Collect
O God, who restore us to eternal life
in the Resurrection of Christ,
raise us up, we pray, to the author of our salvation,
who is seated at your right hand,
so that, when our Savior comes again in majesty,
those you have given new birth in Baptism
may be clothed with blessed immortality.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Reading
ACTS 18:9-18
One night while Paul was in Corinth,
the Lord said to him in a vision,
“Do not be afraid.
Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.
No one will attack and harm you,
for I have many people in this city.”
He settled there for a year and a half
and taught the word of God among them.
But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia,
the Jews rose up together against Paul
and brought him to the tribunal, saying,
“This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law.”
When Paul was about to reply, Gallio spoke to the Jews,
“If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud,
I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews;
but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles
and your own law, see to it yourselves.
I do not wish to be a judge of such matters.”
And he drove them away from the tribunal.
They all seized Sosthenes, the synagogue official,
and beat him in full view of the tribunal.
But none of this was of concern to Gallio.
Paul remained for quite some time,
and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria,
together with Priscilla and Aquila.
At Cenchreae he had shaved his head because he had taken a vow.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 47:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
R. God is king of all the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
All you peoples, clap your hands,
shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
is the great king over all the earth.
R. God is king of all the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He brings people under us;
nations under our feet.
He chooses for us our inheritance,
the glory of Jacob, whom he loves.
R. God is king of all the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy;
the LORD, amid trumpet blasts.
Sing praise to God, sing praise;
sing praise to our king, sing praise.
R. God is king of all the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
LK 24:46, 26
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Christ had to suffer and to rise from the dead,
and so enter into his glory.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
JN 16:20-23
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.
On that day you will not question me about anything.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”
May 15
St. Isidore the Farmer (1070-1130)
Isidore has become the patron of farmers and rural communities.
In particular he is the patron of Madrid, Spain, and of the United States National Rural Life Conference.
When he was barely old enough to wield a hoe, Isidore entered the service of John de Vergas, a wealthy landowner from Madrid, and worked faithfully on his estate outside the city for the rest of his life. He married a young woman as simple and upright as himself who also became a saint—Maria de la Cabeza. They had one son, who died as a child.
Isidore had deep religious instincts. He rose early in the morning to go to church and spent many a holiday devoutly visiting the churches of Madrid and surrounding areas. All day long, as he walked behind the plow, he communed with God. His devotion, one might say, became a problem, for his fellow workers sometimes complained that he often showed up late because of lingering in church too long.
He was known for his love of the poor, and there are accounts of Isidore’s supplying them miraculously with food.
He had a great concern for the proper treatment of animals.
He died May 15, 1130, and was declared a saint in 1622 with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri.
Together, the group is known in Spain as “the five saints.”
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 99 (100)
Christ the Lord has promised us the Holy Spirit:
come, let us adore him, alleluia.
Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,
and serve him with joy.
Exult as you enter his presence.
Christ the Lord has promised us the Holy Spirit:
come, let us adore him, alleluia.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his
– his people, the sheep of his flock.
Christ the Lord has promised us the Holy Spirit:
come, let us adore him, alleluia.
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 forever,
his faithfulness through all the ages.
Christ the Lord has promised us the Holy Spirit:
come, let us adore him, 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.
Christ the Lord has promised us the Holy Spirit:
come, let us adore him, alleluia.
Hymn
Hail the day that sees him rise, alleluia!
to his throne above the skies; alleluia!
Christ, the Lamb for sinners given, alleluia!
enters now the highest heaven! alleluia!
There for him high triumph waits; alleluia!
lift your heads, eternal gates! alleluia!
he hath conquered death and sin; alleluia!
take the King of glory in! alleluia!
Lo! the heaven its Lord receives, alleluia!
yet he loves the earth he leaves; alleluia!
though returning to his throne, alleluia!
still he calls mankind his own. alleluia!
Still for us he intercedes, alleluia!
his prevailing death he pleads, alleluia!
near himself prepares our place, alleluia!
he, the first-fruits of our race. alleluia!
Lord, though parted from our sight, alleluia!
far above the starry height, alleluia!
grant our hearts may thither rise, alleluia!
seeking thee above the skies. alleluia!
There we shall with thee remain, alleluia!
partners of thy eternal reign, alleluia!
there thy face forever see, alleluia!
find our heaven of heavens in thee, alleluia!
