Friday 12 November 2021
Saint Josaphat, Bishop, Martyr
on Friday of week 32 in Ordinary Time
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
The martyrs living now with Christ
In suffering were tried,
Their anguish overcome by love
When on his cross they died.
Across the centuries they come,
In constancy unmoved,
Their loving hearts make no complaint,
In silence they are proved.
No man has ever measured love,
Or weighed it in his hand,
But God who knows the inmost heart
Gives them the promised land.
Praise Father, Son and Spirit blest,
Who guides us through the night
In ways that reach beyond the stars
To everlasting light.
Francis E. Mostyn (1860-1939)
________
Psalm 54 (55):2-9
Against a faithless friend
“Jesus began to feel a sudden fear and great distress” (Mk 14:33).
Do not reject my plea, O God, for wicked men assail me.
O God, listen to my prayer,
do not hide from my pleading,
attend to me and reply;
with my cares, I cannot rest.
I tremble at the shouts of the foe,
at the cries of the wicked;
for they bring down evil upon me.
They assail me with fury.
My heart is stricken within me,
death’s terror is on me,
trembling and fear fall upon me
and horror overwhelms me.
O that I had wings like a dove
to fly away and be at rest.
So I would escape far away
and take refuge in the desert.
I would hasten to find a shelter
from the raging wind,
from the destructive storm, O Lord,
and from their plotting tongues.
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.
Do not reject my plea, O God, for wicked men assail me.
________
Psalm 54 (55):10-15
The Lord will free us from the hand of our enemies and from those who wish us harm.
For I can see nothing but violence
and strife in the city.
Night and day they patrol
high on the city walls.
It is full of wickedness and evil;
it is full of sin.
Its streets are never free
from tyranny and deceit.
If this had been done by an enemy
I could bear his taunts.
If a rival had risen against me,
I could hide from him.
But it is you, my own companion,
my intimate friend!
How close was the friendship between us.
We walked together in harmony
in the house of God.
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.
The Lord will free us from the hand of our enemies and from those who wish us harm.
________
Psalm 54 (55):17-24
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
As for me, I will cry to God
and the Lord will save me.
Evening, morning and at noon
I will cry and lament.
He will deliver my soul in peace
in the attack against me;
for those who fight me are many,
but he hears my voice.
God will hear and will humble them,
the eternal judge:
for they will not amend their ways.
They have no fear of God.
The traitor has turned against his friends;
he has broken his word.
His speech is softer than butter,
but war is in his heart.
His words are smoother than oil,
but they are naked swords.
Entrust your cares to the Lord
and he will support you.
He will never allow
the just man to stumble.
But you, O God, will bring them down
to the pit of death.
Deceitful and bloodthirsty men
shall not live half their days.
O Lord, I will trust in you.
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.
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
Psalm-prayer
Lord Jesus, you were rejected by your people, betrayed by the kiss of a friend, and deserted by your disciples. Give us the confidence that you had in the Father, and our salvation will be assured.
________
℣. Anguish and distress have taken hold of me.
℟. Yet will I delight in your commands.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
Daniel 10:1-21
The vision of the man and the apparition of the angel
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a revelation was made to Daniel known as Belteshazzar, a true revelation of a great conflict. He grasped the meaning of the revelation; what it meant was disclosed to him in a vision.
At that time, I, Daniel, was doing a three-week penance; I ate no rich food, touched no meat or wine, and did not anoint myself, until these three weeks were over. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I stood on the bank of that great river, the Tigris, I raised my eyes to look about me, and this is what I saw:
A man dressed in linen, with a girdle of pure gold round his waist;
his body was like beryl,
his face shone like lightning,
his eyes were like fiery torches,
his arms and his legs had the gleam of burnished bronze,
the sound of his voice was like the noise of a crowd.
I, Daniel, alone saw the apparition; the men who were with me did not see the apparition, but so great a trembling overtook them that they fled to hide. I was left alone, gazing on this great apparition; I was powerless, my appearance altered out of all recognition, what strength I had deserted me.
I heard him speak, and at the sound of his voice I fell unconscious to the ground. I felt a hand touching me, setting my knees and my hands trembling. He said, ‘Daniel, you are a man specially chosen; listen carefully to the words that I am going to say; stand up; I have been sent to you and here I am.’ He said this, and I stood up trembling. He said then, ‘Daniel, do not be afraid: from that first day when you resolved to humble yourself before God, the better to understand, your words have been heard; and your words are the reason why I have come. The prince of the kingdom of Persia has been resisting me for twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the leading princes, came to my assistance. I have left him confronting the kings of Persia and have come to tell you what will happen to your people in the days to come. For here is a new vision about those days.’
When he had said these things to me I prostrated myself on the ground, without saying a word; then someone looking like a son of man came and touched my lips. I opened my mouth to speak, and I said to the person standing in front of me, ‘My lord, anguish overcomes me at this vision, and what strength I had deserts me. How can my lord’s servant speak to my lord now that I have no strength left and my breath fails me?’ Once again the person like a man touched me; he gave me strength. ‘Do not be afraid,’ he said ‘you are a man specially chosen; peace be with you; play the man, be strong!’ And as he spoke to me I felt strong again and said, ‘Let my lord speak, you have given me strength.’
He said then, ‘Do you know why I have come to you? It is to tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. I must go back to fight against the prince of Persia: when I have done with him, the prince of Javan will come next. And now I will tell you the truth about these things. In all this there is no one to lend me support except Michael your prince, on whom I rely to give me support and reinforce me.’
Responsory
Dn 10:12,19,21
℟. From that first day when you resolved to humble yourself before God, the better to understand, your words have been heard:* this is why I have come.
℣. Do not be afraid, Daniel, I have come to tell you what is written in the Book of Truth:* this is why I have come.
________
Second Reading
Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Ecclesiam Dei"
He gave his life for the unity of the Church
In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity.
Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say, with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.
Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Płock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honour or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore world-wide unity to the Church and he realised that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.
Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him “the thief of souls.”
Responsory
℟. Jesus prayed: Holy Father, keep them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me,* so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me.
℣. I gave them the same glory you gave me,* so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me.
________
Let us pray.
Lord, filled with your Holy Spirit
Saint Josaphat laid down his life for his flock.
Renew that Spirit in your Church,
strengthen our hearts with your grace,
so that, with the help of his prayers,
we may be ready to lay down our lives for our brethren.
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.