This is the Liturgy of the Hours for June 03. Your local date is .
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:42 — 20.7MB)
Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. III:
Ordinary: 651
Psalter: Saturday, Week IV, 1250
Common of Several Martyrs: 1684 (verse)
Proper of Seasons: 283 (first reading)
Proper of Saints: 1453 (second reading, concluding prayer)
Office of Readings for Saturday in Ordinary Time, the Memorial of Saints Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
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
Lo! round the throne, a glorious band,
The saints in countless myriads stand;
Of every tongue redeemed to God,
Arrayed in garments washed in blood,
Alleluia.
Through tribulation great they came;
They bore the cross, despised the shame;
From all their labors now they rest,
In God’s eternal glory blest,
Alleluia.
They see their Savior face to face;
And sing the triumphs of His grace;
Him day and night, they ceaseless praise,
To Him their loud thanksgiving raise,
Alleluia.
“Worthy the Lamb, for sinners slain,
Through endless years to live and reign;
Thou hast redeemed us by Thy blood,
And made us kings and priests to God.”
Alleluia.
O may we tread the sacred road
That saints and holy martyrs trod;
Wage to the end the glorious strife,
And win, like them, a crown of life,
Alleluia.
𝄞 | "Lo! Round The Throne, A Glorious Band" by Rebecca Hincke • Available for Purchase • Musical Score • Title: Lo! Round The Throne, A Glorious Band; Text: Rowland Hill, 1783; Music: "Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag" by Nikolaus Herman 1560; Artist: Rebecca Hincke; (c) 2017 Surgeworks, Inc. • Albums that contain this Hymn: The Hymns and Chants of Divine Office, Vol. 1 |
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.
Our spirits yearn for the Lord.
— He is our help and our protector.
READINGS
First reading
From the book of Job
13:13-14:6
Job appeals to God’s judgment
Job replied to his friends and said:
Be silent, let me alone! that I may speak
and give vent to my feelings.
I will carry my flesh between my teeth,
and take my life in my hand.
Slay me though he might, I will wait for him;
I will defend my conduct before him.
And this shall be my salvation,
that no impious man can come into his presence.
Pay careful heed to my speech,
and give my statement a hearing.
Behold, I have prepared my case,
I know that I am in the right.
If anyone can make a case against me,
then I shall be silent and die.
These things only do not use against me,
then from your presence I need not hide:
Withdraw your hand far from me,
and let not the terror of you frighten me.
Then call me, and I will respond;
or let me speak first, and answer me.
What are my faults and my sins?
My misdeeds and my sins make known to me!
Why do you hide your face
and consider me your enemy?
Will you harass a wind-driven leaf,
or pursue a withered straw?
For you draw up bitter indictments against me,
and punish in me the faults of my youth.
You put my feet in the stocks;
you watch all my paths
and trace out all my footsteps.
Man born of woman
is short-lived and full of trouble,
Like a flower that springs up and fades,
swift as a shadow that does not abide.
Upon such a one will you cast your eyes
so as to bring him into judgment before you,
Though he wears out like a leather bottle,
like a garment that the moth has consumed?
Can a man be found who is clean of defilement?
There is none, however short his days.
You know the number of his months;
you have fixed the limit which he cannot pass.
Look away from him and let him be,
while, like a hireling, he completes his day.
RESPONSORY See Job 13:20, 21; see Jeremiah 10:24
O Lord, do not hide your face from me; lift away from me the weight of your hand,
— and let not the fear of you terrify me.
O God, rebuke me with gentleness and not in anger, for your anger will reduce me to nothing.
— And let not the fear of you terrify me.
Second reading
From the homily at the canonization of the martyrs of Uganda by Pope Paul VI
The glory of the martyrs—a sign of rebirth
The African martyrs add another page to the martyrology — the Church’s roll of honor — an occasion both of mourning and of joy. This is a page worthy in every way to be added to the annals of that Africa of earlier which we, living in this era and being men of little faith, never expected to be repeated.
In earlier times there occurred those famous deeds, so moving to the spirit, of the martyrs of Scilli, of Carthage, and of that “white robed army” of Utica commemorated by Saint Augustine and Prudentius; of the martyrs of Egypt so highly praised by Saint John Chrysostom, and of the martyrs of the Vandal persecution. Who would have thought that in our days we should have witnessed events as heroic and glorious?
Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and—the greatest of all—Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions? Nor must we forget those members of the Anglican Church who also died for the name of Christ.
These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed not toward persecutions and religious conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilization!
Africa has been washed by the blood of these latest martyrs, the first of this new age (and, God willing, let them be the last, although such a holocaust is precious indeed). Africa is reborn free and independent.
The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, to be handed down to posterity. Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a simple and rough way of life—enriched by many fine human qualities yet enslaved by its own weakness and corruption—must give way to a more civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better social conditions prevail.
RESPONSORY
We are warriors now, fighting on the battlefield of faith,
and God sees all we do; the angels watch and so does Christ.
— What honor and glory and joy, to do battle in the presence of God, and to have Christ approve our victory.
Let us arm ourselves in full strength and prepare ourselves for the ultimate struggle with blameless hearts,
true faith and unyielding courage.
— What honor and glory and joy, to do battle in the presence of God, and to have Christ approve our victory.
CONCLUDING PRAYER
O God,
who have made the blood of Martyrs
the seed of Christians,
mercifully grant that the field which is your Church,
watered by the blood shed by Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions,
may be fertile and always yield you an abundant harvest.
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.
The Faith Journey of our Community
JamesTheElder on June 2nd, 2023 at 23:56
Saints of the Day