Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. III:
Ordinary: 651
Proper of Seasons: 232
Psalter: Monday, Week III, 999

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings.

Office of Readings for Monday in Ordinary Time

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.

Listen my people and I will speak.
— I am the Lord, your God.

READINGS

First reading
From the book of Ecclesiastes
2:1-3, 12b-26
The emptiness of pleasure and of human wisdom

I said to myself, “Come, now, let me try you with pleasure and the enjoyment of good things.” But behold, this too was vanity. Of laughter I said: “Mad!” and of mirth: “What good does this do?” I thought of beguiling my senses with wine, though my mind was concerned with wisdom, and of taking up folly, until I should understand what is best for men to do under the heavens during the limited days of their life.

I went on to the consideration of wisdom, madness and folly. And I saw that wisdom has the advantage over folly as much as light has the advantage over darkness.

The wise man has eyes in his head,
but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I knew that one lot befalls both of them. So I said to myself, if the fool’s lot is to befall me also, why then should I be wise? Where is the profit for me? And I concluded in my heart that this too is vanity. Neither of the wise man nor of the fool will there be an abiding remembrance, for in days to come both will have been forgotten. How is it that the wise man dies as well as the fool! Therefore I loathed life, since for me the work that is done under the sun is evil; for all is vanity and a chase after wind.

And I detested all the fruits of my labor under the sun, because I must leave them to a man who is to come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruits of my wise labor under the sun. This also is vanity. So my feelings turned to despair of all the fruits of my labor under the sun. For here is a man who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and to another, who has not labored over it, he must leave his property. This also is vanity and a great misfortune. For what profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun? All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity.

There is nothing better for man than to eat and drink and provide himself with good things by his labors. Even this, I realized, is from the hand of God. For who can eat or drink apart from him? For to whatever man he sees fit he gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering possessions to be given to whatever man God sees fit. This also is vanity and a chase after wind.

RESPONSORY Ecclesiastes 2:26; 1 Timothy 6:10

God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to the man who pleases him, but to the sinner, he gives a weary heart and a foolish eagerness to heap together riches.
— This is vanity and a chasing after the wind.

The love of money is the root of all evil, and some men in their greed have brought upon themselves many bitter sorrows.
— This is vanity and a chasing after the wind.

Second reading
From a homily on Ecclesiastes by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop
Christ is our head, and the wise man keeps his eyes upon him

We shall be blessed with clear vision if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, for he, as Paul teaches, is our head, and there is in him no shadow of evil. Saint Paul himself and all who have reached the same heights of sanctity had their eyes fixed on Christ, and so have all who live and move and have their being in him.

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ. The man who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection; he has them on truth, on justice, on immortality and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.

The wise man, then, turns his eyes toward the One who is his head, but the fool gropes in darkness. No one who puts his lamp under a bed instead of on a lamp-stand will receive any light from it. People are often considered blind and useless when they make the supreme Good their aim and give themselves up to the contemplation of God, but Paul made a boast of this and proclaimed himself a fool for Christ’s sake. The reason he said, We are fools for Christ’s sake was that his mind was free from all earthly preoccupations. It was as though he said, “We are blind to the life here below because our eyes are raised toward the One who is our head.”

And so, without board or lodging, he traveled from place to place, destitute, naked, exhausted by hunger and thirst. When men saw him in captivity, flogged, shipwrecked, led about in chains, they could scarcely help thinking him a pitiable sight. Nevertheless, even while he suffered all this at the hands of men, he always looked toward the One who is his head and he asked: What can separate us from the love of Christ, which is in Jesus? Can affliction or distress? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or death? In other words, “What can force me to take my eyes from him who is my head and to turn them toward things that are contemptible?”

He bids us follow his example: Seek the things that are above, he says, which is only another way of saying: “Keep your eyes on Christ.”

RESPONSORY Psalm 123:2; John 8:12

As the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters,
— so our eyes are fixed on the Lord our God, as we wait for him to have mercy on us.

I am the light of the world. No one who follows me will ever walk in darkness; but he will have the light of life.
— So our eyes are fixed on the Lord our God, as we wait for him to have mercy on us.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Grant, we pray,
almighty God, that,
always pondering spiritual things,
we may carry out in both word
and deed that which is pleasing to you.
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.