THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Memorial of Saint Ambrose

Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Antiphon

Sirach 15:5

 

In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth,

and the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding

and clothed him in a robe of glory.

Collect

 

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Ambrose

a teacher of the Catholic faith

and a model of apostolic courage,

raise up in your Church men after your own heart

to govern her with courage and wisdom.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Reading

Is 40:1-11

    Comfort, give comfort to my people,

        says your God.

    Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her

        that her service is at an end,

        her guilt is expiated;

    Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD

        double for all her sins.

        A voice cries out:

    In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!

        Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

    Every valley shall be filled in,

        every mountain and hill shall be made low;

    The rugged land shall be made a plain,

        the rough country, a broad valley.

    Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

        and all people shall see it together;

        for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

    A voice says, “Cry out!”

        I answer, “What shall I cry out?”

    “All flesh is grass,

        and all their glory like the flower of the field.

    The grass withers, the flower wilts,

        when the breath of the LORD blows upon it.

        So then, the people is the grass.

    Though the grass withers and the flower wilts,

        the word of our God stands forever.”

    Go up onto a high mountain,

        Zion, herald of glad tidings;

    Cry out at the top of your voice,

        Jerusalem, herald of good news!

    Fear not to cry out

        and say to the cities of Judah:

        Here is your God!

    Here comes with power

        the Lord GOD,

        who rules by his strong arm;

    Here is his reward with him,

        his recompense before him.

    Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;

        in his arms he gathers the lambs,

    Carrying them in his bosom,

        and leading the ewes with care.

Responsorial Psalm

96:1-2, 3 and 10ac, 11-12, 13

R.    The Lord our God comes with power.

Sing to the LORD a new song;

    sing to the LORD, all you lands.

Sing to the LORD; bless his name;

    announce his salvation, day after day.

R.    The Lord our God comes with power.

Tell his glory among the nations;

    among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.

Say among the nations: The LORD is king;

    he governs the peoples with equity.

R.    The Lord our God comes with power.

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

    let the sea and what fills it resound;

    let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!

Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice.

R.    The Lord our God comes with power.

They shall exult before the LORD, for he comes;

    for he comes to rule the earth.

He shall rule the world with justice

    and the peoples with his constancy.

R.    The Lord our God comes with power.

Alleluia

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The day of the Lord is near;

Behold, he comes to save us.

R. Alleluia, alleluia

Gospel

Mt 18:12-14

Jesus said to his disciples:

“What is your opinion? 

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,

will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills

and go in search of the stray? 

And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it

than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. 

In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father

that one of these little ones be lost.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

December 7

Saint Ambrose

(337 - 397)

One of Ambrose’s biographers observed that at the Last Judgment, people would still be divided between those who admired Ambrose and those who heartily disliked him. He emerges as the man of action who cut a furrow through the lives of his contemporaries. Even royal personages were numbered among those who were to suffer crushing divine punishments for standing in Ambrose’s way.

When the Empress Justina attempted to wrest two basilicas from Ambrose’s Catholics and give them to the Arians, he dared the eunuchs of the court to execute him. His own people rallied behind him in the face of imperial troops. In the midst of riots, 

he both spurred and calmed his people with bewitching new hymns set to exciting Eastern melodies.

In his disputes with the Emperor Auxentius, he coined the principle: “The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.” He publicly admonished Emperor Theodosius for the massacre of 7,000 innocent people. The emperor did public penance for his crime. This was Ambrose, the fighter sent to Milan as Roman governor, 

and chosen while yet a catechumen to be the people’s bishop.

There is yet another side of Ambrose—one which influenced Augustine of Hippo, whom Ambrose converted. Ambrose was a passionate little man with a high forehead, a long melancholy face, and great eyes. We can picture him as a frail figure clasping the codex of sacred Scripture. This was the Ambrose of aristocratic heritage and learning.

Augustine found the oratory of Ambrose less soothing and entertaining but far more learned than that of other contemporaries. Ambrose’s sermons were often modeled on Cicero, and his ideas betrayed the influence of contemporary thinkers and philosophers. He had no scruples in borrowing at length from pagan authors. 

He gloried in the pulpit in his ability to parade his spoils—“gold of the Egyptians”

—taken over from the pagan philosophers.

His sermons, his writings, and his personal life reveal him as an otherworldly man involved in the great issues of his day. Humanity for Ambrose was, above all, spirit. 

In order to think rightly of God and the human soul, the closest thing to God, 

no material reality at all was to be dwelt upon. He was an enthusiastic champion of consecrated virginity.

The influence of Ambrose on Augustine will always be open for discussion. The Confessions reveal some manly, brusque encounters between Ambrose and Augustine, but there can be no doubt of Augustine’s profound esteem for the learned bishop.

Neither is there any doubt that Saint Monica loved Ambrose as an angel of God who uprooted her son from his former ways and led him to his convictions about Christ. 

It was Ambrose, after all, who placed his hands on the shoulders of the naked Augustine as he descended into the baptismal fountain to put on Christ.

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