O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
– Let us exult in the Lord’s presence.
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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
“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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
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 exult in the Lord’s presence.
Hymn
Where true love is dwelling, God is dwelling there:
Love’s own loving Presence love does ever share.
Love of Christ has made us out of many one;
In our midst is dwelling God’s eternal Son.
Give him joyful welcome, love him and revere:
Cherish one another with a love sincere.
Psalm 43 (44)
In time of defeat
Their own arm did not bring them victory:
this was won by your right hand and the light of your face.
Our own ears have heard, O God,
and our fathers have proclaimed it to us,
what you did in their days, the days of old:
how with your own hand you swept aside the nations
and put us in their place,
struck them down to make room for us.
It was not by their own swords that our fathers took over the land,
it was not their own strength that gave them victory;
but your hand and your strength,
the light of your face,
for you were pleased in them.
You are my God and my king,
who take care for the safety of Jacob.
Through you we cast down your enemies;
in your name we crushed those who rose against us.
I will not put my hopes in my bow,
my sword will not bring me to safety;
for it was you who saved us from our afflictions,
you who set confusion among those who hated us.
We will glory in the Lord all the day,
and proclaim your name for all ages.
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.
Their own arm did not bring them victory:
this was won by your right hand and the light of your face.
Psalm 43 (44)
If you return to the Lord,
then he will not hide his face from you.
But now, God, you have spurned us and confounded us,
so that we must go into battle without you.
You have put us to flight in the sight of our enemies,
and those who hate us plunder us at will.
You have handed us over like sheep sold for food,
you have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for no money,
not even profiting by the exchange.
You have made us the laughing-stock of our neighbours,
mocked and derided by those who surround us.
The nations have made us a by-word,
the peoples toss their heads in scorn.
All the day I am ashamed,
I blush with shame
as they reproach me and revile me,
my enemies and my persecutors.
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.
If you return to the Lord,
then he will not hide his face from you.
Psalm 43 (44)
Arise, Lord, do not reject us for ever.
All this happened to us,
but not because we had forgotten you.
We were not disloyal to your covenant;
our hearts did not turn away;
our steps did not wander from your path;
and yet you brought us low,
with horrors all about us:
you overwhelmed us in the shadows of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God,
if we had spread out our hands before an alien god —
would God not have known?
He knows what is hidden in our hearts.
It is for your sake that we face death all the day,
that we are reckoned as sheep to be slaughtered.
Awake, Lord, why do you sleep?
Rise up, do not always reject us.
Why do you turn away your face?
How can you forget our poverty and our tribulation?
Our souls are crushed into the dust,
our bodies dragged down to the earth.
Rise up, Lord, and help us.
In your mercy, redeem us.
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.
Arise, Lord, do not reject us for ever.
Lord, let your face shine on your servant;
– teach me your decrees.
Reading
Daniel 9:1-4,18-27
It was the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was of Median stock and ruled the kingdom of Chaldaea. In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, was perusing the scriptures, counting over the number of years – as revealed by the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah – that were to pass before the successive devastations of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years. I turned my face to the Lord God begging for time to pray and to plead with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I pleaded with the Lord my God and made this confession:
‘Listen my God, listen to us; open your eyes and look on our plight and on the city that bears your name. We are not relying on our own good works but on your great mercy, to commend our humble plea to you. Listen, Lord! Lord, forgive! Hear, Lord, and act! For your own sake, my God, do not delay, because they bear your name, this is your city, this is your people.’
I was still speaking, still at prayer, confessing my own sins and the sins of my people Israel and placing my plea before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, still speaking, still at prayer, when Gabriel, the being I had seen originally in a vision, flew suddenly down to me at the hour of the evening sacrifice. He said to me, ‘Daniel, you see me; I have come down to teach you how to understand. When your pleading began, a word was uttered, and I have come to tell you what it is. You are a man specially chosen. Grasp the meaning of the word, understand the vision:
‘Seventy weeks are decreed
for your people and your holy city,
for putting an end to transgression,
for placing the seals on sin,
for expiating crime,
for introducing everlasting integrity,
for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy, for anointing the Holy of Holies.
‘Know this, then, and understand:
from the time this message went out:
“Return and rebuild Jerusalem”
to the coming of an anointed Prince, seven weeks
and sixty-two weeks,
with squares and ramparts restored and rebuilt,
but in a time of trouble.
And after the sixty-two weeks
an anointed one will be cut off – and... will not be for him –
the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed
by a prince who will come.
His end will come in catastrophe
and, until the end, there will be war
and all the devastation decreed.
He will make a firm covenant with many
for the space of a week;
and for the space of one half-week
he will put a stop to sacrifice and oblation,
and on the wing of the Temple will be the disastrous abomination
until the end, until the doom assigned to the devastator.’
Responsory
Lord,
look down from your holy dwelling-place and give thought to us:
take heed, and listen.
Open your eyes and look on our plight.
God of hosts, bring us back:
let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.
Open your eyes and look on our plight.
Reading
A sermon of the second century
The living church is the body of Christ
My name is constantly blasphemed by unbelievers, says the Lord. Woe to the man who causes my name to be blasphemed. Why is the Lord’s name blasphemed? Because we say one thing and do another. When they hear the words of God on our lips, unbelievers are amazed at their beauty and power, but when they see that those words have no effect in our lives, their admiration turns to scorn,
and they dismiss such words as myths and fairy tales.
They listen, for example, when we tell them that God has said: It is no credit to you if you love those who love you, but only if you love your enemies, and those who hate you. They are full of admiration at such extraordinary virtue,
but when they observe that we not only fail to love people who hate us,
but even those who love us, they laugh us to scorn, and the Name is blasphemed.
Therefore, brothers, if we do the will of God the Father, we shall be members of the first spiritual Church that was created before the sun and the moon; but if we fail to do the will of the Lord, we shall be among those to whom it is said in Scripture: My house has been made into a robbers’ den. We must choose then, if we want to be saved, to be members of the Church of life.
You surely cannot be ignorant of the fact that the living Church is the body of Christ; for Scripture says: God made man male and female. Now the male signifies Christ, and the female signifies the Church, which, according to both the Old and New Testament, is no recent creation, but has existed from the beginning. At first the Church was purely spiritual, even as our Jesus was spiritual, but it appeared in the last days to save us.
For the spiritual Church was made manifest in the body of Christ, in order to show us that if we uphold its honour in the outward, visible form, and do not defile it, we shall, through the Holy Spirit, be made its members in the true, spiritual sense. For the body of the Church is a copy of the Spirit, and no one who defaces the copy can have any part in what the copy represents. In other words, brothers, you must preserve the honour of the body in order to share in the Spirit. For if we say that the body is the Church and the Spirit is Christ, it follows that anyone who dishonours his body, dishonours the Church. Such a man will have no part in the Spirit, which is Christ. But if the Holy Spirit is joined to it, this body can receive an immortal life that is wonderful beyond words,
for the blessings that God has made ready for his chosen ones surpass all human powers of description.
Responsory
Thus says the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel:
Amend your lives and your deeds:
then shall I dwell here among you.
Come close to God,
and he will come close to you.
You that are sinners must wash your hands clean;
you that are given to compromise must purify the intention of your hearts:
then shall I dwell here among you.
Let us pray.
Defend us, Lord, against every distress
so that, unencumbered in body and soul,
we may devote ourselves to your service in freedom and 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.
