Tuesday, September 11, 2012

PRAYER OF THE DAY

PRAYER OF ST. JEAN GABRIEL

"O my Divine Savior,
Transform me into Yourself.
Grant that I may live but in You, by You, and for You,
So that I may truly say, with Saint Paul,
"'I live - now not I - But Christ lives in me.'"

St. Jean Gabriel

DAILY MASS READINGS

Tuesday in the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time

Reading
1 Corinthians 6:1-11

Is one of you with a complaint against another so brazen as to seek judgement from sinners and not from God's holy people? Do you not realise that the holy people of God are to be the judges of the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent for petty cases? Do you not realise that we shall be the judges of angels? - then quite certainly over matters of this life. But when you have matters of this life to be judged, you bring them before those who are of no account in the Church!

I say this to make you ashamed of yourselves. Can it really be that it is impossible to find in the community one sensible person capable of deciding questions between brothers, and that this is why brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? No; it is a fault in you, by itself, that one of you should go to law against another at all: why do you not prefer to suffer injustice, why not prefer to be defrauded? And here you are, doing the injustice and the defrauding, and to your own brothers.

Do you not realise that people who do evil will never inherit the kingdom of God? Make no mistake -- the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites, thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. Some of you used to be of that kind: but you have been washed clean, you have been sanctified, and you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.


Responsorial Psalm
Psalms 149:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 9

R. Alleluia! Sing a new song to Yahweh: 
his praise in the assembly of the faithful!

Israel shall rejoice in its Maker, the children of Zion delight in their king;
they shall dance in praise of his name, play to him on tambourines and harp!

R. Alleluia! Sing a new song to Yahweh: 
his praise in the assembly of the faithful!

For Yahweh loves his people, he will crown the humble with salvation.

R. Alleluia! Sing a new song to Yahweh: 
his praise in the assembly of the faithful!

The faithful exult in glory, shout for joy as they worship him, praising God to the heights with their voices, a two-edged sword in their hands, to execute on them the judgement passed -- to the honour of all his faithful.

R. Alleluia! Sing a new song to Yahweh: 
his praise in the assembly of the faithful!


Gospel
Luke 6:12-19

Now it happened in those days that he went onto the mountain to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them 'apostles':

Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.

He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples, with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.

SAINT OF THE DAY

September 11

St. Jean-Gabriel Perboyre (1802-1840)

A sermon he heard at age 15 inspired today’s saint to become a missionary in China. 
There he met a brutal death on a cross for refusing to renounce his faith.

Born in France in 1802, Jean-Gabriel became a Vincentian priest. He displayed so many gifts and had such fine personal and spiritual qualities that, for a time, his religious order kept him busy closer to home.

He finally received permission to begin his missionary endeavors in 1835. After a 1,000-mile trip by boat and foot across three provinces, he arrived in central China. In one early letter written to his community in Paris he described himself as a curious sight: 
“my head shaved, a long pig-tail, stammering my new languages, eating with chopsticks.”

He soon joined the Vincentians in helping to rescue abandoned Chinese children and in educating them in the Catholic faith. He was arrested in 1839 under an edict that banned Christianity. He was tortured and interrogated for months. 
Almost one year later he was executed by strangling while hanging on a cross.

St. Jean-Gabriel was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1996. 
Chinese government officials denied permission for any public Mass commemorating the new saint.


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, the great King.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, the great King.

Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,
and serve him with joy.
Exult as you enter his presence.

– Come, let us worship the Lord, the great King.

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, the great King.

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, the great King.

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, the great King.


Hymn

Worship, glory, praise and honour
To our God, high-throned above:
We, with many generations
Join to praise thy name of love.
In the scriptures, by the Spirit,
May we see the Saviour’s face,
Hear his word and heed his calling,
Know his will and grow in grace.


Psalm 67 (68)
The Lord's triumphal journey

Let God arise, let those who hate him flee before him.

