Prayer of Saint John de Brebeuf (1593-1649)
Jesus,
my Lord and Savior,
what can I give you in return for all the favors you have first conferred on me?
I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name.
I vow before your eternal Father and the Holy Spirit,
before your most holy Mother and her most chaste spouse,
before the angels, apostles and martyrs,
before my blessed fathers Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier–in truth,
I vow to you,
Jesus my Savior,
that as far as I have the strength,
I will never fail to accept the grace of martyrdom,
if someday you in your infinite mercy should offer it to me,
your most unworthy servant...
My beloved Jesus,
here and now I offer my body and blood and life.
May I die only for you,
if you will grant me this grace,
since you willingly died for me.
Let me so live that you may grant me the gift of such a happy death.
In this way,
my God and Savior,
I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!
Father,
you consecrated the first beginnings of the faith in North America
by the preaching and martyrdom of Saints John and Isaac and their companions.
By the help of their prayers may the Christian faith continue to grow throughout the world.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
IS 45:1, 4-6
Thus says the LORD to his anointed, Cyrus,
whose right hand I grasp,
subduing nations before him,
and making kings run in his service,
opening doors before him
and leaving the gates unbarred:
For the sake of Jacob, my servant,
of Israel, my chosen one,
I have called you by your name,
giving you a title, though you knew me not.
I am the LORD and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.
It is I who arm you, though you know me not,
so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun
people may know that there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, there is no other.
Responsorial Psalm
S 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
R. Give the Lord glory and honor.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
R. Give the Lord glory and honor.
For great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
awesome is he, beyond all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are things of nought,
but the LORD made the heavens.
R. Give the Lord glory and honor.
Give to the LORD, you families of nations,
give to the LORD glory and praise;
give to the LORD the glory due his name!
Bring gifts, and enter his courts.
R. Give the Lord glory and honor.
Worship the LORD, in holy attire;
tremble before him, all the earth;
say among the nations: The LORD is king,
he governs the peoples with equity.
R. Give the Lord glory and honor.
Reading 2
1 THES 1:1-5B
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians
in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
grace to you and peace.
We give thanks to God always for all of you,
remembering you in our prayers,
unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love
and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ,
before our God and Father,
knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God,
how you were chosen.
For our gospel did not come to you in word alone,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.
Gospel
MT 22:15-21
The Pharisees went off
and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.
They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,
"Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion,
for you do not regard a person's status.
Tell us, then, what is your opinion:
Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"
Knowing their malice, Jesus said,
"Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?
Show me the coin that pays the census tax."
Then they handed him the Roman coin.
He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?"
They replied, "Caesar's."
At that he said to them,
"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God."
October 19
St. Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf and Companions
(1607-1646) (1593-1649)
Isaac Jogues and his companions were the first martyrs of the North American continent officially recognized by the Church. As a young Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, a man of learning and culture, taught literature in France. He gave up that career to work among the Huron Indians in the New World, and in 1636 he and his companions, under the leadership of Jean de Brébeuf, arrived in Quebec. The Hurons were constantly warred upon by the Iroquois, and in a few years Father Jogues was captured by the Iroquois and imprisoned for 13 months. His letters and journals tell how he and his companions were led from village to village,
how they were beaten, tortured and forced to watch as their Huron converts were mangled and killed.
An unexpected chance for escape came to Isaac Jogues through the Dutch, and he returned to France, bearing the marks of his sufferings. Several fingers had been cut, chewed or burnt off. Pope Urban VIII gave him permission to offer Mass with his mutilated hands: "It would be shameful that a martyr of Christ not be allowed to drink the Blood of Christ." Welcomed home as a hero, Father Jogues might have sat back, thanked God for his safe return and died peacefully in his homeland. But his zeal led him back once more to the fulfillment of his dreams. In a few months he sailed for his missions among the Hurons.
In 1646 he and Jean de Lalande, who had offered his services to the missioners, set out for Iroquois country in the belief that a recently signed peace treaty would be observed. They were captured by a Mohawk war party, and on October 18 Father Jogues was tomahawked and beheaded. Jean de Lalande was killed the next day at Ossernenon, a village near Albany, New York.
The first of the Jesuit missionaries to be martyred was René Goupil who, with Lalande, had offered his services as an oblate. He was tortured along with Isaac Jogues in 1642,
and was tomahawked for having made the Sign of the Cross on the brow of some children.
Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit who came to Canada at the age of 32 and labored there for 24 years. He went back to France when the English captured Quebec in 1629 and expelled the Jesuits, but returned to his missions four years later.
Although medicine men blamed the Jesuits for a smallpox epidemic among the Hurons, Jean remained with them.
He composed catechisms and a dictionary in Huron, and saw 7,000 converted before his death.
