Antiphon
Jn 1: 6-7; Lk 1: 17
A man was sent from God, whose name was John.
He came to testify to the light,
to prepare a people fit for the Lord.
Collect
O God, who raised up Saint John the Baptist
to make ready a nation fit for Christ the Lord,
give your people, we pray,
the grace of spiritual joys
and direct the hearts of all the faithful
into the way of salvation and peace.
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.
Thursday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading
2 KGS 24:8-17
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.
His mother’s name was Nehushta,
daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
He did evil in the sight of the LORD,
just as his forebears had done.
At that time the officials of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
attacked Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
himself arrived at the city
while his servants were besieging it.
Then Jehoiachin, king of Judah, together with his mother,
his ministers, officers, and functionaries,
surrendered to the king of Babylon, who,
in the eighth year of his reign, took him captive.
And he carried off all the treasures
of the temple of the LORD and those of the palace,
and broke up all the gold utensils that Solomon, king of Israel,
had provided in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had foretold.
He deported all Jerusalem:
all the officers and men of the army, ten thousand in number,
and all the craftsmen and smiths.
None were left among the people of the land except the poor.
He deported Jehoiachin to Babylon,
and also led captive from Jerusalem to Babylon
the king’s mother and wives,
his functionaries, and the chief men of the land.
The king of Babylon also led captive to Babylon
all seven thousand men of the army,
and a thousand craftsmen and smiths,
all of them trained soldiers.
In place of Jehoiachin,
the king of Babylon appointed his uncle Mattaniah king,
and changed his name to Zedekiah.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 79:1B-2, 3-5, 8, 9
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple,
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
They have given the corpses of your servants
as food to the birds of heaven,
the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the earth.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
They have poured out their blood like water
round about Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury them.
We have become the reproach of our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
O LORD, how long? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Alleluia
JN 14:23
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him
and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
MT 7:21-29
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
Did we not drive out demons in your name?
Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’
Then I will declare to them solemnly,
‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’
“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”
When Jesus finished these words,
the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority,
and not as their scribes.
June 25
Blessed Jutta of Thuringia
(d.c. 1260)
In truth, virtue and piety were always of prime importance to Jutta and her husband, both of noble rank. The two were set to make a pilgrimage together to the holy places in Jerusalem, but her husband died on the way. The newly widowed Jutta, after taking care to provide for her children, resolved to live in a manner she felt was utterly pleasing to God. She disposed of the costly clothes, jewels, and furniture befitting one of her rank, and became a Secular Franciscan, taking on the simple garment of a religious.
From that point her life was utterly devoted to others: caring for the sick, particularly lepers; tending to the poor, whom she visited in their hovels; helping the crippled and blind with whom she shared her own home. Many of the townspeople of Thuringia laughed at how the once-distinguished lady now spent all her time. But Jutta saw the face of God in the poor and felt honored to render whatever services she could.
About the year 1260, not long before her death,
Jutta lived near the non-Christians in eastern Germany.
There she built a small hermitage and prayed unceasingly for their conversion.
She has been venerated for centuries as the special patron of Prussia.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 99 (100)
Come before the Lord,
singing with joy.
Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,
and serve him with joy.
Exult as you enter his presence.
Come before the Lord,
singing with joy.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his
– his people, the sheep of his flock.
Come before the Lord,
singing with joy.
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.
Come before the Lord,
singing with joy.
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 before the Lord,
singing with joy.
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 neighbors,
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
1 Samuel 21:2-10,22:1-5
David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came out trembling to meet David and said, ‘Why are you alone and no one with you?’ David replied to Ahimelech the priest, ‘The king has given me an order and said to me, “Let no one know anything of the mission I am sending you on, nor of the order I am giving you.” As regards my soldiers, I have arranged to meet them at such and such a place. Meanwhile, if you have five loaves of bread to hand, give them to me, or whatever there is.’
The priest replied to David,
‘I have no ordinary bread to hand; there is only consecrated bread –
provided your soldiers have kept themselves from women?’