God arises and his enemies are scattered:
those who hate him flee from his sight.
You blow them away like wisps of smoke;
as wax melts in front of a fire,
so the wicked melt away before God.
The righteous are glad and exult in God’s sight;
they rejoice in their gladness.
Sing to the Lord and celebrate his name!
Make a road for him who rides upon the clouds –
“The Lord” is his name.
Rejoice in his sight,
the father of orphans, defender of widows,
God in his holy dwelling-place,
God, who gives the lonely a house to dwell in,
God, who leads captives out into prosperity;
but the rebellious shall live in a desert land.
God, when you set out in the sight of your people,
when you crossed the wilderness – the earth shook.
The heavens sent down dew at your coming –
the God of Sinai, the God of Israel.
At your bidding the rains came, O God,
your inheritance was worn out but you refreshed it.
All your creatures took up residence there,
in your goodness you made a place for the needy.

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 God arise, let those who hate him flee before him.


Psalm 67 (68)

This God of ours is a God who saves.
The Lord holds the keys of death.

The Lord gives out the word,
and a great army of maidens brings the news:
“The kings of the armies are fleeing, they are fleeing,
and the fair one at home is dividing the spoils.
While you sleep among the sheepfolds,
the wings of the dove shine with silver,
her feathers glow with green gold.
Through her the Almighty scatters the kings,
and the mountain of Zalmon is white with snow.
The mountain of Bashan is God’s mountain;
the mountain of God is a high-peaked mountain.
Why do you envy it, you high-peaked mountains,
envy the mountain that God has chosen?
The Lord will dwell there for ever.
The chariots of God are ten thousand thousand:
the Lord has come from Sinai to his holy sanctuary.
You have scaled the heights, you have taken captives,
you have received men as gifts
so that even the rebels live with the Lord God.
Blessings on the Lord, day after day!
God will carry us, God our saviour.
Our God is a God of salvation,
our Lord is a Lord who rescues from death.
Truly God will break the heads of his enemies,
take the scalps of those who tread the path of crime.
The Lord has spoken:
“I shall bring them back from Bashan,
I shall bring them back from the depths of the sea,
so that your feet may be dipped in blood
and the tongues of your dogs receive food from your enemies.”

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.

This God of ours is a God who saves.
The Lord holds the keys of death.


Psalm 67 (68)

Kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, praise the Lord.

They have seen your processions, O God,
the processions of God, my king, to his sanctuary.
First came the singers, last the musicians,
between them the maidens playing their drums.
“Bless God in the assemblies:
bless the Lord, you who spring from Israel!”
There was young Benjamin, leading them,
the princes of Judah in their rich robes,
the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.
O God, command in your strength;
make firm what you have achieved in us.
From your temple in Jerusalem,
kings shall bring you tribute.
Rebuke the wild beast of the reeds,
the herd of bulls, the lords of peoples.
Let them lie prostrate before you with tribute of silver.
Scatter the peoples that delight in war.
Nobles will come from Egypt,
Ethiopia will stretch out its hands to God.
Kingdoms of the earth, sing to God;
celebrate the Lord.
Sing to God who rides on the highest heavens,
at the origin of all things.
Listen! – he speaks, a voice of power.
Acknowledge the strength of the Lord:
his majesty is over Israel,
his strength is in the clouds.
God inspires awe in his holy place;
he, the God of Israel, gives power to his people;
he gives them strength.
Blessed be 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.

Kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, praise the Lord.


I will hear whatever the Lord God has to say:
– words of peace for his people.


Reading
Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision.

