THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Tuesday of Holy Week

Antiphon

Cf. Ps 27 (26): 12

 

Do not leave me to the will of my foes, O Lord,

for false witnesses rise up against me

and they breathe out violence.

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,

grant us so to celebrate

the mysteries of the Lord's Passion

that we may merit to receive your pardon.

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 49:1-6

Hear me, O islands,

            listen, O distant peoples.

The Lord called me from birth,

            from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.

He made of me a sharp-edged sword

            and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.

He made me a polished arrow,

            in his quiver he hid me.

You are my servant, he said to me,

            Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,

            and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,

Yet my reward is with the Lord,

            my recompense is with my God.

For now the Lord has spoken

            who formed me as his servant from the womb,

That Jacob may be brought back to him

            and Israel gathered to him;

And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord,

            and my God is now my strength!

It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,

            to raise up the tribes of Jacob,

            and restore the survivors of Israel;

I will make you a light to the nations,

            that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Responsorial Psalm

71:1-2, 3-4a, 5ab-6ab, 15 and 17

R.        I will sing of your salvation.

In you, O LORD, I take refuge;

            let me never be put to shame.

In your justice rescue me, and deliver me;

            incline your ear to me, and save me.

R.        I will sing of your salvation.

Be my rock of refuge,

            a stronghold to give me safety,

            for you are my rock and my fortress.

O my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked.

R.        I will sing of your salvation.

For you are my hope, O LORD;

            my trust, O God, from my youth.

On you I depend from birth;

            from my mother’s womb you are my strength.

R.        I will sing of your salvation.

My mouth shall declare your justice,

            day by day your salvation.

O God, you have taught me from my youth,

            and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.

R.        I will sing of your salvation.

Verse Before the Gospel

Hail to you, our King, obedient to the Father;

you were led to your crucifixion like a gentle lamb to the slaughter.

Gospel

Jn 13:21-33, 36-38

Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified,

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant.

One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,

was reclining at Jesus’ side.

So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.

He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him,

“Master, who is it?”

Jesus answered,

“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”

So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,

son of Simon the Iscariot.

After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.

So Jesus said to him, 

“What you are going to do, do quickly.”

Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him.

Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him,

“Buy what we need for the feast,”

or to give something to the poor.

So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.

When he had left, Jesus said,

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,

and he will glorify him at once.

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.

You will look for me, and as I told the Jews,

‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.”

Simon Peter said to him, 

“Master, where are you going?”

Jesus answered him,

“Where I am going, you cannot follow me now,

though you will follow later.”

Peter said to him,

“Master, why can I not follow you now?

I will lay down my life for you.”

Jesus answered, 

“Will you lay down your life for me?

Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow

before you deny me three times.”

SAINT OF THE DAY

April 12

Saint Teresa of Los Andes

(1900 - 1920)

As a young girl growing up in the early 1900’s in Santiago, Chile, Juana Fernandez read an autobiography of a French-born saint—Thérèse, popularly known as the Little Flower. The experience deepened her desire to serve God and clarified the path she would follow. At age 19 Juana became a Carmelite nun, taking the name of Teresa.

The convent offered the simple lifestyle Teresa desired and the joy of living in a community of women completely devoted to God. She focused her days on prayer and sacrifice. “I am God’s,” she wrote in her diary. 

“He created me and is my beginning and my end.”

Toward the end of her short life, Teresa began an apostolate of letter-writing, sharing her thoughts on the spiritual life with many people. At age 20 she contracted typhus and quickly took her final vows. She died a short time later, during Holy Week.

Known as the “Flower of the Andes,” Teresa remains popular with the estimated 100,000 pilgrims who visit her shrine in Los Andes each year. 

Canonized in 1993 by Pope John Paul II, she is Chile’s first saint.

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