Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. III:
Ordinary: 651
Psalter: Wednesday, Week III, 1039
Common of Pastors: 1737 (verse before first reading)
Proper of Seasons: 122 (first reading)
Proper of Saints: 1317 (second reading, concluding prayer)

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings.

Office of Readings for Wednesday in Ordinary Time, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor

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.

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 Wherever you are, Lord, there is mercy, there is truth.

Psalm 89:2-38
God’s favors to the house of David
According to his promise, the Lord has raised up Jesus, a Savior, from the family of David (Acts 13:22, 23).

I

I will sing for ever of your love, O Lord;
through all ages my mouth will proclaim your truth.
Of this I am sure, that your love lasts for ever,
that your truth is firmly established in the heavens.

“With my chosen one, I have made a covenant;
I have sworn to David my servant:
I will establish your dynasty for ever
and set up your throne through all ages.”

The heavens proclaim your wonders, O Lord;
the assembly of your holy ones proclaims your truth.
For who in the skies can compare with the Lord
or who is like the Lord among the sons of God?

A God to be feared in the council of the holy ones,
great and dreadful to all around him.
O Lord God of hosts, who is your equal?
You are mighty, O Lord, and truth is your garment.

It is you who rule the sea in its pride;
it is you who still the surging of its waves.
You crushed the monster Rahab and killed it,
scattering your foes with your mighty arm.

The heavens are yours, the world is yours.
It is you who founded the earth and all it holds;
it is you who created the North and the South.
Tabor and Hermon shout with joy at your name.

Yours is a mighty arm, O Lord;
your hand is strong, your right hand ready.
Justice and right are the pillars of your throne,
love and truth walk in your presence.

Happy the people who acclaim such a king,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
who find their joy every day in your name,
who make your justice the source of their bliss.

For you, O Lord, are the glory of their strength;
by your favor it is that our might is exalted:
for our ruler is in the keeping of the Lord;
our king in the keeping of the Holy One of Israel.

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. Wherever you are, Lord, there is mercy, there is truth.

Ant. 2 When the Son of God came into this world, he was born of David’s line.

II

Of old you spoke in a vision.
To your friends the prophets you said:
“I have set the crown on a warrior,
I have exalted one chosen from the people.

I have found David my servant
and with my holy oil anointed him.
My hand shall always be with him
and my arm shall make him strong.

The enemy shall never outwit him
nor the evil man oppress him.
I will beat down his foes before him
and smite those who hate him.

My truth and my love shall be with him;
by my name his might shall be exalted.
I will stretch out his hand to the Sea
and his right hand as far as the River.

He will say to me: ‘You are my father,
my God, the rock who saves me.’
And I will make him my first-born,
the highest of the kings of the earth.

I will keep my love for him always;
for him my covenant shall last.
I will establish his dynasty for ever,
make his throne endure as the heavens.”

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. When the Son of God came into this world, he was born of David’s line.

Ant. 3 Once for all I swore to my servant David: his dynasty shall never fail.

III

“If his sons forsake my law
and refuse to walk as I decree
and if ever they violate my statutes,
refusing to keep my commands;
then I will punish their offenses with the rod,
then I will scourge them on account of their guilt.
But I will never take back my love:
my truth will never fail.

I will never violate my covenant
nor go back on the word I have spoken.
Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness.
‘I will never lie to David.

His dynasty shall last for ever.
In my sight his throne is like the sun;
like the moon, it shall endure for ever,
a faithful witness in the skies.’”

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

God, you anointed your servant Jesus with holy oil and raised him higher than all kings on earth. In this you fulfilled the promise made to David’s descendants and established a lasting covenant through your first-born Son. Do not forget your holy covenant, so that we who are signed with the blood of your Son through the new sacraments of faith may sing of your mercies for ever.

Ant. Once for all I swore to my servant David: his dynasty shall never fail.

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 Deuteronomy
29:1-5, 9-28
A curse is called down upon transgressors of the covenant

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lord did in the land of Egypt before your very eyes to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all his land; the great testings your own eyes have seen, and those great signs and wonders. But not even at the present day has the Lord yet given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.