He was captured by the Iroquois and died after four hours of extreme torture at Sainte Marie, near Georgian Bay, Canada.
Father Anthony Daniel, working among Hurons who were gradually becoming Christian, was killed by Iroquois on July 4, 1648. His body was thrown into his chapel, which was set on fire.
Gabriel Lalemant had taken a fourth vow—to sacrifice his life for the Native Americans.
He was horribly tortured to death along with Father Brébeuf.
Father Charles Garnier was shot to death as he baptized children and catechumens during an Iroquois attack.
Father Noel Chabanel was killed before he could answer his recall to France. He had found it exceedingly hard to adapt to mission life. He could not learn the language, the food and life of the Indians revolted him,
plus he suffered spiritual dryness during his whole stay in Canada. Yet he made a vow to remain until death in his mission.
These eight Jesuit martyrs of North America were canonized in 1930.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.”
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.”
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, 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.
Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the God who saves us, alleluia.
Hymn
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Be all else but naught to me, save that thou art;
Be thou my best thought in the day and the night,
Both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,
Be thou ever with me, and I with thee Lord;
Be thou my great Father, and I thy true son;
Be thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.
Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
Be thou my whole armour, be thou my true might;
Be thou my soul’s shelter, be thou my strong tower:
O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise:
Be thou mine inheritance now and always;
Be thou and thou only the first in my heart;
O Sovereign of Heaven, my treasure thou art.
High King of Heaven, thou Heaven’s bright sun,
O grant me its joys after victory is won!
Great heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Psalm 1
The two paths
The cross of the Lord is become the tree of life for us.
Blessed the man who does not follow the counsels of the wicked,
or stand in the paths that sinners use,
or sit in the gatherings of those who mock:
his delight is the law of the Lord,
he ponders his law day and night.
He is like a tree planted by flowing waters,
that will give its fruit in due time,
whose leaves will not fade.
All that he does will prosper.
Not thus are the wicked, not thus.
They are like the dust blown by the wind.
At the time of judgement the wicked will not stand,
nor sinners in the council of the just.
For the Lord knows the path of the just;
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
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 cross of the Lord is become the tree of life for us.
Psalm 2
The Messiah, king and victor
It is I who have set up my king on Sion.
Why are the nations in a ferment?
Why do the people make their vain plans?
The kings of the earth have risen up;
the leaders have united against the Lord,
against his anointed.
“Let us break their chains, that bind us;
let us throw off their yoke from our shoulders!”
The Lord laughs at them,
he who lives in the heavens derides them.
Then he speaks to them in his anger;
in his fury he throws them into confusion:
“But I – I have set up my king on Zion,
my holy mountain.”
I will proclaim the Lord’s decrees.
The Lord has said to me: “You are my son: today I have begotten you.
Ask me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance,
the ends of the earth for you to possess.
You will rule them with a rod of iron,
break them in pieces like an earthen pot.”
So now, kings, listen: understand, you who rule the land.
Serve the Lord in fear, tremble even as you praise him.
Learn his teaching, lest he take anger,
lest you perish when his anger bursts into flame.
Blessed are all who put their trust in the Lord.
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 is I who have set up my king on Sion.
Psalm 3
The Lord is my protector
You, Lord, are my salvation and my glory:
you lift up my head.
Lord, how many they are, my attackers!
So many rise up against me, so many of them say:
“He can hope for no help from the Lord.”
But you, Lord, are my protector, my glory:
you raise up my head.
I called to the Lord,
and from his holy mountain he heard my voice.
I fell asleep, and slept;
but I rose, for the Lord raised me up.
I will not fear when the people surround me in their thousands.
Rise up, O Lord;
bring me to safety, my God.
Those who attacked me – you struck them on the jaw,
you shattered their teeth.
Salvation comes from the Lord:
Lord, your blessing is upon your people.
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.
You, Lord, are my salvation and my glory:
you lift up my head.
May the word of the Lord find a true home in you.
– Teach and advise one another in all wisdom.
First Reading
Esther 1:1-3,9-13,15-16,19,2:5-10,16-17
It was in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus whose empire stretched from India to Ethiopia and comprised one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. In those days, when King Ahasuerus was sitting on his royal throne in the citadel of Susa, in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet at his court for all his administrators and ministers, chiefs of the army of Persia and Media, nobles and governors of provinces.
Queen Vashti, too, had given a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Ahasuerus.
On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs in attendance on the person of King Ahasuerus, to bring Queen Vashti before the king crowned with her royal diadem, in order to display her beauty to the people and the administrators, for she was very beautiful.
But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. The king was very angry at this and his rage grew hot. He then consulted the wise men who were versed in the law, since it was the practice to refer matters affecting the king to expert lawyers and jurists. ‘According to law,’ he said
‘what is to be done to Queen Vashti for not obeying the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?’
