THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

First Sunday of Lent

Antiphon

Cf. Ps 91 (90): 15-16

 

When he calls on me, I will answer him;

I will deliver him and give him glory,

I will grant him length of days.

Collect

 

Grant, almighty God,

through the yearly observances of holy Lent,

that we may grow in understanding

of the riches hidden in Christ

and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.

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.

Reading I

Gn 9:8-15

God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 

“See, I am now establishing my covenant with you 

and your descendants after you 

and with every living creature that was with you: 

all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals 

that were with you and came out of the ark.

I will establish my covenant with you, 

that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed

by the waters of a flood; 

there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.”

God added:

“This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, 

of the covenant between me and you 

and every living creature with you: 

I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign

of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring clouds over the earth, 

and the bow appears in the clouds, 

I will recall the covenant I have made

between me and you and all living beings, 

so that the waters shall never again become a flood 

to destroy all mortal beings.”

 

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9

R. Your ways, O Lord, 

are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;

    teach me your paths,

Guide me in your truth and teach me,

    for you are God my savior.

R. Your ways, O Lord, 

are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Remember that your compassion, O LORD,

    and your love are from of old.

In your kindness remember me,

    because of your goodness, O LORD.

R. Your ways, O Lord, 

are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Good and upright is the LORD,

    thus he shows sinners the way.

He guides the humble to justice,

    and he teaches the humble his way.

R. Your ways, O Lord, 

are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

 

Reading II

1 Pt 3:18-22

Beloved:

Christ suffered for sins once, 

the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, 

that he might lead you to God.

Put to death in the flesh, 

he was brought to life in the Spirit.

In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, 

who had once been disobedient 

while God patiently waited in the days of Noah 

during the building of the ark, 

in which a few persons, eight in all,

were saved through water.

This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.

It is not a removal of dirt from the body 

but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, 

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

who has gone into heaven

and is at the right hand of God, 

with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

Verse Before the Gospel

Mt 4:4b

One does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Gospel

Mk 1:12-15

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, 

and he remained in the desert for forty days,

tempted by Satan.

He was among wild beasts,

and the angels ministered to him.

After John had been arrested, 

Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:

“This is the time of fulfillment.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

February 21

Saint Peter Damian

(988 - 1072)

Maybe because he was orphaned and had been treated shabbily by one of his brothers, Peter Damian was very good to the poor. It was the ordinary thing for him to have a poor person or two with him at table and he liked to minister personally to their needs.

Peter escaped poverty and the neglect of his own brother when his other brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took him under his wing. His brother sent him to good schools and Peter became a professor.

Already in those days, Peter was very strict with himself. He wore a hair shirt under his clothes, fasted rigorously and spent many hours in prayer. Soon, he decided to leave his teaching and give himself completely to prayer with the Benedictines of the reform of Saint Romuald at Fonte Avellana. They lived two monks to a hermitage. Peter was so eager to pray and slept so little that he soon suffered from severe insomnia. He found he had to use some prudence in taking care of himself. When he was not praying, 

he studied the Bible.

The abbot commanded that when he died Peter should succeed him. Abbot Peter founded five other hermitages. He encouraged his brothers in a life of prayer and solitude and wanted nothing more for himself. The Holy See periodically called on him, however, to be a peacemaker or troubleshooter, between two abbeys in dispute or a cleric or government official in some disagreement with Rome.

Finally, Pope Stephen IX made Peter the cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He worked hard to wipe out simony—the buying of church offices–and encouraged his priests to observe celibacy and urged even the diocesan clergy to live together and maintain scheduled prayer and religious observance. He wished to restore primitive discipline among religious and priests, warning against needless travel, violations of poverty, and too comfortable living. He even wrote to the bishop of Besancon complaining that the canons there sat down when they were singing the psalms in the Divine Office.

He wrote many letters. Some 170 are extant. We also have 53 of his sermons and seven lives, or biographies, that he wrote. He preferred examples and stories rather than theory in his writings. The liturgical offices he wrote are evidence of his talent as a stylist in Latin.

He asked often to be allowed to retire as cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and finally Pope Alexander II consented. Peter was happy to become once again just a monk, but he was still called to serve as a papal legate. When returning from such an assignment in Ravenna, he was overcome by a fever. With the monks gathered around him saying the Divine Office, he died on February 22, 1072.

In 1828, he was declared a Doctor of the Church.

