PRAYER OF THE DAY

Prayer of Saint Peter Damian to the Blessed Virgin Mary

O holy Virgin,

Mother of God,

help those who implore your assistance.

Turn toward us.

Have you perhaps forgotten us

because you have been elevated

to a position close to God?

No, certainly not.

You know well in what danger you left us.

You know the miserable condition of your servants.

No, it would not benefit such great mercy

as yours to forget such great misery as ours.

Turn toward us, then,

with your power,

for He who is powerful

has made you omnipotent in heaven and on earth.

For you, nothing is impossible.

You can raise even those who are in despair

to a hope of salvation.

There more powerful you are,

the greater should be your mercy.

Turn also to us in your love.

I know.

O Mary, that you are all kindness

and that you love us with a love

that no other love can surpass.

How often you appease the wrath of our Divine Judge,

when He is on the point of punishing us!

All the treasures of the mercy of God

are in your hands.

You will never cease to benefit us, I know,

for you are only seeking an opportunity

to save all sinners

and to shower your mercies upon them.

Your glory is increased when,

through you,

penitents are forgiven and reach heaven.

Turn, then, toward us,

so that we may also be able to go

and see you in heaven.

For the greatest glory that we can have,

after seeing God,

will be to see you,

to love you,

and to be under your protection.

So be pleased to grant our prayer;

for your beloved Son wishes to honour you

by refusing nothing that you ask.

Amen.

DAILY MASS READINGS

Thursday of the First Week in Lent

Reading

EST C:12, 14-16, 23-25

Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish,

had recourse to the LORD.

She lay prostrate upon the ground, together with her handmaids,

from morning until evening, and said:

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you.

Help me, who am alone and have no help but you,

for I am taking my life in my hand.

As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers

that you, O LORD, always free those who are pleasing to you.

Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you,

O LORD, my God.

“And now, come to help me, an orphan.

Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion

and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy,

so that he and those who are in league with him may perish.

Save us from the hand of our enemies;

turn our mourning into gladness

and our sorrows into wholeness.”

Responsorial Psalm

PS 138:1-2AB, 2CDE-3, 7C-8

R. Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,

for you have heard the words of my mouth;

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

R. Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

Because of your kindness and your truth;

for you have made great above all things

your name and your promise.

When I called, you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

R. Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

Your right hand saves me.

The LORD will complete what he has done for me;

your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;

forsake not the work of your hands.

R. Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

Gospel

MT 7:7-12

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Ask and it will be given to you;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which one of you would hand his son a stone

when he asked for a loaf of bread,

or a snake when he asked for a fish?

If you then, who are wicked,

know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your heavenly Father give good things

to those who ask him.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.

This is the law and the prophets.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

February 21

St. Peter Damian (1007-1072)

Maybe because he was orphaned and had been treated shabbily by one of his brothers, Peter Damian was very good to the poor. 

It was the ordinary thing for him to have a poor person or two with him at table and he liked to minister personally to their needs.

Peter escaped poverty and the neglect of his own brother when his other brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took him under his wing. 

His brother sent him to good schools and Peter became a professor.

Already in those days Peter was very strict with himself. He wore a hair shirt under his clothes, fasted rigorously and spent many hours in prayer. Soon, he decided to leave his teaching and give himself completely to prayer with the Benedictines of the reform of St. Romuald (June 19) at Fonte Avellana. They lived two monks to a hermitage. Peter was so eager to pray and slept so little that he soon suffered from severe insomnia. 

He found he had to use some prudence in taking care of himself. When he was not praying, he studied the Bible.

The abbot commanded that when he died Peter should succeed him. Abbot Peter founded five other hermitages. He encouraged his brothers in a life of prayer and solitude and wanted nothing more for himself. The Holy See periodically called on him, however, 

to be a peacemaker or troubleshooter, between two abbeys in dispute or a cleric or government official in some disagreement with Rome.

