O Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth will proclaim your praise.
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 23 (24)
Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness,
the world and all who live in it.
He himself founded it upon the seas
and set it firm over the waters.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
Who will climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who will stand in his holy place?
The one who is innocent of wrongdoing and pure of heart,
who has not given himself to vanities or sworn falsely.
He will receive the blessing of the Lord
and be justified by God his saviour.
This is the way of those who seek him,
seek the face of the God of Jacob.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors,
and let the king of glory enter.
Who is the king of glory?
The Lord of might and power.
The Lord, strong in battle.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors,
and let the king of glory enter.
Who is the king of glory?
The Lord of hosts
– he is the king of glory.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to 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.
– Come, let us worship Christ, who has appeared to us.
Hymn
Bethlehem, of noblest cities
none can once with thee compare:
thou alone the Lord from heaven
didst for us Incarnate bear.
Fairer than the sun at morning
was the star that told his birth;
to the lands their God announcing,
hid beneath a form of earth.
By its lambent beauty guided,
see, the eastern kings appear;
see them bend, their gifts to offer,
gifts of incense, gold and myrrh.
Solemn things of mystic meaning:
incense doth the God disclose;
gold a royal Child proclaimeth;
myrrh a future tomb foreshows.
Holy Jesu, in thy brightness
to the Gentile world displayed,
with the Father and the Spirit
endless praise to thee be paid.
Psalm 43 (44)
In time of defeat
It was you who saved us, Lord:
we will praise your name without ceasing.
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.
It was you who saved us, Lord:
we will praise your name without ceasing.
Psalm 43 (44)
Spare us, Lord, do not let your people be put to shame.
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.
Spare us, Lord, do not let your people be put to shame.
Psalm 43 (44)
Arise, Lord! Redeem us because of your love.
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! Redeem us because of your love.
The son of God came and gave us the power
– to come to know the true God.
Reading
Isaiah 63:19-64:11
Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down
– at your Presence the mountains would melt,
as fire sets brushwood alight,
as fire causes water to boil –
to make known your name to your enemies,
and make the nations tremble at your Presence,
working unexpected miracles
such as no one has ever heard of before.
No ear has heard,
no eye has seen
any god but you act like this
for those who trust him.
You guide those who act with integrity
and keep your ways in mind.
You were angry when we were sinners;
we had long been rebels against you.
We were all like men unclean,
all that integrity of ours like filthy clothing.
We have all withered like leaves
and our sins blew us away like the wind.
No one invoked your name
or roused himself to catch hold of you.
For you hid your face from us
and gave us up to the power of our sins.
And yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we the clay, you the potter,
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not let your anger go too far, O Lord,
or go on thinking of our sins for ever.
See, see, we are all your people;
your holy cities are a wilderness,
Zion a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation,
our holy and glorious Temple,
in which our fathers prayed to you,
is burnt to the ground;
all that gave us pleasure lies in ruins.
O Lord, can you go unmoved by all of this,
oppressing us beyond measure by your silence?
Responsory
Jerusalem, your salvation is near.
Why are you so sorrow-stricken?
Are your counsellors lost,
that you should be disfigured by grief?
Do not be afraid,
I will save you and set you free.
I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
your Saviour.
Do not be afraid,
I will save you and set you free.
Reading
A commentary on St John's gospel St Cyril of Alexandria
The gift of the Holy Spirit to all mankind
In a plan of surpassing beauty, the Creator of the universe decreed the renewal of all things in Christ. In his design for restoring human nature to its original condition, he gave a promise that he would pour out on it the Holy Spirit along with his other gifts,
for otherwise our nature could not enter once more into the peaceful and secure possession of those gifts.
He therefore appointed a time for the Holy Spirit to come upon us: this was the time of Christ’s coming. He gave this promise when he said:
In those days, that is, the days of the Saviour, I will pour out a share of my Spirit on all mankind.
When the time came for this great act of unforced generosity, which revealed in our midst the only-begotten Son, clothed with flesh on this earth, a man born of woman, in accordance with Holy Scripture, God the Father gave the Spirit once again. Christ, as the first-fruits of our restored nature, was the first to receive the Spirit. John the Baptist bore witness to this when he said: I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him.
Christ “received the Spirit” in so far as he was man, and in so far as man could receive the Spirit. He did so in such a way that, though he is the Son of God the Father, begotten of his substance, even before the incarnation, indeed before all ages,
yet he was not offended at hearing the Father say to him after he had become man: You are my son; today I have begotten you.
The Father says of Christ, who was God, begotten of him before the ages, that he has been “begotten today,” for the Father is to accept us in Christ as his adopted children. The whole of our nature is present in Christ, in so far as he is man. So the Father can be said to give the Spirit again to the Son, though the Son possesses the Spirit as his own, in order that we may receive the Spirit in Christ.
The Son therefore took to himself the seed of Abraham, as Scripture says, and became like his brothers in all things.
The only-begotten Son receives the Spirit, but not for his own advantage, for the Spirit is his, and is given in him and through him, as we have already said. He receives it to renew our nature in its entirety and to make it whole again, for in becoming man he took our entire nature to himself. If we reason correctly, and use also the testimony of Scripture, we can see that Christ did not receive the Spirit for himself, but rather for us in him,
for it is also through Christ that all gifts come down to us.
Responsory
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Then the nations will know that I,
the Lord, sanctify Israel,
when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.
I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Then the nations will know that I,
the Lord, sanctify Israel,
when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.
Let us pray.
Through your Son, Lord God,
you shed eternal light on all mankind.
Give us grace to acknowledge the full splendour of our Redeemer,
so that, going from glory to glory,
we may come at length to your everlasting light.
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.
