association—the Little Sisters of the Poor. By 1853 the association numbered 500 and had houses as far away as England.

Abbé Le Pailleur, a chaplain, had prevented Jeanne's reelection as superior in 1843; nine year later, he had her assigned to duties within the congregation, but would not allow her to be recognized as its founder. He was removed from office by the Holy See in 1890.

By the time Pope Leo XIII gave her final approval to the community's constitutions in 1879, there were 2,400 Little Sisters of the Poor. Jeanne died later that same year, on August 30. Her cause was introduced in Rome in 1970, and she was beatified in 1982 and canonized in 2009.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.

  And my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Invitatory Psalm

Psalm 99 (100)

Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our God.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our God.

Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,

  and serve him with joy.

Exult as you enter his presence.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our God.

Know that the Lord is God.

He made us and we are his

 – his people, the sheep of his flock.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our God.

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.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our 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.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, for he is our God.

Hymn

Stanbrook Abbey Hymnal

Eternal Father, through your Word

You gave new life to Adam’s race,

And call us now to live in light,

New creatures by your saving grace.

To you who stooped to all who sin

We render homage and give praise:

To Father, Son and Spirit blest

Whose loving gift is endless days.

Psalm 17 (18)

Thanksgiving

The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.

The Lord’s ways are pure;

  the words of the Lord are refined in the furnace;

  the Lord protects all who hope in him.

For what God is there, but our Lord?

  What help, but in the Lord our God?

God, who has wrapped me in his strength

  and set me on the perfect path,

who has made my feet like those of the deer,

  who has set me firm upon the heights,

who trains my hands for battle,

  teaches my arms to bend a bow of bronze.

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.

The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.

Psalm 17 (18)

Lord, your right hand upheld me.

You have given me the shield of your salvation;

  your right hand holds me up;

  by answering me, you give me greatness.

You have stretched the length of my stride,

  my feet do not weaken.

I pursue my enemies and surround them;

  I do not turn back until they are no more.

I smash them to pieces, they cannot stand,

  they fall beneath my feet.

You have wrapped me round with strength for war,

  and made my attackers fall under me.

You turned my enemies’ backs on me,

  you destroyed those who hated me.

They cried out, but there was no-one to save them;

  they cried to the Lord, but he did not hear.

I have ground them up until they are dust in the wind,

  trodden them down like the mud of the street.

You have delivered me from the murmurings of the people

  and placed me at the head of the nations.

A people I do not even know serves me –

  at a mere rumour of my orders, they obey.

The children of strangers beg for my favour;

  they hide away and tremble where they hide.

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.

Lord, your right hand upheld me.

Psalm 17 (18)

Long life to the Lord! Praised be the God who saves me.

The Lord lives, my blessed Helper.

  Let the God of my salvation be exalted.

God, you give me my revenge,

  you subject peoples to my rule,

  you free me from my enraged enemies.

You raise me up from those who attack me,

  you snatch me from the grasp of the violent.

And so I will proclaim you among the nations, Lord,

  and sing to your name.

Time and again you save your king,

  you show your loving kindness to your anointed,

  to David and his descendants 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.

Long life to the Lord! Praised be the God who saves me.

Uncover my eyes, Lord,

– and I will consider the wonders of your Law.

Reading

Jeremiah 3:1-5,19-4:4 

If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him

to marry someone else,

may she still go back to him?

Has not that piece of land

been totally polluted?

And you, who have prostituted yourself with so many lovers,

you would come back to me? – it is the Lord who speaks.

Lift your eyes to the bare heights and look!

Is there a single place where you have not offered your body?

You waited by the roadside for clients

like an Arab in the desert.

You have polluted the country

with your prostitution and your vices:

this is why the showers have been withheld,

the late rains have not come.

And you maintained a prostitute’s bold front,

never thinking to blush.

Even then did you not cry to me, “My father!

You, the friend of my youth!

Will he keep his resentment for ever,

will he maintain his wrath to the end?”

That was what you said, and still you went on sinning,

you were so obstinate.

And I was thinking:

How I wanted to rank you with my sons,

and give you a country of delights,

the fairest heritage of all the nations!

