PRAYER OF THE DAY

For the Protection of the Holy Family

Grant unto us,

Lord Jesus,

ever to follow the example of Thy holy Family,

that in the hour of our death Thy glorious Virgin Mother together with blessed Joseph 
may come to meet us and we may be worthily received by Thee into everlasting dwellings:

who livest and reignest world without end.

Amen.

DAILY MASS READINGS

Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading

Heb 11:32-40

Brothers and sisters:

What more shall I say?

I have not time to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah,

of David and Samuel and the prophets,

who by faith conquered kingdoms,

did what was righteous, obtained the promises;

they closed the mouths of lions, put out raging fires,

escaped the devouring sword;

out of weakness they were made powerful, became strong in battle,

and turned back foreign invaders.

Women received back their dead through resurrection.

Some were tortured and would not accept deliverance,

in order to obtain a better resurrection.

Others endured mockery, scourging, even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, sawed in two, put to death at sword’s point;

they went about in skins of sheep or goats,

needy, afflicted, tormented.

The world was not worthy of them.

They wandered about in deserts and on mountains,

in caves and in crevices in the earth.

Yet all these, though approved because of their faith,

did not receive what had been promised.

God had foreseen something better for us,

so that without us they should not be made perfect.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 31:20, 21, 22, 23, 24

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

How great is the goodness, O LORD,

which you have in store for those who fear you,

And which, toward those who take refuge in you,

you show in the sight of the children of men.

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

You hide them in the shelter of your presence

from the plottings of men;

You screen them within your abode

from the strife of tongues.

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

Blessed be the LORD whose wondrous mercy

he has shown me in a fortified city.

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

Once I said in my anguish,

“I am cut off from your sight”;

Yet you heard the sound of my pleading

when I cried out to you.

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

Love the LORD, all you his faithful ones!

The LORD keeps those who are constant,

but more than requites those who act proudly.

R. Let your hearts take comfort, all who hope in the Lord.

Gospel

Mk 5:1-20

Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea,

to the territory of the Gerasenes.

When he got out of the boat,

at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.

The man had been dwelling among the tombs,

and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.

In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,

but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,

and no one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides

he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.

Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,

he ran up and prostrated himself before him,

crying out in a loud voice,

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”

(He had been saying to him, 

“Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”)

He asked him,

“What is your name?”

He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”

And he pleaded earnestly with him

not to drive them away from that territory.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.

And they pleaded with him,

“Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”

And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.

The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,

where they were drowned.

The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town

and throughout the countryside.

And people came out to see what had happened.

As they approached Jesus,

they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion,

sitting there clothed and in his right mind.

And they were seized with fear.

Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened

to the possessed man and to the swine.

Then they began to beg him to leave their district.

As he was getting into the boat,

the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.

But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead,

“Go home to your family and announce to them

all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.”

Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis

what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.

SAINT OF THE DAY

February 4

St. Joan of Valois (1464-1505)

Joan, or Jane, the physically deformed daughter of King Louis XI of France, was endowed with wonderful gifts of mind and heart. 
Although she suffered much throughout her life, 
she accepted her disabilities with patience and spent many of her days in prayer and meditation.

Under the guidance of her spiritual director, a Franciscan priest from whom she received the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, 
young Joan prepared to give her life in service to God as a member of a religious community.

But her father had other plans. He announced that Joan would marry the Duke of Orleans, and no objections were to be voiced. Joan dutifully obliged, though her marriage was not a happy one. When the duke ascended the throne as King Louis XII, his first act was to divorce the queen on the grounds that he had only agreed to the marriage to escape the anger of the king, his predecessor. 
The pope agreed that compulsion had been involved, and declared the marriage null and void.

Joan felt an immediate sense of relief and made her way to Bourges. 
There she lived a secluded life of prayer and, in 1501, founded a contemplative order of nuns—the Sisters of the Annunciation. 
God called Joan home only a few years later.

She was canonized in 1950.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.

And my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Invitatory Psalm

Psalm 99 (100)

Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with songs.

– Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with songs.

Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,

and serve him with joy.

Exult as you enter his presence.

– Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

He made us and we are his

– his people, the sheep of his flock.

– Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with songs.

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.

– Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with 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.

– Let us rejoice in the Lord and extol him with songs.

Hymn

Come, Spirit blest, with God the Son

and God the Father, ever one:

shed forth your grace within our breast

and live in us, a ready guest.

By every power, by heart and tongue,

by act and deed, your praise be sung.

Inflame with perfect love each sense,

that others’ souls may kindle thence.

Psalm 72 (73)

Why should the just suffer?

How good God is to Israel, 

to those who are pure of heart.

How good God is to the upright,

to those who are pure of heart!

But as for me, my feet nearly stumbled,

my steps were on the point of going astray,

as I envied the boasters and sinners,

envied their comfort and peace.

For them there are no burdens,

their bellies are full and sleek.

They do not labour, like ordinary men;

they do not suffer, like mortals.

They wear their pride like a necklace,

their violence covers them like a robe.

Wickedness oozes from their very being,

the thoughts of their hearts break forth:

they deride, they utter abominations,

and from their heights they proclaim injustice.

They have set their mouth in the heavens,

and their tongue traverses the earth.

Thus they sit in their lofty positions,

and the flood-waters cannot reach them.

They ask, “How can God know?

Does the Most High have any understanding?”

Behold, then, the wicked, always prosperous:

their riches growing 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.

How good God is to Israel, 

to those who are pure of heart.

