Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Psalter: Thursday, Week I, 729
Common of One Martyr: 1721 (verse before the readings)
Proper of Seasons: 170 (first reading)
Proper of Saints: 1358 (Second reading, concluding prayer)

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings

Office of Readings for Thursday in Ordinary Time, the Memorial of the Beheading of John the Baptist, Martyr

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 The word of the Lord is a strong shield for all who put their trust in him.

Psalm 18
Hymn of thanksgiving
If God is on our side who can be against us? (Romans 8:31).

IV

As for God, his ways are perfect;
the word of the Lord, purest gold.
He indeed is the shield
of all who make him their refuge.

For who is God but the Lord?
Who is a rock but our God?
The God who girds me with strength
and makes the path safe before me.

My feet you made swift as the deer’s;
you have made me stand firm on the heights.
You have trained my hands for battle
and my arms to bend the heavy bow.

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 word of the Lord is a strong shield for all who put their trust in him.

Ant. 2 Your strong right hand has upheld me, Lord.

V

You gave me your saving shield;
you upheld me, trained me with care.
You gave me freedom for my steps;
my feet have never slipped.

I pursued and overtook my foes,
never turning back till they were slain.
I smote them so they could not rise;
they fell beneath my feet.

You girded me with strength for battle;
you made my enemies fall beneath me,
you made my foes take flight;
those who hated me I destroyed.

They cried, but there was no one to save them;
they cried to the Lord, but in vain.
I crushed them fine as dust before the wind;
trod them down like dirt in the streets.

You saved me from the feuds of the people
and put me at the head of the nations.
People unknown to me served me:
when they heard of me they obeyed me.

Foreign nations came to me cringing:
foreign nations faded away.
They came trembling out of their strongholds.

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. Your strong right hand has upheld me, Lord.

Ant. 3 May the living God, my Savior, be praised for ever.

VI

Long life to the Lord, my rock!
Praised be the God who saves me,
the God who gives me redress
and subdues people under me.

You saved me from my furious foes.
You set me above my assailants.
You saved me from violent men,
so I will praise you, Lord, among the nations:
I will sing a psalm to your name.

He has given great victories to his king
and shown his love for his anointed,
for David and his sons for ever.

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

Lord God, our strength and salvation, put in us the flame of your love and make our love for you grow to a perfect love which reaches to our neighbor.

Ant. May the living God, my Savior, be praised for ever.

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.

I have known tribulation and distress.
— But in your commands I have found consolation.

READINGS

First reading
From the book of the prophet Jeremiah
3:1-5, 19–4:4
The call to conversion

This word of the Lord came to me:
If a man sends away his wife
and, after leaving him,
she marries another man,
Does the first husband come back to her?
Would not the land be wholly defiled?
But you have sinned with many lovers,
and yet you would return to me! says the Lord.

Lift your eyes to the heights, and see,
where have men not lain with you?
By the waysides you waited for them
like an Arab in the desert.
You defiled the land
by your wicked harlotry.
Therefore the showers were withheld,
the spring rain failed.

But because you have a harlot’s brow,
you refused to blush.
Even now do you not call me, “My father,
you who are the bridegroom of my youth”?
“Will he keep his wrath forever,
will he hold his grudge to the end?”
This is what you say; yet you do
all the evil you can.
I had thought:
How I should like to treat you as sons,
And give you a pleasant land,
a heritage most beautiful among the nations!
You would call me, “My Father,” I thought,
and never cease following me.
But like a woman faithless to her lover,
even so have you been faithless to me,
O house of Israel, says the Lord.

A cry is heard on the heights!
the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children,
Because they have perverted their ways
and forgotten the Lord, their God.
Return, rebellious children,
and I will cure you of your rebelling.

“Here we are, we now come to you
because you are the Lord, our God.
Deceptive indeed are the hills,
the thronging mountains;
In the Lord, our God, alone
is the salvation of Israel.
The shame-god has devoured
our fathers’ toil from our youth,
Their sheep and their cattle,
their sons and their daughters.
Let us lie down in our shame,
let our disgrace cover us,
for we have sinned against the Lord, our God,
From our youth to this day, we and our fathers also;
we listened not to the voice of the Lord, our God.”

If you wish to return, O Israel, says the Lord,
return to me.
If you put your detestable things out of my sight,
and do not stray,
Then you can swear, “As the Lord lives,”
in truth, in judgment, and in justice;
Then shall the nations use his name in blessing,
and glory in him.

For to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, thus says the Lord:

Till your untilled ground,
sow not among thorns.
For the sake of the Lord, be circumcised,
remove the foreskins of your hearts,
O men of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem;
Lest my anger break out like fire,
and burn till none can quench it,
because of your evil deeds.

RESPONSORY Jeremiah 14:7; Psalm 130:3

Though our sins bear witness against us, act, O Lord, for your name’s sake.
— We have been disloyal many times and have sinned against you.

If you, O Lord, should mark our iniquities, Lord, who could bear it?
— We have been disloyal many times and have sinned against you.

Second reading
From a homily by Saint Bede the Venerable, priest
Precursor of Christ in birth and death

As forerunner of our Lord’s birth, preaching and death, the blessed John showed in his struggle a goodness worthy of the sight of heaven. In the words of Scripture: Though in the sight of men he suffered torments, his hope is full of immortality. We justly commemorate the day of his birth with a joyful celebration, a day which he himself made festive for us through his suffering and which he adorned with the crimson splendor of his own blood. We do rightly revere his memory with joyful hearts, for he stamped with the seal of martyrdom the testimony which he delivered on behalf of our Lord.

There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: I am the truth? Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.

Through his birth, preaching and baptizing, he bore witness to the coming birth, preaching and baptism of Christ, and by his own suffering he showed that Christ also would suffer.

Such was the quality and strength of the man who accepted the end of this present life by shedding his blood after the long imprisonment. He preached the freedom of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly men; he was locked away in the darkness of prison, though he came bearing witness to the Light of life and deserved to be called a bright and shining lamp by that Light itself, which is Christ. John was baptized in his own blood, though he had been privileged to baptize the Redeemer of the world, to hear the voice of the Father above him, and to see the grace of the Holy Spirit descending upon him. But to endure temporal agonies for the sake of the truth was not a heavy burden for such men as John; rather it was easily borne and even desirable, for he knew eternal joy would be his reward.

Since death was ever near at hand through the inescapable necessity of nature, such men considered it a blessing to embrace it and thus gain the reward of eternal life by acknowledging Christ’s name. Hence the apostle Paul rightly says: You have been granted the privilege not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for his sake. He tells us why it is Christ’s gift that his chosen ones should suffer for him: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

RESPONSORY Mark 6:17, 27

Herod sent out a band of men to arrest John and had him chained and imprisoned
— on account of his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, whom he had married.

He sent an executioner who beheaded John in prison.
— On account of his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, whom he had married.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,
who willed that Saint John the Baptist
should go ahead of your Son
both in his birth and in his death,
grant that, as he died a Martyr for truth and justice,
we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what you teach.
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.