Psalm 37 (38)
The plea of a sinner in great peril
Do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.
Lord, do not rebuke me in your wrath,
do not ruin me in your anger:
for I am pierced by your arrows
and crushed beneath your hand.
In the face of your anger
there is no health in my body.
There is no peace for my bones,
no rest from my sins.
My transgressions rise higher than my head:
a heavy burden, they weigh me down.
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.
Do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.
Psalm 37 (38)
O Lord, you know all my longing.
Alleluia.
My wounds are corruption and decay
because of my foolishness.
I am bowed down and bent,
bent under grief all day long.
For a fire burns up my loins,
and there is no health in my body.
I am afflicted, utterly cast down,
I cry out from the sadness of my heart.
Lord, all that I desire is known to you;
my sighs are not hidden from you.
My heart grows weak, my strength leaves me,
and the light of my eyes – even that has gone.
My friends and my neighbours
keep far from my wounds.
Those closest to me keep far away,
while those who would kill me set traps,
those who would harm me make their plots:
they plan mischief all through the day.
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.
O Lord, you know all my longing.
Alleluia.
Psalm 37 (38)
I confess my guilt to you, Lord;
do not forsake me, my savior.
Alleluia.
But I, like a deaf man, do not hear;
like one who is dumb, I do not open my mouth.
I am like someone who cannot hear,
in whose mouth there is no reply.
For in you, Lord, I put my trust:
you will listen to me, Lord, my God.
For I have said, “Let them never triumph over me:
if my feet stumble, they will gloat.”
For I am ready to fall:
my suffering is before me always.
For I shall proclaim my wrongdoing:
I am anxious because of my sins.
All the time my enemies live and grow stronger;
they are so many, those who hate me without cause.
Returning evil for good they dragged me down,
because I followed the way of goodness.
Do not abandon me, Lord:
my God, do not leave me.
Hurry to my aid,
O Lord, my savior.
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 confess my guilt to you, Lord;
do not forsake me, my savior.
Alleluia.
Christ, at your resurrection, alleluia,
– let heaven and earth rejoice, alleluia.
First Reading
1 John 3:1-10
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;
and that is what we are.
Because the world refused to acknowledge him,
therefore it does not acknowledge us.
My dear people, we are already the children of God
but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed;
all we know is, that when it is revealed
we shall be like him
because we shall see him as he really is.
Surely everyone who entertains this hope
must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ.
Anyone who sins at all
breaks the law,
because to sin is to break the law.
Now you know that he appeared in order to abolish sin,
and that in him there is no sin;
anyone who lives in God does not sin,
and anyone who sins
has never seen him or known him.
My children, do not let anyone lead you astray:
to live a holy life
is to be holy just as he is holy;
to lead a sinful life is to belong to the devil,
since the devil was a sinner from the beginning.
It was to undo all that the devil has done
that the Son of God appeared.
No one who has been begotten by God sins;
because God’s seed remains inside him,
he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God.
In this way we distinguish the children of God
from the children of the devil:
anybody not living a holy life
and not loving his brother
is no child of God’s.
Responsory
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us:
not only shall we be called children of God,
but we shall truly be his children, alleluia.
We know that when our future is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is:
not only shall we be called children of God,
but we shall truly be his children, alleluia.
Second Reading
From a sermon
by Saint Leo the Great, pope
Our faith is increased by the Lord's ascension
At Easter, beloved brethren, it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause of our joy; our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvellous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men’s sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.
For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts,
nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.
And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, tender girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith.
It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.
Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s passion and could not accept his resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of his Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realisation that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth,
nor had he abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.
The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal,
the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.
Responsory
We have a high priest who sits at the right of the throne of the Divine Majesty in heaven.
Let us come near to God, then,
with a sincere heart and a sure faith,
with heart made clean and guilty conscience purified, alleluia.
Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess,
because we can trust God to keep his promise.
Let us come near to God, then,
with a sincere heart and a sure faith,
with heart made clean and guilty conscience purified, alleluia.
Let us pray.
Lord God,
you restore us to eternal life by our Saviour’s resurrection:
place us at your right hand,
where he is enthroned with you.
You gave us a new birth in baptism:
clothe us in the garment of eternal happiness
when Christ comes in his 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.