I had thought you would call me: My father,

and would never cease to follow me.

But like a woman betraying her lover,

the House of Israel has betrayed me –

it is the Lord who speaks.

A noise is heard on the bare heights:

the weeping and entreaty of the sons of Israel,

because they have gone so wildly astray,

and forgotten the Lord their God.

‘Come back, disloyal sons,

I want to heal your disloyalty.’

‘We are here, we are coming to you,

for you are the Lord our God.

The heights are a delusion after all,

so is the tumult of the mountains.

‘The Lord our God is, after all,

the saving of Israel.

The Thing of Shame has devoured what our ancestors worked for

since our youth

(their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters).

Let us lie down in our shame, let our dishonour be our covering,

for we have sinned against the Lord our God

(we and our ancestors since our youth until today;

and we have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God).’

‘If you wish to come back, Israel – it is the Lord who speaks –

it is to me you must return.

Do away with your abominations

and you will have no need to avoid me.

If you swear, “As the Lord lives!”

truthfully, justly, honestly,

the nations will bless themselves by you,

and glory in you.

For thus speaks the Lord

to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

Clean your ground thoroughly,

sow nothing among thorns.

Circumcise yourselves for the Lord; off with the foreskin of your hearts

(men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem),

lest my wrath should leap out like a fire,

and burn with no one to quench it,

in return for the wickedness of your deeds.’

Responsory

If our crimes are witness against us, then, Lord, for your name’s sake, act! 

Yes, our apostasies have been many, we have sinned against you.

If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive? 

Yes, our apostasies have been many, we have sinned against you.

Reading

From the Instructions of St Columbanus

You, God, are everything to us

My brethren, let us follow this call. We are called to the source and fountain of life, by the Life who is not just the fountain of living water but also the fountain of eternal life, the fountain of light, the fountain and source of glory. From this Life comes everything: wisdom, life, eternal light. The Creator of life is the fountain from which life springs; the Creator of light is the fountain of light. So let us leave this world of visible things. Let us leave this world of time and head for the heavens. Like fish seeking water, like wise and rational fish let us seek the fountain of light, the fountain of life, the fountain of living water. Let us swim in, let us drink from the water of the spring welling up into eternal life.

  Merciful God, righteous Lord, grant that I may reach that fountain. There let me join the others who thirst for you, drinking living water from the living stream that flows from the fountain of life. Overwhelmed by its sweetness let me cling close to it and say “How sweet is the spring of living water that never runs dry, the spring that wells up into eternal life!.”

  O Lord, you yourself are that spring, always and for ever to be desired, always and for ever to be drunk from. Christ our Lord, give us this water as the Samarian woman once asked you, so that in us also it can be a spring of living water welling up into eternal life. It is an enormous gift I am asking – everyone knows that – but you, King of glory, have given great gifts in the past and made great promises. Nothing, after all, is greater than you; and yet you have given yourself to us and given yourself for us.

  Therefore we beg you that we should come to full knowledge of the thing that we love; for we pray to be given nothing other than you yourself. You are everything to us, our life, our light, our health and strength, our food, our drink, our God. Jesus, our Jesus, I beg you to fill our hearts with the breath of your Spirit. Pierce our souls with the sword of your love so that each of us can say truthfully in his heart, “Show me the one with whom my soul is in love, for by love I am wounded.”

  Lord, let me bear such wounds in my soul. Blessed is the soul that is wounded by such love and, thus wounded, seeks the fountain and drinks, thirsts even while it drinks: it seeks by loving, and the very wound of love brings it healing. May Jesus Christ, our righteous God and Lord, our true and healing doctor, deign to wound our innermost hearts with that healing wound. With the Father and the Holy Spirit he is one, for ever and for ever. Amen.

Responsory

Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst: 

the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

’Lord, give me this water that I may not thirst.’ 

The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Let us pray.

Lord, by your grace we are made one in mind and heart.

Give us a love for what you command

  and a longing for what you promise,

  so that, amid this world’s changes,

  our hearts may be set on the world of lasting joy.

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.