PRAYER OF THE DAY

To the Blessed Virgin Mary for May

O most august and blessed Virgin Mary!

Holy Mother of God!

Glorious Queen of heaven and earth!

Powerful protectress of those who love thee,

and unfailing advocate of all who invoke thee!

Look down, I beseech thee,

from thy throne of glory on thy devoted child;

accept the solemn offering I present thee of this month,

specially dedicated to thee,

and receive my ardent, humble desire,

that by my love and fervor I could worthily honor thee,

who, next to God,

art deserving of all honor.

Receive me, O Mother of Mercy,

among thy best beloved children;

extend to me thy maternal tenderness and solicitude;

obtain for me a place in the Heart of Jesus,

and a special share in the gifts of His grace.

O deign, I beseech thee,

to recognize my claims on thy protection,

to watch over my spiritual and temporal interests,

as well as those of all who are dear to me;

to infuse into my soul the spirit of Christ,

and to teach me thyself to become

meek, humble, charitable, patient, and submissive to the will of God.

May my heart burn with the love of thy Divine Son,

and of thee, His blessed Mother,

not for a month alone, but for time and eternity;

may I thirst for the promotion of His honor and thine,

and contribute, as far as I can, to its extension.

Receive me, O Mary,

the refuge of sinners!

Grant me a Mother's blessing and a Mother's care,

now, and at the hour of my death.

Amen.

DAILY MASS READINGS

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Reading

ACTS 17:15, 22—18:1

After Paul’s escorts had taken him to Athens,

they came away with instructions for Silas and Timothy

to join him as soon as possible.

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:

“You Athenians, I see that in every respect

you are very religious.

For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,

I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’

What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and all that is in it,

the Lord of heaven and earth,

does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,

nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.

Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.

He made from one the whole human race

to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,

and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,

so that people might seek God,

even perhaps grope for him and find him,

though indeed he is not far from any one of us.

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’

as even some of your poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

Since therefore we are the offspring of God,

we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image

fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.

God has overlooked the times of ignorance,

but now he demands that all people everywhere repent

because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world

with justice’ through a man he has appointed,

and he has provided confirmation for all

by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about resurrection of the dead,

some began to scoff, but others said,

“We should like to hear you on this some other time.”

And so Paul left them.

But some did join him, and became believers.

Among them were Dionysius,

a member of the Court of the Areopagus,

a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

After this he left Athens and went to Corinth.

Responsorial Psalm

PS 148:1-2, 11-12, 13, 14

R. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

or:

R. Alleluia.

Praise the LORD from the heavens;

praise him in the heights.

Praise him, all you his angels;

praise him, all you his hosts.

R. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

or:

R. Alleluia.

Let the kings of the earth and all peoples,

the princes and all the judges of the earth,

Young men too, and maidens,

old men and boys.

R. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

or:

R. Alleluia.

Praise the name of the LORD,

for his name alone is exalted;

His majesty is above earth and heaven.

R. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

or:

R. Alleluia.

He has lifted up the horn of his people;

Be this his praise from all his faithful ones,

from the children of Israel, the people close to him.

Alleluia.

R. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

or:

R. Alleluia.

Gospel

JN 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.

He will glorify me,

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

and declare it to you.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

May 8

St. Peter of Tarentaise (c. 1102-1174)

There are two men named St. Peter of Tarentaise who lived one century apart. 

The man we honor today is the younger Peter, born in France in the early part of the 12th century. 

(The other man with the same name became Pope Innocent the Fifth.)

The Peter we’re focusing on became a Cistercian monk and eventually served as abbot. In 1142, he was named archbishop of Tarentaise, replacing a bishop who had been deposed because of corruption. Peter tackled his new assignment with vigor. He brought reform into his diocese, replaced lax clergy and reached out to the poor. 

He visited all parts of his mountainous diocese on a regular basis.

After about a decade as bishop Peter “disappeared” for a year and lived quietly as a lay brother at an abbey in Switzerland. When he was “found out,” the reluctant bishop was persuaded to return to his post. 

He again focused many of his energies on the poor.

Peter died in 1175 on his way home from an unsuccessful papal assignment to reconcile the kings of France and England.

OFFICE OF READINGS

O Lord, open my lips.

And we shall praise your name.

Invitatory Psalm

Psalm 94 (95)

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

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.

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

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.

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

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.

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

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.”

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

“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.”

The Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

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 Lord has truly risen,

alleluia.

Hymn

Love’s redeeming work is done,

fought the fight, the battle won.

Lo, our Sun’s eclipse is o’er!

Lo, he sets in blood no more!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal!

Christ has burst the gates of hell;

death in vain forbids him rise;

Christ has opened paradise.

Lives again our victorious King;

where, O death, is now thy sting?

Dying once, he all doth save;

where thy victory, O grave?

Soar we now where Christ has led,

following our exalted Head;

made like him, like him we rise,

ours the cross, the grave, the skies.

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven!

Praise to thee by both be given:

thee we greet triumphant now;

hail, the Resurrection thou!

Psalm 38 (39)

A prayer in sickness

We groan inwardly and await the redemption of our bodies.

I said, “I will watch my ways,

I will try not to sin in my speech.

I will set a guard on my mouth,

for as long as my enemies are standing against me.”

I stayed quiet and dumb, spoke neither evil nor good,

but my pain was renewed.

My heart grew hot within me,

and fire blazed in my thoughts.

Then I spoke out loud:

“Lord, make me know my end.

Let me know the number of my days,

so that I know how short my life is to be.”

All the length of my days is a handsbreadth or two,

the expanse of my life is as nothing before you.

For in your sight all men are nothingness:

man passes away, like a shadow.

Nothingness, although he is busy:

he builds up treasure, but who will collect it?

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.

We groan inwardly and await the redemption of our bodies.