Psalm 72 (73)

Their rejoicing will be turned to weeping, 

their joy to sorrow.

I said, “It was pointless to purify my heart,

to wash my hands in innocence –

for still I suffered all through the day,

still I was punished every morning.”

If I had said, “I will speak like them,”

I would have betrayed the race of your children.

I pondered and tried to understand:

my eyes laboured to see –

until I entered God’s holy place

and heard how they would end.

For indeed you have put them on a slippery surface

and have thrown them down in ruin.

How they are laid waste!

How suddenly they fall and perish in terror!

You spurn the sight of them, Lord,

as a dream is abandoned when the sleeper awakes.

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 rejoicing will be turned to weeping, 

their joy to sorrow.

Psalm 72 (73)

All those who abandon you shall perish;

but to be near God is my happiness.

My heart was sore, my being was troubled –

I was a fool, I knew nothing;

I was like a dumb beast before you.

But still I stay with you:

you hold my right hand.

You lead me according to your counsel,

until you raise me up in glory.

For who else is for me, in heaven?

On earth, I want nothing when I am with you.

My flesh and heart are failing,

but it is God that I love:

God is my portion for ever.

Behold, those who abandon you will perish:

you have condemned all who go whoring away from you.

But for myself, I take joy in clinging to God,

in putting my trust in the Lord, my God,

to proclaim your works at the gates of the daughters of Zion.

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.

All those who abandon you shall perish;

but to be near God is my happiness.

How sweet is the taste of your sayings, O Lord,

– sweeter than honey in my mouth.

Reading

1 Thessalonians 2:13-3:13

Another reason why we constantly thank God for you is that as soon as you heard the message that we brought you as God’s message, you accepted it for what it really is, God’s message and not some human thinking; and it is still a living power among you who believe it. For you, my brothers, have been like the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea, in suffering the same treatment from your own countrymen as they have suffered from the Jews, the people who put the Lord Jesus to death, and the prophets too. And now they have been persecuting us, and acting in a way that cannot please God and makes them the enemies of the whole human race, because they are hindering us from preaching to the pagans and trying to save them. They never stop trying to finish off the sins they have begun, but retribution is overtaking them at last.

A short time after we had been separated from you – in body but never in thought, brothers – we had an especially strong desire and longing to see you face to face again, and we tried hard to come and visit you; I, Paul, tried more than once, but Satan prevented us. What do you think is our pride and our joy? You are; and you will be the crown of which we shall be proudest in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes; 

you are our pride and our joy.

When we could not bear the waiting any longer, we decided it would be best to be left without a companion at Athens, and sent our brother Timothy, who is God’s helper in spreading the Good News of Christ, to keep you firm and strong in the faith and prevent any of you from being unsettled by the present troubles. As you know, these are bound to come our way: when we were with you, we warned you that we must expect to have persecutions to bear, and that is what has happened now, as you have found out. That is why, when I could not stand waiting any longer, 

I sent to assure myself of your faith: I was afraid the Tempter might have tried you too hard, and all our work might have been wasted.

However, Timothy is now back from you and he has given us good news of your faith and your love, telling us that you always remember us with pleasure and want to see us quite as much as we want to see you. And so, brothers, your faith has been a great comfort to us in the middle of our own troubles and sorrows; now we can breathe again, as you are still holding firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you, 

for all the joy we feel before our God on your account? 

We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith.

May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, make it easy for us to come to you. May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.

Responsory

May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race,

and may he confirm your hearts in holiness.

May our Lord himself comfort you,

and may he confirm your hearts in holiness.

Reading

From a treatise on the psalms by Saint Hilary of Poitiers

The hearts and minds of all believers were one

Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity! It is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell in unity, because when they do so their association creates the assembly of the Church. The term “brothers” describes the bond of affection arising from their singleness of purpose.

We read that when the apostles first preached, the chief instruction they gave lay in this saying: The hearts and minds of all believers were one. So it is fitting for the people of God to be brothers under one Father, to be united under one Spirit, to live in harmony under one roof, 

to be limbs of one body.

It is pleasant and good for brothers to dwell in unity. The prophet suggested a comparison for this good and pleasant activity when he said: It is like the ointment on the head which ran down over the beard of Aaron, down upon the collar of his garment. Aaron’s oil was made of the perfumes used to anoint a priest. It was God’s decision that his priest should have his consecration first, and that our Lord should be so anointed, but not visibly, by those who are joined with him. Aaron’s anointing did not belong to this world; it was not done with the horn used for kings, 

but with the oil of gladness. So afterward Aaron was called the anointed one as the Law proscribed.

When this oil is poured out upon men of unclean heart, it snuffs out their lives, but when it is received as an anointing of love, 

it exudes the sweet odour of harmony with God. As Paul says, we are the goodly fragrance of Christ. 

So just as it was pleasing to God when Aaron was anointed priest with this oil, so it is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell in unity.

Now the oil ran down from his head to his beard. A beard adorns a man of mature years. We must not be children before Christ except in the restricted scriptural sense of being children in wickedness but not in our way of thinking. Now Paul calls all who lack faith, children, because they are too weak to take solid food and still need milk. As he says: I fed you with milk rather than the solid food for which you were not yet ready; 

and you are still not ready.

Responsory

All of us in union with Christ form one body,

and as parts of it we belong to each other.

Each one of us, however,

has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it.

In the one Spirit we were all baptized,

and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.

Each one of us, however,

has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it.

Let us pray.

Lord our God,

make us love you above all things,

and all our fellow-men

with a love that is worthy of you.

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.