Collect
Stir up in your Church, we pray, O Lord,
the Spirit that filled Saint Josaphat
as he laid down his life for the sheep,
so that through his intercession
we, too, may be strengthened by the same Spirit
and not be afraid to lay down our life for others.
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.
Memorial of Saint Josaphat
Bishop and Martyr
Reading
WIS 7:22B–8:1
In Wisdom is a spirit
intelligent, holy, unique,
Manifold, subtle, agile,
clear, unstained, certain,
Not baneful, loving the good, keen,
unhampered, beneficent, kindly,
Firm, secure, tranquil,
all-powerful, all-seeing,
And pervading all spirits,
though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.
For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion,
and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.
For she is an aura of the might of God
and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.
For she is the refulgence of eternal light,
the spotless mirror of the power of God,
the image of his goodness.
And she, who is one, can do all things,
and renews everything while herself perduring;
And passing into holy souls from age to age,
she produces friends of God and prophets.
For there is nought God loves, be it not one who dwells with Wisdom.
For she is fairer than the sun
and surpasses every constellation of the stars.
Compared to light, she takes precedence;
for that, indeed, night supplants,
but wickedness prevails not over Wisdom.
Indeed, she reaches from end to end mightily
and governs all things well.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 119:89, 90, 91, 130, 135, 175
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
Your word, O LORD, endures forever;
it is firm as the heavens.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
Through all generations your truth endures;
you have established the earth, and it stands firm.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
According to your ordinances they still stand firm:
all things serve you.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
The revelation of your words sheds light,
giving understanding to the simple.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
Let your countenance shine upon your servant,
and teach me your statutes.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
Let my soul live to praise you,
and may your ordinances help me.
R. Your word is forever, O Lord.
Alleluia
JN 15:5
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the vine, you are the branches, says the Lord:
whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
LK 17:20-25
Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,
Jesus said in reply,
“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce,
‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
For just as lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the other,
so will the Son of Man be in his day.
But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”
November 12
St. Josaphat (1580?-1623)
In 1964, newspaper photos of Pope Paul VI embracing Athenagoras I, the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople,
marked a significant step toward the healing of a division in Christendom that has spanned more than nine centuries.
In 1595, when today’s saint was a boy, the Orthodox bishop of Brest-Litovsk in present-day Belarus and five other bishops representing millions of Ruthenians, sought reunion with Rome. John Kunsevich (who took the name Josaphat in religious life) was to dedicate his life and die for the same cause. Born in what is now Ukraine, he went to work in Wilno and was influenced by clergy adhering to the Union of Brest (1596). He became a Basilian monk, then a priest,
and soon was well known as a preacher and as an ascetic.
He became bishop of Vitebsk (now in Belarus) at a relatively young age, and faced a difficult situation. Most monks, fearing interference in liturgy and customs, did not want union with Rome. By synods, catechetical instruction, reform of the clergy and personal example, however, Josaphat was successful in winning the greater part of the Orthodox in that area to the union.
But the next year a dissident hierarchy was set up, and his opposite number spread the accusation that Josaphat had "gone Latin" and that all his people would have to do the same. He was not enthusiastically supported by the Latin bishops of Poland.
Despite warnings, he went to Vitebsk, still a hotbed of trouble. Attempts were made to foment trouble and drive him from the diocese: A priest was sent to shout insults to him from his own courtyard. When Josaphat had him removed and shut up in his house, the opposition rang the town hall bell, and a mob assembled. The priest was released, but members of the mob broke into the bishop’s home. He was struck with a halberd, then shot and his body thrown into the river. It was later recovered and is now buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He was the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.
His death brought a movement toward Catholicism and unity, but the controversy continued, and the dissidents, too, had their martyr. After the partition of Poland, the Russians forced most Ruthenians to join the Russian Orthodox Church.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 94 (95)
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.”
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.”
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
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.
The Lord is the king of martyrs:
come, let us adore him.
Hymn
Where true love is dwelling, God is dwelling there:
Love’s own loving Presence love does ever share.
Love of Christ has made us out of many one;
In our midst is dwelling God’s eternal Son.
Give him joyful welcome, love him and revere:
Cherish one another with a love sincere.
Psalm 43 (44)
In time of defeat
Their own arm did not bring them victory:
this was won by your right hand and the light of your face.
Our own ears have heard, O God,
and our fathers have proclaimed it to us,
what you did in their days, the days of old:
how with your own hand you swept aside the nations
and put us in their place,
struck them down to make room for us.
It was not by their own swords that our fathers took over the land,
it was not their own strength that gave them victory;
but your hand and your strength,
the light of your face,
for you were pleased in them.
You are my God and my king,
who take care for the safety of Jacob.
Through you we cast down your enemies;
in your name we crushed those who rose against us.
