Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Psalter: Monday, Week III, 962
Common of Holy Men: 1880 (verse before the readings)
Proper of Seasons: 223 (first reading)
Appendix VI: 2016 (second reading, concluding prayer)

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings.

Office of Readings for Monday in Ordinary Time, the Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest

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 Our God will be made manifest; he will not come in silence.

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. Our God will be made manifest; he will not come in silence.

Ant. 2 Offer to God the sacrifice of praise.

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. Offer to God the sacrifice of praise.

Ant. 3 I want a loving heart more than sacrifice, knowledge of my ways more than holocausts.

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, accept us as a sacrifice of praise, so that we may go through life unburdened by sin, walking in the way of salvation, and always giving thanks to you.

Ant. I want a loving heart more than sacrifice, knowledge of my ways more than holocausts.

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.

The Lord led this holy man along a sure path.
— He showed him the kingdom of God.

READINGS

First reading
From the book of the prophet Jeremiah
42:1-16; 43:4-7
Jeremiah and the people after the fall of the city

All the army leaders, Johanan, son of Kareah, Azariah, son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, high and low, approached the prophet Jeremiah and said, “Grant our petition; pray for us to the Lord, your God, for all this remnant. We are now few who once were many, as you well see. Let the Lord, your God, show us what way we should take and what we should do.”

Very well! the prophet Jeremiah answered them: I will pray to the Lord, your God, as you desire; whatever the Lord answers you, I will tell you; I will withhold nothing from you. And they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be our witness: we will truly and faithfully follow all the instructions the Lord, your God, will send us. Whether it is pleasant or difficult, we will obey the command of the Lord, our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us for obeying the command of the Lord, our God.”

Ten days passed before the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. Then he called Johanan, son of Kareah, his army leaders, and all the people, high and low, and said to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to offer your prayer: If you remain quietly in this land I will build you up, and not tear you down; I will plant you, not uproot you; for I regret the evil I have done you. Do not fear the king of Babylon, before whom you are now afraid; do not fear him, says the Lord, for I am with you to save you, to rescue you from his power. I will grant you mercy, so that he will be sorry for you and let you return to your land.

But if you disobey the voice of the Lord, your God, and decide not to remain in this land, saying, “No, we will go to Egypt, where we will see no more of war, hear the trumpet alarm no longer, nor hunger for bread; there we will live”; then listen to the word of the Lord, remnant of Judah: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you are determined to go to Egypt, when you arrive there to stay, the sword you fear shall reach you in the land of Egypt; the hunger you dread shall cling to you no less in Egypt, and there you shall die.

Johanan, son of Kareah, and the rest of the leaders and the people did not obey the Lord’s command to stay in the land of Judah. Instead, Johanan, son of Kareah, and all the army leaders took along the whole remnant of Judah that had been dispersed among the nations and had returned thence to dwell again in the land of Judah: men, women, and children, the princesses and everyone whom Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, had entrusted to Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah, the prophet, and Baruch, son of Neriah. Against the Lord’s command they went to Egypt, and arrived at Tahpanhes.

RESPONSORY Jeremiah 42:2; Lamentations 5:3

Pray to the Lord your God for us and for all this remnant.
— Few of us now remain though once we were many.

We have become orphans and are fatherless.
Our mothers are like widows.
— Few of us now remain though once we were many.

Second reading
From a letter by Saint Peter Claver, priest
To preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim pardon to captives

Yesterday, May 30, 1627, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, numerous blacks, brought from the rivers of Africa, disembarked from a large ship. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. When we approached their quarters, we thought we were entering another Guinea. We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. Large numbers of the sick were lying on the wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of bricks. This, then, was their couch, a very uncomfortable one not only for that reason, but especially because they were naked, without any clothing to protect them.

We laid aside our cloaks, therefore, and brought from a warehouse whatever was handy to build a platform. In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. Then we divided the sick into two groups: one group my companion approached with an interpreter, while I addressed the other group. There were two blacks, nearer death than life, already cold, whose pulse could scarcely be detected. With the help of a tile we pulled some live coals together and placed them in the middle near the dying men. Into this fire we tossed aromatics. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. Then, using our own cloaks, for they had nothing of this sort, and to ask the owners for others would have been a waste of words, we provided for them a smoke treatment, by which they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see.

This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. Then we sat, or rather knelt, beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick.

After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. When by their answers to our questions they showed they had sufficiently understood this, we went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes each one according to his merit, and the rest. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Showing them Christ fastened to the cross, as he is depicted on the baptismal font on which streams of blood flow down from his wounds, we led them in reciting an act of contrition in their own language.

RESPONSORY Matthew 25:35, 40

I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was homeless and you took me in.
— Now I tell you this: When you did these things for the most neglected of my brothers, you did them for me.

This is what I command: Love one another as I have loved you.
— Now I tell you this: When you did these things for the most neglected of my brothers, you did them for me.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,
who made Saint Peter Claver a slave of slaves
and strengthened him with wonderful charity
and patience as he came to their help,
grant, through his intercession, that,
seeking the things of Jesus Christ,
we may love our neighbor in deeds and in truth.
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.