Tuesday 25 May 2021
Tuesday of week 8 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Gregory VII, Pope
or Saint Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi, Virgin
or Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest, Doctor
Office of Readings
Introduction (without Invitatory)
If this is the first Hour that you are reciting today, use the version with the Invitatory Psalm instead.
O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen. Alleluia.
________
Hymn
O God of truth and Lord of power,
whose word their course to things assigns,
whose splendour lights the morning hour,
whose fiery sun at noonday shines:
Within us quench the flames of strife,
the harmful heat of passion quell;
give health of body to our life
and give true peace of soul as well.
In this, most loving Father, hear,
and Christ, co-equal Son, our prayer:
with Holy Ghost, one Trinity,
you reign for all eternity.
________
Psalm 101 (102):2-12
Prayers and vows of an exile
“God comforts us in all our sorrows” (2 Cor 1:4).
Let my cry come to you, Lord: do not hide your face from me.
O Lord, listen to my prayer
and let my cry for help reach you.
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear towards me
and answer me quickly when I call.
For my days are vanishing like smoke,
my bones burn away like a fire.
My heart is withered like the grass.
I forget to eat my bread.
I cry with all my strength
and my skin clings to my bones.
I have become like a pelican in the wilderness
like an owl in desolate places.
I lie awake and I moan
like some lonely bird on a roof.
All day long my foes revile me;
those who hate me use my name as a curse.
The bread I eat is ashes;
my drink is mingled with tears.
In your anger, Lord, and your fury
you have lifted me up and thrown me down.
My days are like a passing shadow
and I wither away like the grass.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Let my cry come to you, Lord: do not hide your face from me.
________
Psalm 101 (102):13-23
Turn, Lord, to the prayers of the helpless.
But you, O Lord, will endure for ever
and your name from age to age.
You will arise and have mercy on Sion:
for this is the time to have mercy,
(yes, the time appointed has come)
for your servants love her very stones,
are moved with pity even for her dust.
The nations shall fear the name of the Lord
and all the earth’s kings your glory,
when the Lord shall build up Sion again
and appear in all his glory.
Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless;
he will not despise their prayers.
Let this be written for ages to come
that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord;
for the Lord leaned down from his sanctuary on high.
He looked down from heaven to the earth
that he might hear the groans of the prisoners
and free those condemned to die.
The sons of your servants shall dwell untroubled
and their race shall endure before you,
that the name of the Lord may be proclaimed in Sion
and his praise in the heart of Jerusalem,
when peoples and kingdoms are gathered together
to pay their homage to the Lord.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Turn, Lord, to the prayers of the helpless.
________
Psalm 101 (102):24-29
You founded the earth, Lord, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
He has broken my strength in mid-course;
he has shortened the days of my life.
I say to God: ‘Do not take me away
before my days are complete,
you, whose days last from age to age.
‘Long ago you founded the earth
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish but you will remain.
They will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like clothes that are changed.
But you neither change, nor have an end.’
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
You founded the earth, Lord, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
Psalm-prayer
Lord, you live in the hearts of your saints, and so have built up Zion. May you always show your greatness through their good works.
Or:
You remain for ever, Father, undisturbed by change, while our days vanish like shadows and our lives wear out like a garment. Although our lives in this world come to an end, help us to live in Christ’s endless life, and so attain the heavenly Jerusalem, our lasting home.
________
℣. Give heed, my people, to my teaching.
℟. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
Job 3:1-26
Job’s lament
In the end it was Job who broke the silence, and cursed the day of his birth. This is what he said:
May the day perish when I was born,
and the night that told of a boy conceived.
May that day be darkness,
may God on high have no thought for it,
may no light shine on it.
May murk and deep shadow claim it for their own,
clouds hang over it,
eclipse swoop down on it.
Yes, let the dark lay hold of it,
to the days of the year let it not be joined,
into the reckoning of months not find its way.
May that night be dismal,
no shout of joy come near it.
Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
Dark be the stars of its morning,
let it wait in vain for light
and never see the opening eyes of dawn.