I will not put my hopes in my bow,
my sword will not bring me to safety;
for it was you who saved us from our afflictions,
you who set confusion among those who hated us.
We will glory in the Lord all the day,
and proclaim your name for all ages.
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.
Their own arm did not bring them victory:
this was won by your right hand and the light of your face.
Psalm 43 (44)
If you return to the Lord,
then he will not hide his face from you.
But now, God, you have spurned us and confounded us,
so that we must go into battle without you.
You have put us to flight in the sight of our enemies,
and those who hate us plunder us at will.
You have handed us over like sheep sold for food,
you have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for no money,
not even profiting by the exchange.
You have made us the laughing-stock of our neighbours,
mocked and derided by those who surround us.
The nations have made us a by-word,
the peoples toss their heads in scorn.
All the day I am ashamed,
I blush with shame
as they reproach me and revile me,
my enemies and my persecutors.
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.
If you return to the Lord,
then he will not hide his face from you.
Psalm 43 (44)
Arise, Lord, do not reject us forever.
All this happened to us,
but not because we had forgotten you.
We were not disloyal to your covenant;
our hearts did not turn away;
our steps did not wander from your path;
and yet you brought us low,
with horrors all about us:
you overwhelmed us in the shadows of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God,
if we had spread out our hands before an alien god —
would God not have known?
He knows what is hidden in our hearts.
It is for your sake that we face death all the day,
that we are reckoned as sheep to be slaughtered.
Awake, Lord, why do you sleep?
Rise up, do not always reject us.
Why do you turn away your face?
How can you forget our poverty and our tribulation?
Our souls are crushed into the dust,
our bodies dragged down to the earth.
Rise up, Lord, and help us.
In your mercy, redeem us.
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.
Arise, Lord, do not reject us forever.
Lord, let your face shine on your servant;
– teach me your decrees.
First Reading
Daniel 9:1-4,18-27
It was the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was of Median stock and ruled the kingdom of Chaldaea. In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, was perusing the scriptures, counting over the number of years – as revealed by the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah – that were to pass before the successive devastations of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years. I turned my face to the Lord God begging for time to pray and to plead with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.
I pleaded with the Lord my God and made this confession:
‘Listen my God, listen to us; open your eyes and look on our plight and on the city that bears your name. We are not relying on our own good works but on your great mercy, to commend our humble plea to you. Listen, Lord! Lord, forgive! Hear, Lord, and act! For your own sake, my God, do not delay, because they bear your name, this is your city, this is your people.’
I was still speaking, still at prayer, confessing my own sins and the sins of my people Israel and placing my plea before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, still speaking, still at prayer, when Gabriel, the being I had seen originally in a vision, flew suddenly down to me at the hour of the evening sacrifice. He said to me, ‘Daniel, you see me; I have come down to teach you how to understand. When your pleading began, a word was uttered, and I have come to tell you what it is.
You are a man specially chosen. Grasp the meaning of the word, understand the vision:
‘Seventy weeks are decreed
for your people and your holy city,
for putting an end to transgression,
for placing the seals on sin,
for expiating crime,
for introducing everlasting integrity,
for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy,
for anointing the Holy of Holies.
‘Know this, then, and understand:
from the time this message went out:
“Return and rebuild Jerusalem”
to the coming of an anointed Prince, seven weeks
and sixty-two weeks,
with squares and ramparts restored and rebuilt,
but in a time of trouble.
And after the sixty-two weeks
an anointed one will be cut off – and... will not be for him –
the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed
by a prince who will come.
His end will come in catastrophe
and, until the end, there will be war
and all the devastation decreed.
He will make a firm covenant with many
for the space of a week;
and for the space of one half-week
he will put a stop to sacrifice and oblation,
and on the wing of the Temple will be the disastrous abomination
until the end, until the doom assigned to the devastator.’
Responsory
Lord, look down from your holy dwelling-place and give thought to us:
take heed, and listen.
Open your eyes and look on our plight.
God of hosts, bring us back:
let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.
Open your eyes and look on our plight.
Second Reading
Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Ecclesiam Dei"
He gave his life for the unity of the Church
In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity.
Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say,
with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.
Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Polock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honour or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore world-wide unity to the Church and he realised that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.
Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him
“the thief of souls.”
Responsory
Jesus prayed:
Holy Father,
keep them safe by the power of your name,
the name you gave me,
so that they may be completely one,
in order that the world may know that you sent me.
I gave them the same glory you gave me,
so that they may be completely one,
in order that the world may know that you sent me.
Let us pray.
Lord, filled with your Holy Spirit
Saint Josaphat laid down his life for his flock.
Renew that Spirit in your Church,
strengthen our hearts with your grace,
so that, with the help of his prayers,
we may be ready to lay down our lives for our brethren.
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.