Finally, Pope Stephen IX made Peter the cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He worked hard to wipe out simony (the buying of church offices), and encouraged his priests to observe celibacy and urged even the diocesan clergy to live together and maintain scheduled prayer and religious observance. He wished to restore primitive discipline among religious and priests, warning against needless travel, violations of poverty and too comfortable living. He even wrote to the bishop of Besancon, 

complaining that the canons there sat down when they were singing the psalms in the Divine Office.

He wrote many letters. Some 170 are extant. We also have 53 of his sermons and seven lives, or biographies, that he wrote. 

He preferred examples and stories rather than theory in his writings. 

The liturgical offices he wrote are evidence of his talent as a stylist in Latin.

He asked often to be allowed to retire as cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and finally Alexander II consented. Peter was happy to become once again just a monk, but he was still called to serve as a papal legate. When returning from such an assignment in Ravenna, he was overcome by a fever. 

With the monks gathered around him saying the Divine Office, he died on February 22, 1072.

In 1828 he was declared a Doctor of the Church.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.

And my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Invitatory Psalm

Psalm 94 (95)

Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

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.

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

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.

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

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.

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

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.”

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

“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.”

– Come, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

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, today, and listen to his voice: 

do not harden your hearts.

Hymn

Lord, who throughout these forty days

for us didst fast and pray,

teach us with thee to mourn our sins,

and close by thee to stay.

As thou with Satan didst contend

and didst the victory win,

O give us strength in thee to fight,

in thee to conquer sin.

As thou didst hunger bear, and thirst,

so teach us, gracious Lord,

to die to self, and chiefly live

by thy most holy word.

And through these days of penitence,

and through thy Passiontide,

yea, evermore in life and death,

Jesus, with us abide.

Abide with us, that so, this life

of suffering overpast,

an Easter of unending joy

we may attain at last.

Psalm 17 (18)

Thanksgiving

The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.

The Lord’s ways are pure;

the words of the Lord are refined in the furnace;

the Lord protects all who hope in him.

For what God is there, but our Lord?

What help, but in the Lord our God?

God, who has wrapped me in his strength

and set me on the perfect path,

who has made my feet like those of the deer,

who has set me firm upon the heights,

who trains my hands for battle,

teaches my arms to bend a bow of bronze.

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.

The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.

Psalm 17 (18)

Lord, your right hand upheld me.

You have given me the shield of your salvation;

your right hand holds me up;

by answering me, you give me greatness.

You have stretched the length of my stride,

my feet do not weaken.

I pursue my enemies and surround them;

I do not turn back until they are no more.

I smash them to pieces, they cannot stand,

they fall beneath my feet.

You have wrapped me round with strength for war,

and made my attackers fall under me.

You turned my enemies’ backs on me,

you destroyed those who hated me.

They cried out, but there was no-one to save them;

they cried to the Lord, but he did not hear.

I have ground them up until they are dust in the wind,

trodden them down like the mud of the street.

You have delivered me from the murmurings of the people

and placed me at the head of the nations.

A people I do not even know serves me –

at a mere rumour of my orders, they obey.

The children of strangers beg for my favour;

they hide away and tremble where they hide.

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.

Lord, your right hand upheld me.

Psalm 17 (18)

Long life to the Lord!

Praised be the God who saves me.

The Lord lives, my blessed Helper.

Let the God of my salvation be exalted.

God, you give me my revenge,

you subject peoples to my rule,

you free me from my enraged enemies.

You raise me up from those who attack me,

you snatch me from the grasp of the violent.

And so I will proclaim you among the nations, Lord,

and sing to your name.

Time and again you save your king,

you show your loving kindness to your anointed,

to David and his descendants 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.

Long life to the Lord!

Praised be the God who saves me.

He who reflects on the law of the Lord

– will yield his fruit in due season.