David replied to the priest, ‘Certainly, women are forbidden us, as always when I set off on a campaign. The soldiers’ things are pure. Though this is a profane journey, they are certainly pure today as far as their things are concerned.’ The priest then gave him what had been consecrated, for the only bread there was the bread of offering which is taken away from the presence of the Lord to be replaced by warm bread when it is removed.
Now one of Saul’s servants happened to be there that day,
detained in the presence of the Lord;
his name was Doeg the Edomite and he was the chief of Saul’s guardsmen.
David then said to Ahimelech, ‘Have you no spear or sword here to hand? I did not bring either my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s business was pressing.’
The priest replied, ‘The sword of Goliath the Philistine whom you killed in the Valley of the Terebinth is over there wrapped up in a cloth behind the ephod;
if you wish to take it, do so, for there is no other here.’ David said,
‘There is none like it; give it to me.’
David left there and and took refuge in the Cave of Adullam;
his brothers and all his father’s family heard of it and joined him there.
All the oppressed, those in distress, all those in debt,
anyone who had a grievance, gathered round him and he became their leader.
There were about four hundred men with him.
David went from there to Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, ‘Allow my father and mother to stay with you until I know what God intends to do for me.’
He left them with the king of Moab and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.
But the prophet Gad said to David,
‘Do not stay in the stronghold; go and make your way into the land of Judah.’
So David went away and came to the forest of Hereth.
Responsory
℟. Having died to that which held us prisoners,
we are discharged from the law.
* Let us serve God, then, in a new way,
the way of the spirit,
in contrast to the old way,
the way of a written code.
℣. Have you never read what David did when he was hungry?
He went into the house of God and ate the sacred bread.
* Let us serve God, then,
in a new way,
the way of the spirit,
in contrast to the old way,
the way of a written code.
Second Reading
A homily on the Beatitudes
by St Gregory of Nyssa
God is like an inaccessible rock
The feelings that come to a man who stands on a high mountain peak and looks down onto some immense sea are the same feelings that come to me when I look out from the high mountain peak of the Lord’s words into the incomprehensible depths of his thoughts.
When you look at mountains that stand next to the sea, you will often find that they seem to have been cut in half, so that on the side nearest the sea there is a sheer drop and something dropped from the summit will fall straight into the depths. Someone who looks down from such a peak will become dizzy, and so too I become dizzy when I look down from the high peak of these words of the Lord:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
These words offer the sight of God to those whose hearts have been purified and purged. But look: St John says No-one has seen God. The Apostle Paul’s sublime mind goes further still: What no man has seen and no man can see. This is the slippery and crumbling rock that seems to give the mind no support in the heights. Even the teaching of Moses declared God to be a rock that was so inaccessible that our minds could not even approach it: No-one can see the Lord and live.
To see God is to have eternal life – and yet the pillars of our faith, John and Paul and Moses, say that God cannot be seen. Can you understand the dizziness of a soul that contemplates their words? If God is life, whoever does not see God does not see life.
If the prophets and the Apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit,
attest that God cannot be seen, does this not wreck all the hopes of man?
It is the Lord who sustains our floundering hope, just as he sustained Peter when he was floundering in the water, and made the waters firm beneath his feet.
If the hand of the Word stretches out to us as well, and sets us firm in a new understanding when these speculations have made us lose our balance,
we shall be safe from fear, held safe in the guiding hand of the Word. Blessed, he says,
are those who possess a pure heart, for they shall see God.
Responsory
℟. No-one has ever seen God;
* but God’s only Son,
who is nearest to the Father’s heart, has made him known.
℣. Can anyone measure the magnificence of the great Lord,
and his inexpressible grandeur?
* But God’s only Son,
who is nearest to the Father’s heart,
has made him known.
Let us pray.
Lord God,
teach us at all times to fear and love your holy name,
for you never withdraw your guiding hand
from those you establish in your love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