“I led you for forty years in the desert. Your clothes did not fall from you in tatters nor your sandals from your feet; bread was not your food, nor wine or beer your drink. Thus you should know that I, the Lord, am your God.”

“You are all now standing before the Lord, your God—your chiefs and judges, your elders and officials, and all of the men of Israel, together with your wives and children and the aliens who live in your camp, down to those who hew wood and draw water for you—that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord, your God, which he concluded with you today under this sanction of a curse; so that he may now establish you as his people and he may be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

“But it is not with you alone that I am making this covenant, under this sanction of a curse; it is just as much with those who are not here among us today as it is with those of us who are now here present before the Lord, our God.

“You know in what surroundings we lived in the land of Egypt and what we passed by in the nations we traversed, and you saw the loathsome idols of wood and stone, of gold and silver, that they possess. Let there be, then, no man or woman, no clan or tribe among you, who would now turn away their hearts from the Lord, our God, to go and serve these pagan gods!

“Let there be no root that would bear such poison and wormwood among you. If any such person, upon hearing the words of this curse, should beguile himself into thinking that he can safely persist in his stubbornness of heart, as though to sweep away both the watered soil and the parched ground, the Lord will never consent to pardon him. Instead, the Lord’s wrath and jealousy will flare up against that man, and every curse mentioned in this book will alight on him. The Lord will blot out his name from under the heavens and will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for doom, in keeping with all the curses of the covenant inscribed in this book of the law.

“Future generations, your own descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigners who will come here from far-off lands, when they see the calamities of this land and the ills with which the Lord has smitten it—all its soil being nothing but sulphur and salt, a burnt-out waste, unsown and unfruitful, without a blade of grass, destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his furious wrath—they and all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord dealt thus with this land? Why this fierce outburst of wrath?’ And the answer will be, ‘Because they forsook the covenant which the Lord, the God of their fathers, had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they went and served other gods and adored them, gods whom they did not know and whom he had not let fall to their lot: that is why the Lord was angry with this land and brought on it all the imprecations listed in this book; in his furious wrath and tremendous anger the Lord uprooted them from their soil and cast them out into a strange land, where they are today.’

“[Both what is still hidden and what has already been revealed concern us and our descendants forever, that we may carry out all the words of this law.]”

RESPONSORY Galatians 3:13-14; see Deuteronomy 8:14

For our sake, Christ was cursed, so that the blessing of Abraham might include the pagans,
— that through faith we might receive the promised Spirit.

God rescued us from the land of Egypt and set us free from the land of slavery.
— That through faith we might receive the promised Spirit.

Second Reading
From the Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis de Sales, bishop
Devotion must be practiced in different ways

When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.

I say that devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.

Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be constantly exposed like a bishop to all the events and circumstances that bear on the needs of our neighbor. Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganized and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfills all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion.

The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them. True devotion does still better. Not only does it not injure any sort of calling or occupation, it even embellishes and enhances it.

Moreover, just as every sort of gem, cast in honey, becomes brighter and more sparkling, each according to its color, so each person becomes more acceptable and fitting in his own vocation when he sets his vocation in the context of devotion. Through devotion your family cares become more peaceful, mutual love between husband and wife becomes more sincere, the service we owe to the prince becomes more faithful, and our work, no matter what it is, becomes more pleasant and agreeable.

It is therefore an error and even a heresy to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from military divisions, from the artisans’ shops, from the courts of princes, from family households. I acknowledge, my dear Philothea, that the type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic and religious can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations, but besides this threefold type of devotion, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state.

Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to the life of perfection.

RESPONSORY Ephesians 4:32—5:1; Matthew 11:29

Be kind and compassionate to one another; forgive each other as God has forgiven you in Christ.
— Be imitators of God the Father who loves you as his own dear children.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
— Be imitators of God the Father who loves you as his own dear children.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,
who for the salvation of souls willed
that the Bishop Saint Francis de Sales
become all things to all,
graciously grant that, following his example,
we may always display the gentleness of your charity
in the service of our neighbor.
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.