How long, O Lord, am I to cry for help
while you will not listen;
to cry ‘Oppression!’ in your ear
and you will not save?
Why do you set injustice before me,
why do you look on where there is tyranny?
Outrage and violence, this is all I see,
all is contention, and discord flourishes.
And so the law loses its hold,
and justice never shows itself.
Yes, the wicked man gets the better of the upright,
and so justice is seen to be distorted.
Cast your eyes over the nations, look,
and be amazed, astounded.
For I am doing something in your own days
that you would not believe if you were told of it.
For now I am stirring up the Chaldaeans,
that fierce and fiery people
who march miles across country
to seize the homes of others.
A people feared and dreaded,
from their might proceeds their right, their greatness.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves in the dark;
their horsemen gallop on,
their horsemen advance from afar,
swooping like an eagle to stoop on its prey.
They come for plunder, all of them,
their faces scorching like an east wind;
they scoop up prisoners like sand.
They are a people that scoff at kings,
and laugh at princes.
They make light of all fortresses:
they heap up earth and take them.
Then the wind changes and is gone...
Sinful, he who makes his own strength his god.
Are not you, from ancient times the Lord,
my God, my Holy One, who never dies?
O Lord, you have made this people an instrument of justice,
set it firm as a rock in order to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to rest on wickedness,
you cannot look on at tyranny.
Why do you look on while men are treacherous,
and stay silent while the evil man swallows a better man than he?
You treat mankind like fishes in the sea,
like creeping, masterless things.
A people, these, who catch all on their hook,
who draw them with their net,
in their dragnet gather them,
and so, triumphantly, rejoice.
At this, they offer a sacrifice to their net,
and burn incense to their dragnet,
for providing them with luxury
and lavish food.
Are they then to empty their net unceasingly,
slaughtering nations without pity?
I will stand on my watchtower,
and take up my post on my battlements,
watching to see what he will say to me,
what answer he will make to my complaints.
Then the Lord answered and said,
‘Write the vision down,
inscribe it on tablets
to be easily read,
since this vision is for its own time only:
eager for its own fulfilment, it does not deceive;
if it comes slowly, wait,
for come it will, without fail.
‘See how he flags, he whose soul is not at rights,
but the upright man will live by his faithfulness.’


Responsory

Only a little while now, a very little while, 
and he who is to come will be here:
he will not delay.
My righteous servant will live by faith.

We are not people who turn back and are lost.
Instead, we have faith and are saved.
My righteous servant will live by faith.


Reading
A sermon by St Bernard

I shall stand upon my watch-tower to see what the Lord will say to me

We read in the gospel that when the Lord was teaching his disciples and urged them to share in his passion by the mystery of eating his body, some said: This is a hard saying, and from that time they no longer followed him. When he asked the disciples whether they also wished to go away, they replied: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

I assure you, my brothers, that even to this day it is clear to some that the words which Jesus speaks are spirit and life, and for this reason they follow him. To others these words seem hard, and so they look elsewhere for some pathetic consolation. Yet wisdom cries out in the streets, in the broad and spacious way that leads to death, to call back those who take this path. Finally, he says: For forty years I have been close to this generation, and I said: They have always been faint-hearted. You also read in another psalm: God has spoken once. Once, indeed, because for ever. His is a single, uninterrupted utterance, because it is continuous and unending.

He calls upon sinners to return to their true spirit and rebukes them when their hearts have gone astray, for it is in the true heart that he dwells and there he speaks, fulfilling what he taught through the prophet: Speak to the heart of Jerusalem. You see, my brothers, how the prophet admonishes us for our advantage: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. You can read almost the same words in the gospel and in the prophet. For in the gospel the Lord says: My sheep hear my voice. And in the psalm blessed David says: You are his people (meaning, of course, the Lord’s) and the sheep of his pasture. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Hear also the prophet Habakkuk in today’s reading. Far from hiding the Lord’s reprimands, he dwells on them with attentive and anxious care. He says: I will stand upon my watch-tower and take up my post on the ramparts, keeping watch to see what he will say to me and what answer I will make to those who try to confute me. I beg you, my brothers, stand upon our watch-tower, for now is the time for battle. Let all our dealings be in the heart, where Christ dwells, in right judgement and wise counsel, but in such a way as to place no confidence in those dealings, nor rely upon our fragile defences.


Responsory

The judgements of the Lord are all before me: 
I have never neglected his commands. 
The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.

Whoever obeys his word is the one whose love for God has really been made perfect. 
The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.

Let us pray.

Since it is from you, God our Father,
that redemption comes to us, your adopted children,
look with favour on the family you love,
give true freedom to us and to all who believe in Christ,
and bring us all alike to our eternal heritage.
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.