In the presence of the king and of the administrators Memucan answered, ‘Vashti has wronged not only the king, but also all the administrators and nations inhabiting the provinces of King Ahasuerus. The queen’s conduct will soon become known to all the women and encourage them in a contemptuous attitude towards their husbands, since they will say, “King Ahasuerus ordered Queen Vashti to appear before him and she did not come.” The wives of all the Persian and Median administrators will hear of the queen’s answer before the day is out, and will start talking to the king’s administrators in the same way; that will mean contempt and anger all round. If it is the king’s pleasure, let him issue a royal edict, to be irrevocably incorporated into the laws of the Persians and Medes, to the effect that Vashti is never to appear again before King Ahasuerus,
and let the king confer her royal dignity on a worthier woman.
Now in the citadel of Susa there lived a Jew called Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who had been deported from Jerusalem among the captives taken away with Jeconiah king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He had brought up Hadassah, otherwise called Esther, his uncle’s daughter, who had lost both father and mother; the girl had a good figure and a beautiful face, and on the death of her parents Mordecai had adopted her as his daughter.
Following the promulgation of the king’s edict, a great number of girls were brought to the citadel of Susa where they were entrusted to Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, the custodian of the women. The girl pleased him and won his favour. Not only did he quickly provide her with all she needed for her dressing room and her meals, but he gave her seven special maids from the king’s household and transferred her and her maids to the best part of the harem. Esther did not reveal her race or kindred, since Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. She was brought to King Ahasuerus in his royal palace in the tenth month, which is called Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign; and the king liked Esther better than any of the other women; none of the other girls found so much favour and approval with him.
So he set the royal diadem on her head and proclaimed her queen instead of Vashti.
Responsory
Who is like the Lord our God,
who is seated on high,
yet deigns to look down upon the heavens and the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash-heap,
to give them a place among princes.
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts;
he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree.
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash-heap,
to give them a place among princes.
Second Reading
A letter to Proba
by St Augustine
Let us exercise our desire in prayer
Why in our fear of not praying as we should, do we turn to so many things, to find what we should pray for? Why do we not say instead, in the words of the psalm: I have asked one thing from the Lord, this is what I will seek: to dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, to see the graciousness of the Lord, and to visit his temple? There, the days do not come and go in succession, and the beginning of one day does not mean the end of another; all days are one, simultaneously and without end, and the life lived out in these days has itself no end.
So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true life itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.
Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realise that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it), but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke with unbelievers.
The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive that gift, which is very great indeed. No eye has seen it; it has no colour. No ear has heard it; it has no sound. It has not entered man’s heart; man’s heart must enter into it.
In this faith, hope and love we pray always with unwearied desire. However, at set times and seasons we also pray to God in words, so that by these signs we may instruct ourselves and mark the progress we have made in our desire, and spur ourselves on to deepen it. The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruit. When the Apostle tells us: Pray without ceasing, he means this: Desire unceasingly that life of happiness which is nothing if not eternal, and ask it of him who alone is able to give it.
Responsory
When you seek me,
you shall find me – if you search with all your heart.
If you pray to me,
I will listen to you.
I know the plans I have in mind for you – plans for peace,
not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you.
If you pray to me,
I will listen to you.
Canticle
Te Deum
God, we praise you; Lord, we proclaim you!
You, the Father, the eternal –
all the earth venerates you.
All the angels, all the heavens, every power –
The cherubim, the seraphim –
unceasingly, they cry:
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts:
heaven and earth are full of the majesty of your glory!”
The glorious choir of Apostles –
The noble ranks of prophets –
The shining army of martyrs –
all praise you.
Throughout the world your holy Church proclaims you.
– Father of immeasurable majesty,
– True Son, only-begotten, worthy of worship,
– Holy Spirit, our Advocate.
You, Christ:
– You are the king of glory.
– You are the Father’s eternal Son.
– You, to free mankind, did not disdain a Virgin’s womb.
– You defeated the sharp spear of Death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to those who believe in you.
– You sit at God’s right hand, in the glory of the Father.
– You will come, so we believe, as our Judge.
And so we ask of you: give help to your servants,
whom you set free at the price of your precious blood.
Number them among your chosen ones in eternal glory.
Bring your people to safety, Lord,
and bless those who are your inheritance.
Rule them and lift them high for ever.
Day by day we bless you, Lord: we praise you for ever and for ever.
Of your goodness, Lord, keep us without sin for today.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us.
Let your pity, Lord, be upon us, as much as we trust in you.
In you, Lord, I trust: let me never be put to shame.
Let us pray.
Almighty, ever-living God,
make us ever obey you willingly and promptly.
Teach us how to serve you
with sincere and upright hearts
in every sphere of life.
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.
