THE LITURGY OF THE WORD

Daily Mass Readings

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Antiphon

Cf. Ps 18 (17): 5, 7

 

The waves of death rose about me;

the pains of the netherworld surrounded me.

In my anguish I called to the Lord,

and from his holy temple he heard my voice.

Collect

May the working of your mercy, O Lord, we pray,

direct our hearts aright,

for without your grace

we cannot find favor in your sight.

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

Jer 11:18-20

I knew their plot because the LORD informed me;

at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,

had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:

"Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

so that his name will be spoken no more."

But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,

searcher of mind and heart,

Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,

for to you I have entrusted my cause!

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12

R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

O LORD, my God, in you I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,

Lest I become like the lion's prey,

to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me.

R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,

and because of the innocence that is mine.

Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,

but sustain the just,

O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.

R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

A shield before me is God,

who saves the upright of heart;

A just judge is God,

a God who punishes day by day.

R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Verse Before the Gospel

See Lk 8:15

Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart

and yield a harvest through perseverance.

Gospel

Jn 7:40-53

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,

"This is truly the Prophet."

Others said, "This is the Christ."

But others said, 

"The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?

Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David's family

and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?"

So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.

Some of them even wanted to arrest him,

but no one laid hands on him.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,

who asked them, 

"Why did you not bring him?"

The guards answered, 

"Never before has anyone spoken like this man."

So the Pharisees answered them, 

"Have you also been deceived?

Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?

But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed."

Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,

"Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him

and finds out what he is doing?"

They answered and said to him,

"You are not from Galilee also, are you?

Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee."

Then each went to his own house.

SAINT OF THE DAY

March 16

Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer

(1751 - 1820)

Clement Mary might be called the second founder of the Redemptorists, as it was he who carried the congregation of Saint Alphonsus Liguori to the people north of the Alps.

John, the name given him at Baptism, was born in Moravia into a poor family, the ninth of 12 children. Although he longed to be a priest, there was no money for studies, and he was apprenticed to a baker. But God guided the young man’s fortunes. He found work in the bakery of a monastery where he was allowed to attend classes in its Latin school. After the abbot there died, John tried the life of a hermit, but when Emperor Joseph II abolished hermitages, John again returned to Vienna and to baking.

One day after serving Mass at the Cathedral of St. Stephen, he called a carriage for two ladies waiting there in the rain. In their conversation they learned that he could not pursue his priestly studies because of a lack of funds. They generously offered to support both John and his friend Thaddeus, in their seminary studies. The two went to Rome, where they were drawn to Saint Alphonsus’ vision of religious life and to the Redemptorists. The two young men were ordained together in 1785.

Newly professed at age 34, Clement Mary, as he was now called, and Thaddeus were sent back to Vienna. But the religious difficulties there caused them to leave and continue north to Warsaw, Poland. There they encountered numerous German-speaking Catholics who had been left priestless by the suppression of the Jesuits. At first they had to live in great poverty and preach outdoor sermons. Eventually they were given the church of St. Benno, and for the next nine years they preached five sermons a day, two in German and three in Polish, converting many to the faith. They were active in social work among the poor, 

founding an orphanage and then a school for boys.

Drawing candidates to the congregation, they were able to send missionaries to Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. All of these foundations eventually had to be abandoned because of the political and religious tensions of the times. After 20 years of difficult work, Clement Mary himself was imprisoned and expelled from the country. Only after another arrest was he able to reach Vienna, where he was to live and work the final 12 years of his life. He quickly became “the apostle of Vienna,” hearing the confessions of the rich and the poor, visiting the sick, acting as a counselor to the powerful, sharing his holiness with all in the city. His crowning work was the establishment of a Catholic college in his beloved city.

Persecution followed Clement Mary, and there were those in authority who were able for a while to stop him from preaching. An attempt was made at the highest levels to have him banished. But his holiness and fame protected him and prompted the growth of the Redemptorists.  

Due to his efforts, the congregation was firmly established north of the Alps by the time of his death in 1820.

Clement Mary Hofbauer was canonized in 1909. 

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

11/25/23