THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Optional Memorial of Saint Bruno

Priest

Antiphon

Cf. Est 4: 17

 

Within your will, O Lord, all things are established,

and there is none that can resist your will.

For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth,

and all that is held within the circle of heaven;

you are the Lord of all.

Collect

O God, who called Saint Bruno to serve you in solitude,

grant, through his intercession,

that amid the changes of this world

we may constantly look to you alone.

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

Phil 3:8-14

Brothers and sisters:

I consider everything as a loss

because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things

and I consider them so much rubbish,

that I may gain Christ and be found in him,

not having any righteousness of my own based on the law

but that which comes through faith in Christ,

the righteousness from God,

depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection

and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,

if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

It is not that I have already taken hold of it

or have already attained perfect maturity,

but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,

since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, I for my part

do not consider myself to have taken possession.

Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind

but straining forward to what lies ahead,

I continue my pursuit toward the goal,

the prize of God's upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R.    Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

 

Blessed the man who follows not

the counsel of the wicked

Nor walks in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the company of the insolent,

But delights in the law of the LORD

and meditates on his law day and night.

R.    Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

 

He is like a tree

planted near running water,

That yields its fruit in due season,

and whose leaves never fade.

Whatever he does, prospers.

R.    Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

 

Not so, the wicked, not so;

they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

For the LORD watches over the way of the just,

but the way of the wicked vanishes.

R.    Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

 

Alleluia

Jn 8:12

R.    Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;

whoever follows me will have the light of life.

R.    Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Lk 9:57-62

As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding

on their journey

someone said to him, 

"I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus answered him,

"Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,

but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

And to another he said, 

"Follow me."

But he replied, 

"Lord, let me go first and bury my father."

But he answered him, 

"Let the dead bury their dead.

But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God."

And another said, 

"I will follow you, Lord,

but first let me say farewell to my family at home."

He said, 

"No one who sets a hand to the plow

and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."

SAINT OF THE DAY

October 6

Saint Bruno

(1030 - 1101)

Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, became a famous teacher at Rheims, and was appointed chancellor of the archdiocese at the age of 45. He supported 

Pope Gregory VII in his fight against the decadence of the clergy, and took part in the removal of his own scandalous archbishop, Manasses. 

Bruno suffered the plundering of his house for his pains.

He had a dream of living in solitude and prayer, and persuaded a few friends to join him in a hermitage. After a while he felt the place unsuitable and through a friend, was given some land which was to become famous for his foundation “in the Chartreuse”—from which comes the word Carthusians. The climate, desert, mountainous terrain, 

and inaccessibility guaranteed silence, poverty, and small numbers.

Bruno and his friends built an oratory with small individual cells at a distance from each other. They met for Matins and Vespers each day and spent the rest of the time in solitude, eating together only on great feasts. Their chief work was copying manuscripts.

Hearing of Bruno’s holiness, the pope called for his assistance in Rome. When the pope had to flee Rome, Bruno pulled up stakes again, and after refusing a bishopric, 

spent his last years in the wilderness of Calabria.

Bruno was never formally canonized, 

because the Carthusians were averse to all occasions of publicity. 

However, Pope Clement X extended his feast to the whole Church in 1674.

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