Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Proper of Seasons: 78
Psalter: Friday, Week II, 901

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings

Office of Readings for Friday 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 Lord, in your anger, do not punish me.

Psalm 38
A sinner in extreme danger prays earnestly to God
All his friends were standing at a distance (Luke 23:49).

I

O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger;
do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.
Your arrows have sunk deep in me;
your hand has come down upon me.

Through your anger all my body is sick:
through my sin, there is no health in my limbs.
My guilt towers higher than my head;
it is a weight too heavy to bear.

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. Lord, in your anger, do not punish me.

Ant. 2 Lord, you know all my longings.

II

My wounds are foul and festering,
the result of my own folly.
I am bowed and brought to my knees.
I go mourning all the day long.

All my frame burns with fever;
all my body is sick.
Spent and utterly crushed,
I cry aloud in anguish of heart.

O Lord, you know all my longing:
my groans are not hidden from you.
My heart throbs, my strength is spent;
the very light has gone from my eyes.

My friends avoid me like a leper;
those closest to me stand afar off.
Those who plot against my life lay snares;
those who seek my ruin speak of harm,
planning treachery all the day long.

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. Lord, you know all my longings.

Ant. 3 I confess my guilt to you, Lord; do not abandon me, for you are my savior.

III

But I am like the deaf who cannot hear,
like the dumb unable to speak.
I am like a man who hears nothing,
in whose mouth is no defense.

I count on you, O Lord:
it is you, Lord God, who will answer.
I pray: “Do not let them mock me,
those who triumph if my foot should slip.”

For I am on the point of falling
and my pain is always before me.
I confess that I am guilty
and my sin fills me with dismay.

My wanton enemies are numberless
and my lying foes are many.
They repay me evil for good
and attack me for seeking what is right.

O Lord, do not forsake me!
My God, do not stay afar off!
Make haste and come to my help,
O Lord, my God, my savior!

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

Do not abandon us, Lord our God; you did not forget the broken body of your Christ, nor the mockery his love received. We, your children, are weighed down with sin; give us the fullness of your mercy.

Ant. I confess my guilt to you, Lord; do not abandon me, for you are my savior.

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.

My eyes keep watch for your saving help.
— Awaiting the word that will justify me.

READINGS

First reading
From the book of the prophet Hosea
2:4a, 10-25
The punishment and future restoration of the Lord’s bride

Thus says the Lord:
Protest against your mother, protest!
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove her harlotry from before her.

Since she has not known
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
And her abundance of silver,
and of gold, which they used for Baal,
Therefore I will take back my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
will snatch away my wool and my flax,
with which she covers her nakedness.
So now I will lay bare her shame
before the eyes of her lovers,
and no one can deliver her out of my hand.

I will bring an end to all her joy,
her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths,
and all her solemnities.
I will lay waste her vines and fig trees,
of which she said, “These are the hire
my lovers have given me”;
I will turn them into rank growth
and wild beasts shall devour them.
I will punish her for the days of the Baals,
for whom she burnt incense
While she decked herself out with her rings and her jewels,
and, in going after her lovers,
forgot me, says the Lord.

Therefore, I will hedge in her way with thorns
and erect a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
If she runs after her lovers,
she shall not overtake them;
if she looks for them she shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
“I will go back to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.”

So I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
From there I will give her the vineyards she had,
and the valley of Achor as a door of hope.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.

On that day, says the Lord,
She shall call me “My husband,”
and never again “My baal.”
Then will I remove from her mouth the names of the Baals,
so that they shall no longer be invoked.
I will make a covenant for them on that day,
with the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
and with the things that crawl on the ground.
Bow and sword and war
I will destroy from the land,
and I will let them take their rest in security.

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the Lord.

On that day I will respond, says the Lord;
I will respond to the heavens,
and they shall respond to the earth;
The earth shall respond to the grain, and wine, and oil,
and these shall respond to Jezreel.
I will sow him for myself in the land,
and I will have pity on Lo-ruhama.
I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,”
and he shall say, “My God!”

RESPONSORY Revelation 19:7-9; Hosea 2:20

This is the wedding day of the Lamb; his bride has made herself ready.
— Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb.

I will betroth you to myself in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
— Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb.

Second reading
From a Spiritual Canticle by Saint John of the Cross, priest
I give myself as your spouse for ever

The soul united to God and transformed in him draws from within God a divine breath, much like the most high God himself. And God, abiding in the soul, breathes forth the life of the soul as its exemplar. This I take to be what Paul meant when he said: Because you are children of God, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father”; this is what takes place in those who have achieved perfection.

One should not wonder that the soul is capable of so sublime an activity. For if God so favors her that she is made God-like by union with the most Holy Trinity, I ask you then, why it should seem so incredible that the soul, at one with the Trinity and in the greatest possible likeness to it, should share the understanding, knowledge and love which God achieves in himself.

How this is possible no other power or wisdom can express, save by explaining how the Son of God obtained this sublime state for us and won for us the power to be the children of God, as he asked of the Father: Father, I desire that where I am those you have given me may also be with me, that they may see the glory you have given me, that is, that they may share with certainty the very task I perform.

And then he said: “Not for them alone do I ask but also for those who will come to believe in me through their teaching, that all may be one as you, Father, are one in me and I in you, that they may be one in us; that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory you have given me I have given them that they may be one as we are. I in them, you in me, that they may be made perfect, and the world will know that you sent me and as you have loved me, so I have loved them.

The Father thus gives them the same love he shares with the Son, though not by nature as with the Son, but through unity and transformation of love. One should not think that the Son is asking the Father to make the saints one with him in essence and nature as the Son is with the Father, but rather that they be united with him in love, just as the Father and Son are one in the essential unity of love. Accordingly, souls possess the same goods by participation that the Son possesses by nature. As a result, they are truly divine by participation, equals and companions of God.

Thus Peter said: May grace and peace be perfected in you in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. For all things of his divine power, which are given to us for our life and goodness, are given through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and power, by which he has given us great and precious promises, that by these we may be made partakers of the divine nature. So the soul, in this union which God has ordained, joins in the work of the Trinity, not yet fully as in the life to come, but nonetheless even now in a real and perceptible way.

O my soul, created to enjoy such exquisite gifts, what are you doing, where is your life going? How wretched is the blindness of Adam’s children, if indeed we are blind to such a brilliant light and deaf to so insistent a voice.

RESPONSORY 1 John 3:1-2

See how great is the love the Father has given us:
— We are called God’s children, and that is what we are.

We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he really is.
— We are called God’s children, and that is what we are.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Draw near to your servants,
O Lord, and answer their prayers
with unceasing kindness, that,
for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide,
you may restore what you have created
and keep safe what you have restored.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
— Amen.

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.
— And give him thanks.