THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Third Sunday of Advent

Antiphon

Phil 4: 4-5

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.

Indeed, the Lord is near.

Collect

O God, who see how your people

faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity,

enable us, we pray,

to attain the joys of so great a salvation

and to celebrate them always

with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

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

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Reading 1

IS 61:1-2A, 10-11

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,

to heal the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives

and release to the prisoners,

to announce a year of favor from the LORD

and a day of vindication by our God.

I rejoice heartily in the LORD,

in my God is the joy of my soul;

for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation

and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,

like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,

like a bride bedecked with her jewels.

As the earth brings forth its plants,

and a garden makes its growth spring up,

so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise

spring up before all the nations.

 

Responsorial Psalm

LK 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54.

R. My soul rejoices in my God.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked upon his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

R. My soul rejoices in my God.

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

R. My soul rejoices in my God.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

R. My soul rejoices in my God.

Reading 2

1 THES 5:16-24

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.

In all circumstances give thanks,

for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit.

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

Test everything; retain what is good.

Refrain from every kind of evil.

May the God of peace make you perfectly holy

and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body,

be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The one who calls you is faithful,

and he will also accomplish it.

 

Alleluia

IS 61:1 (cited in LK 4:18)

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

JN 1:6-8, 19-28

A man named John was sent from God.

He came for testimony, to testify to the light,

so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light,

but came to testify to the light.

And this is the testimony of John.

When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests

and Levites to him

to ask him, “Who are you?”

He admitted and did not deny it,

but admitted, 

“I am not the Christ.”

So they asked him,

“What are you then? Are you Elijah?”

And he said, 

“I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, 

“No.”

So they said to him,

“Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?

What do you have to say for yourself?”

He said:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,

‘make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as Isaiah the prophet said.”

Some Pharisees were also sent. 

They asked him,

“Why then do you baptize

if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”

John answered them,

“I baptize with water;

but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,

the one who is coming after me,

whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”

This happened in Bethany across the Jordan,

where John was baptizing.

SAINT OF THE DAY

December 17

Saint Hildegard of Bingen

(1098 - 1179)

Born into a noble family, she was instructed for ten years by the holy woman Blessed Jutta. When Hildegard was 18, she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. Ordered by her confessor to write down the visions that she had received since the age of three, Hildegard took ten years to write her Scivias (Know the Ways). Pope Eugene III read it, and in 1147, encouraged her to continue writing. Her Book of the Merits of Life and Book of Divine Works followed. She wrote over 300 letters to people who sought her advice; she also composed short works on medicine and physiology, and sought advice from contemporaries such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love, coming from God as daylight comes from the sun. Sin destroyed the original harmony of creation; Christ’s redeeming death and resurrection opened up new possibilities. Virtuous living reduces the estrangement from God and others that sin causes.

Like all mystics, Hildegard saw the harmony of God’s creation and the place of women and men in that. This unity was not apparent to many of her contemporaries.

Hildegard was no stranger to controversy. The monks near her original foundation protested vigorously when she moved her monastery to Bingen, overlooking the Rhine River. She confronted Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for supporting at least three antipopes. Hildegard challenged the Cathars, who rejected the Catholic Church claiming to follow a more pure Christianity.

Between 1152 and 1162, Hildegard often preached in the Rhineland. Her monastery was placed under interdict because she had permitted the burial of a young man who had been excommunicated. She insisted that he had been reconciled with the Church and had received its sacraments before dying. Hildegard protested bitterly when the local bishop forbade the celebration of or reception of the Eucharist at the Bingen monastery, a sanction that was lifted only a few months before her death.

In 2012, Hildegard was canonized and named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

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

08/29/23