The Jesus Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God,
have mercy on me,
a sinner.
DAILY MASS READINGS
Wednesday after Epiphany
Reading
1 JN 4:11-18
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also must love one another.
No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.
This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,
that he has given us of his Spirit.
Moreover, we have seen and testify
that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world.
Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God remains in him and he in God.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.
God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
In this is love brought to perfection among us,
that we have confidence on the day of judgment
because as he is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love drives out fear
because fear has to do with punishment,
and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 72:1-2, 10, 12-13
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Gospel
MK 6:45-52
After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied,
Jesus made his disciples get into the boat
and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida,
while he dismissed the crowd.
And when he had taken leave of them,
he went off to the mountain to pray.
When it was evening,
the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore.
Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing,
for the wind was against them.
About the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea.
He meant to pass by them.
But when they saw him walking on the sea,
they thought it was a ghost and cried out.
They had all seen him and were terrified.
But at once he spoke with them,
“Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!”
He got into the boat with them and the wind died down.
They were completely astounded.
They had not understood the incident of the loaves.
On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.
SAINT OF THE DAY
January 8
St. Albert of Cashel (d. 800)
The Patron saint of Cashel, Ireland.
Listed traditionally as an Englishman who labored in Ireland and then in Bavaria,
Albert went to Jerusalem and died in Regensburg on his return journey.
OFFICE OF READINGS
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
Christ has appeared to us: 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.
Christ has appeared to us: 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.
Christ has appeared to us: 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.
Christ has appeared to us: 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.”
Christ has appeared to us: 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.”
Christ has appeared to us: 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.
Christ has appeared to us: come,
let us adore him.
Hymn
Bethlehem, of noblest cities
none can once with thee compare:
thou alone the Lord from heaven
didst for us Incarnate bear.
Fairer than the sun at morning
was the star that told his birth;
to the lands their God announcing,
hid beneath a form of earth.
By its lambent beauty guided,
see, the eastern kings appear;
see them bend, their gifts to offer,
gifts of incense, gold and myrrh.
Solemn things of mystic meaning:
incense doth the God disclose;
gold a royal Child proclaimeth;
myrrh a future tomb foreshows.
Holy Jesu, in thy brightness
to the Gentile world displayed,
with the Father and the Spirit
endless praise to thee be paid.
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.
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.
Praise the Lord, Jerusalem:
– he sends out his word over the earth.
First Reading
Isaiah 62:1-12
About Zion I will not be silent,
about Jerusalem I will not grow weary,
until her integrity shines out like the dawn
and her salvation flames like a torch.
The nations then will see your integrity,
all the kings your glory,
and you will be called by a new name,
one which the mouth of the Lord will confer.
You are to be a crown of splendor in the hand of the Lord,
a princely diadem in the hand of your God;
no longer are you to be named ‘Forsaken’,
nor your land ‘Abandoned’,
but you shall be called ‘My Delight’
and your land ‘The Wedded’;
for the Lord takes delight in you
and your land will have its wedding.
Like a young man marrying a virgin,
so will the one who built you wed you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,
so will your God rejoice in you.
On your walls, Jerusalem,
I set watchmen.
Day or night
they must never be silent.
You who keep the Lord mindful
must take no rest.
Nor let him take rest
till he has restored Jerusalem,
and made her
the boast of the earth.
The Lord has sworn it by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
Never again shall I give your corn
to feed your enemies.
Never again will foreigners drink your wine
that you labored for.
But those who gather the harvest will eat it
and praise the Lord.
Those who gathered the grapes will drink
in the courts of my sanctuary.
Pass through, pass through the gates.
Make a way for the people.
Bank up, bank up the highway,
clear it of stones.
Hoist the signal for the peoples.
This the Lord proclaims
to the ends of the earth:
Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Look,
your savior comes,
the prize of his victory with him,
his trophies before him.’
They shall be called ‘The Holy People’,
‘the Lord’s Redeemed.’
And you shall be called ‘The-sought-after’,
‘City-not-forsaken.’
Responsory
The nations will see your integrity,
all the kings your glory,
and you will be called by a new name,
one which the mouth of the Lord will confer.
You are to be a crown of splendor in the hand of the Lord,
a princely diadem in the hand of your God,
and you will be called by a new name,
one which the mouth of the Lord will confer.
Second Reading
A discourse on the Theophany
by pseudo-Hippolytus
Water and the Spirit
That Jesus should come and be baptized by John is surely cause for amazement. To think of the infinite river that gladdens the city of God being bathed in a poor little stream; of the eternal and unfathomable fountainhead that gives life to all men being immersed in the shallow waters of this transient world!
He who fills all creation, leaving no place devoid of his presence, he who is incomprehensible to the angels and hidden from the sight of man, came to be baptized because it was his will. And behold, the heavens opened and a voice said:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
The beloved Father begets love, and the immaterial Light generates light inaccessible.
This is he who was called the son of Joseph and in his divine nature is my only Son.
This is my beloved Son. Though hungry himself, he feeds thousands;
though weary, he refreshes those who labour.
He has no place to lay his head yet he holds all creation in his hand. By his suffering he heals all sufferings;
by receiving a blow on the cheek he gives the world its liberty;
by being pierced in the side he heals the wound in Adam’s side.
And now, please pay close attention,
for I want to return to that fountain of life and contemplate its healing waters as they gush out.
The Father of immortality sent his immortal Son and Word into the world, to come to us men and cleanse us with water and the Spirit. To give us a new birth that would make our bodies and souls immortal, he breathed into us the spirit of life and armed us with incorruptibility. Now if we become immortal, we shall also be divine; and if we become divine after rebirth in baptism through water and the Holy Spirit, we shall also be heirs along with Christ, after the resurrection of the dead.
So I cry out, like a herald: Let peoples of every nation come and receive the immortality that flows from baptism. This is the water that is linked to the Spirit, the water that irrigates Paradise, makes the earth fertile, gives growth to plants, and brings forth living creatures. In short, this is the water by which a man receives new birth and life, the water in which even Christ was baptized,
the water into which the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
Whoever goes down into these waters of rebirth with faith renounces the devil and pledges himself to Christ. He repudiates the enemy and confesses that Christ is God, throws off his servitude and becomes an adopted son. He comes up from baptism resplendent as the sun and radiating purity and, above all, he comes as a son of God and a co-heir with Christ.
To him be glory and power, to him and his most holy, good and life-giving Spirit, both now and for ever.
Amen.
Responsory
I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove and resting upon him.
I saw it myself, and I have borne witness:
this is God’s Chosen One.
He who sent me to baptize with water has said to me,
The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
I saw it myself, and I have borne witness:
this is God’s Chosen One.
Let us pray.
God, our Father,
when your Only-Begotten Son revealed himself in flesh and blood,
we came to know him as our fellow-man.
May he transform us inwardly until we bear his likeness,
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.
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