O Lord, open our lips.
And we shall praise your name.
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
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.
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
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.
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
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.
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
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.”
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
“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.”
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
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.
How wonderful is God among his saints:
come, let us adore him.
Hymn
Stanbrook Abbey Hymnal
In ancient times God spoke to us
Through prophets, and in varied ways,
But now he speaks through Christ his Son,
His radiance through eternal days.
To God the Father of the world,
His Son through whom he made all things,
And Holy Spirit, bond of love,
All glad creation glory sings.
Psalm 68 (69)
I am consumed with zeal for your house
I am wearied with all my crying as I await my God.
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I am stuck in bottomless mud;
I am adrift in deep waters
and the flood is sweeping me away.
I am exhausted with crying out, my throat is parched,
my eyes are failing as I look out for my God.
Those who hate me for no reason
are more than the hairs of my head.
They are strong, my persecutors, my lying enemies:
they make me give back things I never took.
God, you know my weakness:
my crimes are not hidden from you.
Let my fate not put to shame those who trust in you,
Lord, Lord of hosts.
Let them not be dismayed on my account,
those who seek you, God of Israel.
For it is for your sake that I am taunted
and covered in confusion:
I have become a stranger to my own brothers,
a wanderer in the eyes of my mother’s children –
because zeal for your house is consuming me,
and the taunts of those who hate you
fall upon my head.
I have humbled my soul with fasting
and they reproach me for it.
I have made sackcloth my clothing
and they make me a byword.
The idlers at the gates speak against me;
for drinkers of wine, I am the butt of their songs.
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 am wearied with all my crying as I await my God.
Psalm 68 (69)
For food they gave me poison,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
But I turn my prayer to you, Lord,
at the acceptable time, my God.
In your great kindness, hear me,
and rescue me with your faithful help.
Tear me from the mire, before I become stuck;
tear me from those who hate me;
tear me from the depths of the waters.
Do not let the waves overwhelm me;
do not let the deep waters swallow me;
do not let the well’s mouth engulf me.
Hear me, Lord, for you are kind and good.
In your abundant mercy, look upon me.
Do not turn your face from your servant:
I am suffering, so hurry to answer me.
Come to my soul and deliver it,
rescue me from my enemies’ attacks.
You know how I am taunted and ashamed;
how I am thrown into confusion.
You can see all those who are troubling me.
Reproach has shattered my heart – I am sick.
I looked for sympathy, but none came;
I looked for a consoler but did not find one.
They gave me bitterness to eat;
when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink.
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.
For food they gave me poison,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Psalm 68 (69)
Seek the Lord,
and he will give life to your soul.
I am weak and I suffer,
but your help, O God, will sustain me.
I will praise the name of God in song
and proclaim his greatness with praises.
This will please the Lord more than oxen,
than cattle with their horns and hooves.
Let the humble see and rejoice.
Seek the Lord, and your heart shall live,
for the Lord has heard the needy
and has not despised his captive people.
Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and all that swims in them.
For the Lord will make Zion safe
and build up the cities of Judah:
there they will live, the land will be theirs.
The seed of his servants will inherit the land,
and those who love his name will dwell there.
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.
Seek the Lord,
and he will give life to your soul.
The Lord will teach us his ways
– and we shall walk in his paths.
First Reading
Judges 13:1-25
Again the Israelites began to do what displeases the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren, she had borne no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her, ‘You are barren and have had no child. But from now on take great care. Take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb. It is he who will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has just come to me; his presence was like the presence of the angel of God, he was so majestic. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not reveal his name to me. But he said to me, “You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.
For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day.”’
Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord and said, ‘I beg you, Lord, let the man of God that you sent come to us once again and instruct us in what we must do with the boy when he is born.’ The Lord heard Manoah’s prayer for favour, and the angel of the Lord visited the woman again as she was sitting in the field; her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly and told her husband: ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again.’ Manoah rose and followed his wife, and he came to the man and said to him, ‘Are you the man who spoke to this woman?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ Manoah went on, ‘When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the boy’s rule of life? How must he behave?’ And the angel of the Lord answered Manoah, ‘The things that I forbade this woman, let him refrain from too. Let him taste nothing that comes from the vine, let him take no wine or strong drink, let him eat nothing unclean, let him obey all the orders I gave this woman.’ Manoah then said to the angel of the Lord, ‘Do us the honour of staying with us while we prepare a kid for you.’ For Manoah did not know this was the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘Even if I did stay with you, I would not eat your food; but if you wish to prepare a holocaust, offer it to the Lord.’ Manoah then said to the angel of the Lord, ‘What is your name, so that we may honour you when your words are fulfilled?’ The angel of the Lord replied, ‘Why ask my name? It is a mystery.’’ Then Manoah took the kid and the oblation and offered it as a holocaust on the rock to the Lord who works mysteries.’ As the flame went up heavenwards from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame in the sight of Manoah and his wife, and they fell face downwards on the ground. After this, the angel of the Lord did not appear any more to Manoah and his wife, by which Manoah understood that this had been the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We are certain to die, because we have seen God.’ His wife answered him, ‘If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a holocaust and oblation from our hands; he would not have told us all these things.’ The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him;
and the spirit of the Lord began to move him in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Responsory
The angel said to Zechariah,
‘Your wife will bear you a son,
and you shall call his name John:
he shall drink no wine nor any strong drink,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb,
for the boy shall be a Nazirite dedicated to God.’
The angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah and said to her,
‘You shall conceive and bear a son.
No razor shall come upon his head,
for the boy shall be a Nazirite dedicated to God.’
Second Reading
A letter from St Aloysius Gonzaga to his mother
God's mercies shall be my song for ever
May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness,
and assuring me that I shall never lose him.
The divine goodness, most honored lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labors, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things, most honored lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Savior; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us,
his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings
that we ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favor and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly
because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.
Responsory
You befriended my innocence, O Lord;
never more will you banish me from your presence.
Willingly did I lie forgotten in the house of my God,
rather than dwell in the abode of sinners;
never more will you banish me from your presence.
Let us pray.
Lord God, source of every grace,
you joined an innocent heart to a penitent’s sorrow
in the life of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.
Grant, through his intercession,
that we, who have failed to imitate his innocence,
may follow his example of penance.
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 praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
