This is the Liturgy of the Hours for December 31. Your local date is .
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Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Psalter: Saturday, Week IV, 1214
Common of Doctors of the Church: 1777
Proper of Seasons: 399
Proper of Saints: 1483
Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings
Office of Readings for Saturday in Ordinary Time, Memorial of Saint Teresa of Avila, Virgin and Doctor of the Church
God, come to my assistance.
— Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. Alleluia.
HYMN
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Beneath the shadow of Your throne
Your saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is your arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting you are God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in your sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all our lives away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be now our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
| 𝄞 | "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" by Melinda Kirigin-Voss, Vince Clark • Title: O God, Our Help in Ages Past; Text: Based on Psalm 90; Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, Psalms of David..., 1719, alt.; Tune: ST. ANNE, CM; later form of melody (rhythm adapted), attr. to William Croft, 1678-1727, A Supplement to the New Version of Psalms, 1708; Artist: Melinda Kirigin-Voss, Vince Clark; Copyright 2016 Surgeworks Inc. • Albums that contain this Hymn: Divine Office |
PSALMODY
Ant. 1 The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment on his people.
Psalm 50
Genuine love of God
I have come not to abolish the law but to bring it to perfection (see Matthew 5:17).
I
The God of gods, the Lord,
has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion’s perfect beauty he shines.
Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.
Before him fire devours,
around him tempest rages.
He calls on the heavens and the earth
to witness his judgment of his people.
“Summon before me my people
who made covenant with me by sacrifice.”
The heavens proclaim his justice,
for God himself is the judge.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Ant. The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment on his people.
Ant. 2 Come to me in your distress, and I will save you.
II
“Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you,
for I am God your God.
I accuse you, lay the charge before you.
I find no fault with your sacrifices,
your offerings are always before me.
I do not ask more bullocks from your farms,
nor goats from among your herds.
For I own all the beasts of the forest,
beasts in their thousands on my hills.
I know all the birds in the sky,
all that moves in the field belongs to me.
Were I hungry, I would not tell you,
for I own the world and all it holds.
Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?
Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God
and render him your votive offerings.
Call on me in the day of distress.
I will free you and you shall honor me.”
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Ant. Come to me in your distress, and I will save you.
Ant. 3 A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.
III
But God says to the wicked:
“But how can you recite my commandments
and take my covenant on your lips,
you who despise my law
and throw my words to the winds,
you who see a thief and go with him;
who throw in your lot with adulterers,
who unbridle your mouth for evil
and whose tongue is plotting crime,
you who sit and malign your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
You do this, and should I keep silence?
Do you think that I am like you?
Mark this, you who never think of God,
lest I seize you and you cannot escape;
a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me
and I will show God’s salvation to the upright.”
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Psalm-prayer
Father, because Jesus, your servant, became obedient even unto death, his sacrifice was greater than all holocausts of old. Accept the sacrifice of praise we offer you through him and may we show the effects of it in our lives by striving to do your will until our whole life becomes adoration in Spirit and truth.
Ant. A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.
Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell) – a moment to reflect and receive in our hearts the full resonance of the voice of the Holy Spirit and to unite our personal prayer more closely with the word of God and public voice of the Church.
You will hear the word from my mouth.
— You will tell others what I have said.
READINGS
First reading
From the book of the prophet Malachi
3:1-24
The day of the Lord
Thus says the Lord God:
Lo, I am sending my messenger
to prepare the way before me;
And suddenly there will come to the temple
the Lord whom you seek,
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.
Yes, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
But who will endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears?
For he is like the refiner’s fire,
or like the fuller’s lye.
He will sit refining and purifying [silver],
and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver
that they may offer due sacrifice to the Lord.
Then the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem
will please the Lord,
as in days of old, as in years gone by.
I will draw near to you for judgment,
and I will be swift to bear witness
Against the sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers,
those who defraud the hired man of his wages,
Against those who defraud widows and orphans;
those who turn aside the stranger,
and those who do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Surely I, the Lord, do not change,
nor do you cease to be sons of Jacob.
Since the days of your fathers you have turned aside
from my statutes, and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you,
says the Lord of hosts.
Yet you say, “How must we return?”
Dare a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me!
And you say, “How do we rob you?”
In tithes and in offerings!
You are indeed accursed,
for you, the whole nation, rob me.
Bring the whole tithe
into the storehouse,
That there may be food in my house,
and try me in this, says the Lord of hosts:
Shall I not open for you the floodgates of heaven,
to pour down blessing upon you without measure?
For your sake I will forbid the locust
to destroy your crops;
And the vine in the field will not be barren,
says the Lord of hosts.
Then all nations will call you blessed,
for you will be a delightful land,
says the Lord of hosts.
You have defied me in word, says the Lord,
yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”
You have said, “It is vain to serve God,
and what do we profit by keeping his command,
And going about in penitential dress
in awe of the Lord of hosts?
Rather must we call the proud blessed;
for indeed evildoers prosper,
and even tempt God with impunity.”
Then they who fear the Lord spoke with one another,
and the Lord listened attentively;
And a record book was written before him
of those who fear the Lord and trust in his name.
And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts,
my own special possession, on the day I take action.
And I will have compassion on them,
as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
Then you will again see the distinction
between the just and the wicked;
Between him who serves God,
and him who does not serve him.
For lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
And the day that is coming will set them on fire,
leaving them neither root nor branch,
says the Lord of hosts.
But for you who fear my name, there will arise
the sun of justice with its healing rays;
And you will gambol like calves out of the stall
and tread down the wicked;
They will become ashes under the soles of your feet,
on the day I take action, says the Lord of hosts.
Remember the law of Moses my servant,
which I enjoined him on Horeb,
The statutes and ordinances
for all Israel.
Lo, I will send you
Elijah, the prophet,
Before the day of the Lord comes,
the great and terrible day,
To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,
and the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike
the land with doom.
RESPONSORY Malachi 3:1; Luke 1:76
See I am sending my messenger
to prepare the way before me.
— The Lord whom you seek shall enter his temple;
the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, shall come.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.
— The Lord whom you seek shall enter his temple;
the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, shall come.
Second reading
From a work by Saint Teresa of Avila, virgin
Let us always be mindful of Christ’s love
If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that if we expect to please him and receive an abundance of his graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through his most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.
Many, many times I have perceived this through experience. The Lord has told it to me. I have definitely seen that we must enter by this gate if we wish his Sovereign Majesty to reveal to us great and hidden mysteries. A person should desire no other path, even if he is at the summit of contemplation; on this road he walks safely. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.
What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our friends in the world, he will never abandon us when we are troubled or distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena. A person must walk along this path in freedom, placing himself in God’s hands. If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.
Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favours, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.
RESPONSORY
Those who turn their backs on you will perish.
—What joy to be near my God, to place all my trust in the Lord.
Whoever is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
—What joy to be near my God, to place all my trust in the Lord.
CONCLUDING PRAYER
O God,
who through your Spirit
raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus
to show the Church the way to seek perfection,
grant that we may always be nourished
by the food of her heavenly teaching
and fired with longing for true holiness.
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.
ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)
Let us praise the Lord.
— And give him thanks.