Reading

Exodus 12:1-20

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:

‘This month is to be the first of all the others for you, the first month of your year. Speak to the whole community of Israel and say, “On the tenth day of this month each man must take an animal from the flock, one for each family: one animal for each household. If the household is too small to eat the animal, a man must join with his neighbour, the nearest to his house, as the number of persons requires. You must take into account what each can eat in deciding the number for the animal. It must be an animal without blemish, a male one year old; you may take it from either sheep or goats. You must keep it till the fourteenth day of the month when the whole assembly of the community of Israel shall slaughter it between the two evenings. Some of the blood must then be taken and put on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where it is eaten. That night, the flesh is to be eaten, roasted over the fire; it must be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled, but roasted over the fire, head, feet and entrails. You must not leave any over till the morning: whatever is left till morning you are to burn. You shall eat it like this: with a girdle round your waist, sandals on your feet, a staff in your hand. You shall eat it hastily: it is a passover in honour of the Lord. That night, I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, man and beast alike, and I shall deal out punishment to all the gods of Egypt, I am the Lord! The blood shall serve to mark the houses that you live in. When I see the blood I will pass over you and you shall escape the destroying plague when I strike the land of Egypt. This day is to be a day of remembrance for you, 

and you must celebrate it as a feast in the Lord’s honour. For all generations you are to declare it a day of festival, for ever.

‘“For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to clean all leaven out of your houses, for anyone who eats leavened bread from the first to the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you are to hold a sacred gathering, and again on the seventh day. On those days no work is to be done; you are allowed only to prepare your food. The feast of Unleavened Bread must be kept because it was on that same day I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Keep that day from age to age: it is an irrevocable ordinance. In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day and until the evening of the twenty-first day, you are to eat unleavened bread. For seven days no leaven must be found in your houses, because anyone who eats leavened bread will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he be stranger or native-born. 

You must eat no leavened bread; wherever you live you must eat unleavened bread.”’

Responsory

The elders fell down before the Lamb, singing a new song:

Lord, by your own blood you have purchased us for God.

We were ransomed not with silver or gold,

but with the precious blood of Christ,

like that of a lamb without blemish.

Lord, by your own blood you have purchased us for God.

Reading

From a homily by Saint Asterius of Amasea, bishop

Be shepherds like the Lord

You were made in the image of God. 
If then you wish to resemble him, follow his example. 
Since the very name you bear as Christians is a profession of love for men, imitate the love of Christ.

Reflect for a moment on the wealth of his kindness. Before he came as a man to be among men, he sent John the Baptist to preach repentance and lead men to practise it. John himself was preceded by the prophets, who were to teach the people to repent, to return to God and to amend their lives. Then Christ came himself, and with his own lips cried out: Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. How did he receive those who listened to his call? He readily forgave them their sins; he freed them instantly from all that troubled them. 

The Word made them holy; the Spirit set his seal on them. 

The old Adam was buried in the waters of baptism; the new man was reborn to the vigour of grace.

What was the result? Those who had been God’s enemies became his friends, those estranged from him became his sons, 

those who did not know him came to worship and love him.

Let us then be shepherds like the Lord. We must meditate on the Gospel, 

and as we see in this mirror the example of zeal and loving kindness, we should become thoroughly schooled in these virtues.

For there, obscurely, in the form of a parable, we see a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. When one of them was separated from the flock and lost its way, that shepherd did not remain with the sheep who kept together at pasture. No, he went off to look for the stray. He crossed many valleys and thickets, he climbed great and towering mountains, 

he spent much time and labour in wandering through solitary places until at last he found his sheep.

When he found it, he did not chastise it; he did not use rough blows to drive it back, 

but gently placed it on his own shoulders and carried it back to the flock. 

He took greater joy in this one sheep, lost and found, than in all the others.

Let us look more closely at the hidden meaning of this parable. The sheep is more than a sheep, the shepherd more than a shepherd. They are examples enshrining holy truths. They teach us that we should not look on men as lost or beyond hope; we should not abandon them when they are in danger or be slow to come to their help. When they turn away from the right path and wander, we must lead them back, and rejoice at their return, welcoming them back into the company of those who lead good and holy lives.

Responsory

Administer true justice;

show loyalty and compassion to one another.

If you forgive others the wrongs they have done,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Show loyalty and compassion to one another.

Let us pray.

In your bounty, Lord,

give us the Spirit

who alone can teach us to think and do what is right,

so that we, who without you cannot exist,

may live in loving obedience to your will.

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.