THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Antiphon

Ps 47 (46): 2

 

All peoples, clap your hands.

Cry to God with shouts of joy!

Collect

O God, who through the grace of adoption

chose us to be children of light,

grant, we pray,

that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error

but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.

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

Gn 27:1-5, 15-29

When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him,

he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!"

"Yes father!" he replied.

Isaac then said, "As you can see, I am so old

that I may now die at any time.

Take your gear, therefore–your quiver and bow–

and go out into the country to hunt some game for me.

With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like,

and bring it to me to eat,

so that I may give you my special blessing before I die."

Rebekah had been listening

while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau.

So, when Esau went out into the country

to hunt some game for his father,

Rebekah [then] took the best clothes of her older son Esau

that she had in the house,

and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear;

and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands

and the hairless parts of his neck.

Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish

and the bread she had prepared.

Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, "Father!"

"Yes?" replied Isaac.  "Which of my sons are you?"

Jacob answered his father:  "I am Esau, your first-born.

I did as you told me.

Please sit up and eat some of my game,

so that you may give me your special blessing."

But Isaac asked, "How did you succeed so quickly, son?"

He answered,

"The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me."

Isaac then said to Jacob,

"Come closer, son, that I may feel you,

to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not."

So Jacob moved up closer to his father.

When Isaac felt him, he said,

"Although the voice is Jacob's, the hands are Esau's."

(He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy,

like those of his brother Esau;

so in the end he gave him his blessing.)

Again he asked Jacob, "Are you really my son Esau?"

"Certainly," Jacob replied.

Then Isaac said, "Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it

and then give you my blessing."

Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate;

he brought him wine, and he drank.

Finally his father Isaac said to Jacob,

"Come closer, son, and kiss me."

As Jacob went up and kissed him,

Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes.

With that, he blessed him saying,

"Ah, the fragrance of my son

is like the fragrance of a field

that the LORD has blessed!

"May God give to you

of the dew of the heavens

And of the fertility of the earth

abundance of grain and wine.

"Let peoples serve you,

and nations pay you homage;

Be master of your brothers,

and may your mother's sons bow down to you.

Cursed be those who curse you,

and blessed be those who bless you."

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 135:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6

R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

 

Praise the name of the LORD;

Praise, you servants of the LORD

Who stand in the house of the LORD,

in the courts of the house of our God.

R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

 

Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;

sing praise to his name, which we love;

For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel for his own possession.

R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

 

For I know that the LORD is great;

our LORD is greater than all gods.

All that the LORD wills he does

in heaven and on earth,

in the seas and in all the deeps.

R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!

 

Alleluia

Jn 10:27

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;

I know them, and they follow me.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Mt 9:14-17

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,

"Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,

but your disciples do not fast?"

Jesus answered them, 

"Can the wedding guests mourn

as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast.

No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth,

for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.

People do not put new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined.

Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

SAINT OF THE DAY

July 8

Saint Gregory Grassi, OFM

(1823 - 1900)

Gregory Grassi was born in Italy in 1823, ordained in 1856, and sent to China five years later. Gregory was later ordained bishop of North Shanxi. With 14 other European missionaries and 14 Chinese religious, he was martyred during the short but bloody Boxer Uprising of 1900.

Twenty-six of these martyrs were arrested on the orders of Yu Hsien, the governor of Shanxi province. They were hacked to death on July 9, 1900. Five of them were Friars Minor; seven were Franciscan Missionaries of Mary—the first martyrs of their congregation. Seven were Chinese seminarians and Secular Franciscans; four martyrs were Chinese laymen and Secular Franciscans. The other three Chinese laymen killed in Shanxi simply worked for the Franciscans and were rounded up with all the others. Three Italian Franciscans were martyred that same week in the province of Hunan. 

All these martyrs were beatified in 1946, 

and were among the 120 martyrs canonized in 2000.

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

03/21/23