THE LITURGY OF HOURS

The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office or the Work of God (Opus Dei), is the daily prayer of the Church, marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer.  The Hours are a meditative dialogue on the mystery of Christ, using scripture and prayer.  At times the dialogue is between the Church or individual soul and God; at times it is a dialogue among the members of the Church; and at times it is even between the Church and the world.  The Divine Office "is truly the voice of the Bride herself addressed to her Bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his Body addresses to the Father." (SC 84)  The dialogue is always held, however, in the presence of God and using the words and wisdom of God.  Each of the five canonical Hours includes selections from the Psalms that culminate in a scriptural proclamation.  The two most important or hinge Hours are Morning and Evening Prayer. These each include a Gospel canticle:  the Canticle of Zechariah from Luke 1:68-79 for Morning Prayer (known as the Benedictus), and the Canticle of Mary from Luke 1:46-55 for Evening Prayer (known as the Magnificat). The Gospel canticle acts as a kind of meditative extension of the scriptural proclamation in light of the Christ event.  Morning and Evening Prayer also include intercessions that flow from the scriptural proclamation just as the Psalms prepare for it.

In the Hours, the royal priesthood of the baptized is exercised, and this sacrifice of praise is thus connected to the sacrifice of the Eucharist, both preparing for and flowing from the Mass.

"The hymns and litanies of the Liturgy of the Hours integrate the prayer of the psalms into the age of the Church, expressing the symbolism of the time of day, the liturgical season, or the feast being celebrated. Moreover, the reading from the Word of God at each Hour (with the subsequent responses or troparia) and readings from the Fathers and spiritual masters at certain Hours, reveal more deeply the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, assist in understanding the psalms, and prepare for silent prayer." (CCC 1177)

OFFICE OF READINGS

"The office of readings seeks to provide God's people, and in particular those consecrated to God in a special way, with a wider selection of passages from sacred Scripture for meditation, together with the finest excerpts from spiritual writers. Even though the cycle of scriptural readings at daily Mass is now richer, the treasures of revelation and tradition to be found in the office of readings will also contribute greatly to the spiritual life" (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours [GILH], no. 55).

https://www.universalis.com/0/readings.htm

LAUDS - Morning Prayer

"As is clear from many of the elements that make it up, morning prayer is intended and arranged to sanctify the morning. St. Basil the Great gives an excellent description of this character in these words: "It is said in the morning in order that the first stirrings of our mind and will may be consecrated to God and that we may take nothing in hand until we have been gladdened by the thought of God, as it is written: 'I was mindful of God and was glad' (Ps 77:4 [Jerome's translation from Hebrew]), or set our bodies to any task before we do what has been said: 'I will pray to you, Lord, you will hear my voice in the morning; I will stand before you in the morning and gaze on you' 

(Ps 5:4-5)."

"Celebrated as it is as the light of a new day is dawning, this hour also recalls the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the true light enlightening all people (see Jn 1:9) and "the sun of justice" (Mal 4:2), "rising from on high" (Lk 1:78). Hence, we can well understand the advice of St. Cyprian: "There should be prayer in the morning so that the resurrection of the Lord may thus be celebrated" (GILH, no. 38).

https://www.universalis.com/0/lauds.htm

TERCE - Mid-Morning Prayer

"Following a very ancient tradition Christians have made a practice of praying out of private devotion at various times of the day, even in the course of their work, in imitation of the Church in apostolic times. In different ways with the passage of time this tradition has taken the form of a liturgical celebration.

"Liturgical custom in both East and West has retained midmorning, midday, and midafternoon prayer, mainly because these hours were linked to a commemoration of the events of the Lord's passion and of the first preaching of the Gospel" 

(GILH, no. 74-75).

https://www.universalis.com/0/terce.htm

SEXT - Mid-Day Prayer

 https://www.universalis.com/0/sext.htm

NONE - Afternoon Prayer

 https://www.universalis.com/0/none.htm

VESPERS - Evening Prayer

"When evening approaches and the day is already far spent, evening prayer is celebrated in order that 'we may give thanks for what has been given us, or what we have done well, during the day.' We also recall the redemption through the prayer we send up 'like incense in the Lord's sight,' and in which 'the raising up of our hands' becomes 'an evening sacrifice' (see Ps 141:2). This sacrifice 'may also be interpreted more spiritually as the true evening sacrifice that our Savior the Lord entrusted to the apostles at supper on the evening when he instituted the sacred mysteries of the Church or of the evening sacrifice of the next day, the sacrifice, that is, which, raising his hands, he offered to the Father at the end of the ages for the salvation of the whole world.' Again, in order to fix our hope on the light that knows no setting, 'we pray and make petition for the light to come down on us anew; we implore the coming of Christ who will bring the grace of eternal light.' Finally, at this hour we join with the Churches of the East in calling upon the 'joy-giving light of that holy glory, born of the immortal, heavenly Father, the holy and blessed Jesus Christ; now that we have come to the setting of the sun and have seen the evening star, we sing in praise of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…'" 

(GILH, no. 39).

https://www.universalis.com/0/vespers.htm

COMPLINE - Night Prayer

"Night prayer is the last prayer of the day, said before retiring, even if that is after midnight" (GILH, no. 84).The Psalms that are chosen for Night Prayer are full of confidence in the Lord.

https://www.universalis.com/0/compline.htm

ABOUT TODAY

https://www.universalis.com/0/today.htm