Psalm 38 (39)

Lord, hear my prayer: do not be deaf to my tears.

What, now, can I look forward to, Lord?

My hope is in you.

Rescue me from all my sins,

do not make me a thing for fools to laugh at.

I have sworn to be dumb, I will not open my mouth:

for it is at your hands that I am suffering.

Aim your blows away from me,

for I am crushed by the weight of your hand.

You rebuke and chastise us for our sins.

Like the moth you consume all we desire

– for all men are nothingness.

Listen, Lord, to my prayer:

turn your ear to my cries.

Do not be deaf to my weeping,

for I come as a stranger before you,

a wanderer like my fathers before me.

Turn away from me, give me respite,

before I leave this world,

before I am no more.

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, hear my prayer: do not be deaf to my tears.

Psalm 51 (52)

Against calumny

I trust in the goodness of God for ever and ever.

Alleluia.

Why do you take pride in your malice,

you expert in evil-doing?

All day long you plan your traps,

your tongue is sharp as a razor –

you master of deceit!

You have chosen malice over kindness;

you speak lies rather than the truth;

your tongue is in love with every deceit.

For all this, in the end God will destroy you.

He will tear you out and expel you from your dwelling,

uproot you from the land of the living.

The upright will see and be struck with awe:

they will deride the evil-doer.

“Here is the man who did not make God his refuge,

but put his hope in the abundance of his riches

and in the power of his stratagems.”

But I flourish like an olive in the palace of God.

I hope in the kindness of God,

for ever, and through all ages.

I shall praise you for all time for what you have done.

I shall put my hope in your name and in its goodness

in the sight of your chosen ones.

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 trust in the goodness of God for ever and ever.

Alleluia.

God raised Christ from the dead, alleluia,

– so that our faith and hope would be in God, alleluia.

First Reading

1 John 2:18-29

Children, these are the last days;

you were told that an Antichrist must come,

and now several antichrists have already appeared;

we know from this that these are the last days.

Those rivals of Christ came out of our own number, but they had never really belonged;

if they had belonged, they would have stayed with us;

but they left us, to prove that not one of them

ever belonged to us.

But you have been anointed by the Holy One,

and have all received the knowledge.

It is not because you do not know the truth that I am writing to you

but rather because you know it already

and know that no lie can come from the truth.

The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ –

he is the liar,

he is Antichrist;

and he is denying the Father as well as the Son,

because no one who has the Father can deny the Son,

and to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father as well.

Keep alive in yourselves what you were taught in the beginning:

as long as what you were taught in the beginning is alive in you,

you will live in the Son

and in the Father;

and what is promised to you by his own promise

is eternal life.

This is all that I am writing to you about the people who are trying to lead you astray.

But you have not lost the anointing that he gave you,

and you do not need anyone to teach you;

the anointing he gave teaches you everything;

you are anointed with truth, not with a lie,

and as it has taught you, so you must stay in him.

Live in Christ, then, my children,

so that if he appears, we may have full confidence,

and not turn from him in shame

at his coming.

You know that God is righteous –

then you must recognise that everyone whose life is righteous

has been begotten by him.

Responsory

You have not lost the anointing God gave you:

you do not need anyone else to teach you,

since in the anointing he teaches you everything, alleluia.

Be glad, rejoice in the Lord your God,

for he has given you a teacher of justice:

you do not need anyone else to teach you,

since in the anointing he teaches you everything, alleluia.

Second Reading

A sermon of Pope St Leo the Great

The days between the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord

Dearly beloved, those days which intervened between the Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension did not pass by in uneventful leisure, but great mysteries were ratified in them and deep truths were revealed.

In those days the fear of death was removed with all its terrors, and the immortality not only of the soul but also of the flesh was established. In those days the Holy Ghost is poured upon all the Apostles through the Lord’s breathing upon them, and to the blessed Apostle Peter, set above the rest, 

the keys of the kingdom are entrusted and the care of the Lord’s flock.

It was during that time that the Lord joined the two disciples as a companion on the way, and, to sweep away all the clouds of our uncertainty, reproached them for the slowness of their timid and trembling hearts. Their enlightened hearts catch the flame of faith, and lukewarm as they have been, they are made to burn while the Lord unfolds the Scriptures. In the breaking of bread also their eyes are opened as they eat with him. How much more blessed is that opening of their eyes, to the glorification of their nature, 

than the time when our first parents’ eyes were opened to the disastrous consequences of their transgression.

Dearly beloved, through all this time which elapsed between the Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, 

God’s Providence had this in view, 

to teach his own people and impress upon their eyes and their hearts that the Lord Jesus Christ had risen, 

risen as truly as he had been born and had suffered and died.

Hence the most blessed Apostles and all the disciples, who had been both bewildered at his death on the cross and backward in believing his Resurrection, were so strengthened by the clearness of the truth that when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, not only were they affected with no sadness, but were even filled with great joy.

Truly it was great and unspeakable, that cause of their joy, when in the sight of the holy multitude the Nature of mankind went up: up above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, to pass above the angels’ ranks and to rise beyond the archangels’ heights, and to have its uplifting limited by no elevation until, received to sit with the Eternal Father, 

it should be associated on the throne with his glory, to whose Nature it was united in the Son.

Responsory

I am going now to prepare a place for you.

I shall return to take you with me,

so that where I am you may be too, alleluia.

I shall ask the Father,

and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever,

the Spirit of truth.

I will not leave you orphans.

I shall return to take you with me,

so that where I am you may be too, alleluia.

Let us pray.

God and Father,

we honour the yearly feast of your Son’s resurrection

by celebrating it in the sacramental mystery.

Give us likewise the grace

to rejoice with all the saints

when he comes in glory.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Let us praise the Lord.

– Thanks be to God.