Since it would not shut the doors of the womb on me
to hide sorrow from my eyes.
Why did I not die new-born,
not perish as I left the womb?
Why were there two knees to receive me,
two breasts for me to suck?
Had there not been, I should now be lying in peace,
wrapped in a restful slumber,
with the kings and high viziers of earth
who build themselves vast vaults,
or with princes who have gold and to spare
and houses crammed with silver.
Or put away like a still-born child that never came to be,
like unborn babes that never see the light.
Down there, bad men bustle no more,
there the weary rest.
Prisoners, all left in peace,
hear no more the shouts of the gaoler.
Down there, high and low are all one,
and the slave is free of his master.
Why give light to a man of grief?
Why give life to those bitter of heart,
who long for a death that never comes,
and hunt for it more than for a buried treasure?
They would be glad to see the grave-mound
and shout with joy if they reached the tomb.
Why make this gift of light to a man who does not see his way,
whom God baulks on every side?
My only food is sighs,
and my groans pour out like water.
Whatever I fear comes true,
whatever I dread befalls me.
For me, there is no calm, no peace;
my torments banish rest.
Responsory
Jb 3:24-26, 6:13
℟. My only food is sighs, and my groans pour out like water. Whatever I fear comes true, whatever I dread befalls me.* Nothing but turmoil is my lot, O Lord.
℣. Can any power be found within myself, has not all help deserted me?* Nothing but turmoil is my lot, O Lord.
________
Second Reading
From the Confessions of St Augustine
Whoever I may be, Lord, I lie exposed to your scrutiny
Let me know you, O you who know me; then shall I know even as I am known. You are the strength of my soul; make your way in and shape it to yourself, that it may be yours to have and to hold, free from stain or wrinkle. I speak because this is my hope, and whenever my joy springs from that hope it is joy well founded. As for the rest of this life’s experiences, the more tears are shed over them the less they are worth weeping over, and the more truly worth lamenting the less do we bewail them while mired in them. You love the truth because anyone who “does truth” comes to the light. Truth it is that I want to do, in my heart by confession in your presence, and with my pen before many witnesses.
But the abyss of the human conscience lies naked to your eyes, O Lord, so would anything be secret even if I were unwilling to confess to you? I would be hiding you from myself, but not myself from you. But now that my groans bear witness that I find no pleasure in myself, you shed light upon me and give me joy, you offer yourself, lovable and longed for, that I may thrust myself away in disgust and choose you, and be pleasing no more either to you or to myself except in what I have from you.
To you, then, Lord, I lie exposed, exactly as I am. I have spoken of what I hope to gain by confessing to you. My confession to you is made not with words of tongue and voice, but with the words of my soul and the clamour of my thought, to which your ear is attuned; for when I am bad, confession to you is simply disgust with myself, but when I am good, confession to you consists in not attributing my goodness to myself, because though you, Lord, bless the person who is just, it is only because you have first made him just when he was sinful. This is why, O Lord, my confession in your presence is silent, yet not altogether silent: there is no noise to it, but it shouts by love.
For it is you, Lord, who judge me. No-one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him. And though in your sight I may despise myself and reckon myself dust and ashes, I know something about you which I do not know about myself.
It is true that we now see only a tantalising reflection in a mirror, and so it is that while I am on pilgrimage far from you I am more present to myself than to you; yet I do know that you cannot be defiled in any way whatever, whereas I do not know which temptations I may have the strength to resist, and to which ones I shall succumb. Our hope is that, because you are trustworthy, you do not allow us to be tempted more fiercely than we can bear, but along with the temptation you ordain the outcome of it, so that we can endure.
Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.
Responsory
℟. O Lord, you search me and you know me:* you discern my purpose from afar.
℣. O where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from your face?* You discern my purpose from afar.
________
Let us pray.
In your mercy, Lord,
direct the affairs of men so peaceably
that your Church may serve you
in tranquillity and joy.
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.
________
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
Copyright © 1996-2021 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.