This is the Liturgy of the Hours for December 31. Your local date is .
“And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—he says: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’” (Isaiah 49:5-6). [1]
Today is Tuesday of Holy Week. This Servant song in Isaiah heralds the divine appointment of the Savior. The Lord says his servant’s mission reaches beyond Israel to all the nations, to the very ends of the earth. The church sees in this a foreshadowing of Jesus’ mission to bring salvation to the whole world. As Pope Francis said in one of his homilies, we share in that mission: “My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward.” [2][3][4]
Written by Sarah Ciotti
Reviewed by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB, STD
[1] Revised Standard Version s.v., “ Isaiah, The Book of.”
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 121-123.
[3] Adrian Nocent, OSB, The Liturgical Year: Lent & Holy Week (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1977), 161-166.
[4] Pope Francis, Homily, March 14, 2013.