Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Proper of Seasons: 145
Psalter: Saturday, Week IV, 1214

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings

Office of Readings for Saturday 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 The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment on his people.

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. The Lord summons heaven and earth to witness his judgment on his people.

Ant. 2 Come to me in your distress, and I will save you.

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. Come to me in your distress, and I will save you.

Ant. 3 A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.

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, because Jesus, your servant, became obedient even unto death, his sacrifice was greater than all holocausts of old. Accept the sacrifice of praise we offer you through him and may we show the effects of it in our lives by striving to do your will until our whole life becomes adoration in Spirit and truth.

Ant. A sacrifice of praise will give me glory.

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.

We are always praying earnestly for you.
— That you may have a deep knowledge of God’s will.

READINGS

First reading
From the book of the prophet Isaiah
37:21-35
Isaiah prophesies about the Assyrian king

Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: In answer to your prayer for help against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, this is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him:

She despises you, laughs you to scorn,
the virgin daughter Zion;
Behind you she wags her head,
daughter Jerusalem.
Whom have you insulted and blasphemed,
against whom have you raised your voice
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
Through your servants you have insulted the Lord:
You said, “With my many chariots
I climbed the mountain heights,
the recesses of Lebanon;
I cut down its lofty cedars,
its choice cypresses;
I reached the remotest heights,
its forest park.
I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands;
I dried up with the soles of my feet all the rivers of Egypt.”

Have you not heard?
Long ago I prepared it,
From days of old I planned it,
now I have brought it to pass:
That you should reduce fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,
While their inhabitants, shorn of power,
are dismayed and ashamed,
Becoming like the plants of the field,
like the green growth,
like the scorched grass on the housetops.
I am aware whether you stand or sit;
I know whether you come or go,
and also your rage against me.
Because of your rage against me
and your fury which has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and make you return the way you came.

This shall be a sign for you:
this year you shall eat the aftergrowth,
next year, what grows of itself;
But in the third year, sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit!
The remaining survivors of the house of Judah
shall again strike root below
and bear fruit above.
For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant,
and from Mount Zion, survivors.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not reach this city, nor shoot an arrow at it, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast up siegeworks against it. He shall return by the same way he came, without entering the city, says the Lord. I will shield and save this city for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.

RESPONSORY Isaiah 52:9-10

The Lord has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem,
— and all the ends of the earth shall see the saving power of God.

The Lord has bared his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations.
— And all the ends of the earth shall see the saving power of God.

Second reading
From the Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose, bishop
Christ has reconciled the world to God by his own blood

In reconciling the world to God, Christ stood in no need of reconciliation for himself. What sin of his was there to atone for, sinless as he was? When he was asked for the temple-tax, a sin-offering imposed by the law, he said to Peter: Simon, from whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute or tax? From their own sons or from strangers? Peter replied: From strangers. The Lord said to him: Then the sons are free. But so as not to give scandal to them, cast a hood and take the first fish that comes; open its mouth, and you will find a shekel. Take it and give it to them for me and for you.

Christ shows that he does not need to atone for sin on his own behalf: he is no slave of sin but, as Son of God, is free from all sin. The Son sets free, a slave remains in his sin. Christ is therefore free of all sin, and does not pay the price of his own redemption. His blood could pay the ransom for all the sins of the whole world. The one who has no debt to pay for himself is the right person to set others free.

It is not only that Christ has no ransom to pay or atonement to make for his own sins; if we apply his words to every individual man they can be taken to mean that individuals do not need to make atonement for themselves, for Christ is the atonement for all, the redemption for all.

Is any man’s blood fit to redeem him, seeing that it was Christ who shed his blood for the redemption of all? Is anyone’s blood comparable to Christ’s? Is anyone great enough to make atonement for himself over and above the atonement which “Christ has offered in himself, Christ who alone has reconciled the world to God by his blood? What greater victim, what more excellent sacrifice, what better advocate can there be than he who became the propitiation for the sins of all, and gave his life for us as our redemption?

We do not need, then, to look for an atonement or redemption made by each individual, because the price paid for all is the blood of Christ, that blood by which the Lord Jesus has redeemed us, he who alone has reconciled us to the Father. He has labored even to the end, shouldering our burdens himself. Come to me, he says, all you that labor, and I will refresh you.

RESPONSORY

Once you were estranged from God,
at enmity with him in heart and mind,
and your deeds were evil.
But now, by Christ’s death in his mortal body,
— God has reconciled you to himself,
in order to welcome you into his presence as saints,
without the slightest impurity or imperfection.

God made Christ’s sacrificial death
the means of expiating the sins of all believers.
— God has reconciled you to himself,
in order to welcome you into his presence as saints,
without the slightest impurity or imperfection.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,
who have prepared for those who love you
good things which no eye can see,
fill our hearts, we pray,
with the warmth of your love, so that,
loving you in all things and above all things,
we may attain your promises,
which surpass every human desire.
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.