Saturday 28 March 2020
Saturday of the 4th week of Lent
Office of Readings
Introduction (without Invitatory)
If this is the first Hour that you are reciting today, use the version with the Invitatory Psalm instead.
O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
________
Hymn
Lord, who throughout these forty days
for us didst fast and pray,
teach us with thee to mourn our sins,
and close by thee to stay.
As thou with Satan didst contend
and didst the victory win,
O give us strength in thee to fight,
in thee to conquer sin.
As thou didst hunger bear, and thirst,
so teach us, gracious Lord,
to die to self, and chiefly live
by thy most holy word.
And through these days of penitence,
and through thy Passiontide,
yea, evermore in life and death,
Jesus, with us abide.
Abide with us, that so, this life
of suffering overpast,
an Easter of unending joy
we may attain at last.
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Psalm 77 (78)
The history of salvation: the Lord's goodness, his people's infidelity (II)
“These things all happened as warnings for us” (1 Cor 10:6).
The Lord saved them from their foe.
How often they defied him in the wilderness
and caused him pain in the desert!
Yet again they put God to the test
and grieved the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember his deeds
nor the day he saved them from the foe;
when he worked his miracles in Egypt,
his wonders in the plains of Zoan;
when he turned their rivers into blood,
made their streams impossible to drink.
He sent dog-flies against them to devour them
and swarms of frogs to molest them.
He gave their crops to the grub,
the fruit of their labour to the locust.
He destroyed their vines with hail,
their sycamore trees with frost.
He gave up their cattle to plague,
their flocks and herds to pestilence.
He turned on them the heat of his anger,
fury, rage and havoc,
a troop of destroying angels.
He gave free course to his anger.
He did not spare them from death
but gave their lives to the plague.
He struck all the first-born in Egypt,
the finest flower in the dwellings of Ham.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
The Lord saved them from their foe.
________
Psalm 77 (78)
The Lord brought them to his holy mountain.
Then he brought forth his people like sheep;
he guided his flock in the desert.
He led them safely with nothing to fear,
while the sea engulfed their foes.
So he brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain which his right hand had won.
He drove out the nations before them,
and divided the land for their heritage.
Their tents he gave as a dwelling
to each one of Israel’s tribes.
Still they put God to the proof and defied him;
they refused to obey the Most High.
They strayed, as faithless as their fathers,
like a bow on which the archer cannot count.
With their mountain shrines they angered him;
made him jealous with the idols they served.
God saw this and was filled with fury:
he utterly rejected Israel.
He forsook his dwelling place in Shiloh,
the tent where he lived among men.
He gave his ark into captivity,
his glorious ark into the hands of the foe.
He gave up his people to the sword,
in his anger against his chosen ones.
So war devoured their young men,
their maidens had no wedding songs;
their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lament.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
The Lord brought them to his holy mountain.
________
Psalm 77 (78)
He chose the tribe of Judah and David his servant to be shepherd of Israel, his own possession.
Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep,
like a warrior overcome with wine.
He struck his foes from behind
and put them to everlasting shame.
He rejected the tent of Joseph;
He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim
but he chose the tribe of Judah,
the hill of Sion which he loves.
He built his shrine like the heavens,
or like the earth which he made firm for ever.
And he chose David his servant
and took him away from the sheepfolds.
From the care of the ewes he called him
to be shepherd of Jacob his people,
of Israel his own possession.
He tended them with blameless heart,
with discerning mind he led them.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
He chose the tribe of Judah and David his servant to be shepherd of Israel, his own possession.
Psalm-prayer
For your people, Lord Jesus, you bring water from the rock, and rain bread from heaven; you forgive sins with limitless generosity. Do not let us be marked by unfaithfulness, as in days of old, but grant that the covenant you sealed with your blood may merit us a place with you in your kingdom.
________
℣. The man who lives by the truth comes into the light.
℟. So that his good works may be seen.
________
First Reading
Numbers 20:1-13,21:4-9
The waters of Meribah and the bronze serpent
The sons of Israel, the whole community, arrived in the first month at the desert of Zin. The people settled at Kadesh. It was there that Miriam died and was buried.
There was no water for the community, and they were all united against Moses and Aaron. The people challenged Moses: ‘We would rather have died,’ they said ‘as our brothers died before the Lord! Why did you bring the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, only to let us die here, ourselves and our cattle? Why did you lead us out of Egypt, only to bring us to this wretched place? It is a place unfit for sowing, it has no figs, no vines, no pomegranates, and there is not even water to drink!’
Leaving the assembly, Moses and Aaron went to the door of the Tent of Meeting. They threw themselves face downward on the ground, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘Take the branch and call the community together, you and your brother Aaron. Then, in full view of them, order this rock to give water. You will make water flow for them out of the rock, and provide drink for the community and their cattle.’
Moses took up the branch from before the Lord, as he had directed him. Then Moses and Aaron called the assembly together in front of the rock and addressed them, ‘Listen now, you rebels. Shall we make water gush from this rock for you?’ And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the branch; water gushed in abundance, and the community drank and their cattle too.
Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not believe that I could proclaim my holiness in the eyes of the sons of Israel, you shall not lead this assembly into the land I am giving them.’
These are the waters of Meribah, where the sons of Israel challenged the Lord and he proclaimed his holiness.
They left Mount Hor by the road to the Sea of Suph, to skirt the land of Edom. On the way the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of this unsatisfying food.’
At this God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel. The people came and said to Moses, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
Responsory
Jn 3:14-15,17
℟. The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,* so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
℣. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved,* so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
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Second Reading
From the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution "Gaudium et spes" on the Church in the modern world
All human activity is to find its purification in the Paschal mystery
Holy Scripture, with which the experience of the ages is in agreement, teaches the human family that human progress, though it is a great blessing for man, brings with it a great temptation. When the scale of values is disturbed and evil becomes mixed with good, individuals and groups consider only their own interests, not those of others.
The result is that the world is not yet a home of true brotherhood, while the increased power of mankind already threatens to destroy the human race itself.
If it is asked how this unhappy state of affairs can be set right, Christians state their belief that all human activity, in daily jeopardy through pride and inordinate self-love, is to find its purification and its perfection in the cross and resurrection of Christ.
Man, redeemed by Christ and made a new creation in the Holy Spirit, can and must love the very things created by God. For he receives them from God, and sees and reveres them as coming from the hand of God,
As he gives thanks for them to his Benefactor, and uses and enjoys them in a spirit of poverty and freedom, he enters into true possession of the world, as one having nothing and possessing all things. For all things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
The Word of God, through whom all things were made, himself became man and lived in the world of men. As perfect man he has entered into the history of the world, taking it up into himself and bringing it into unity as its head. He reveals to us that God is love, and at the same time teaches us that the fundamental law of human perfection, and therefore of the transformation of the world, is the new commandment of love.
He assures those who have faith in God’s love that the way of love is open to all men, and that the effort to restore universal brotherhood is not in vain. At the same time he warns us that this love is not to be sought after only in great things but also, and above all, in the ordinary circumstances of life.
He suffered death for us all, sinners as we are, and by his example he teaches us that we also have to carry that cross which the flesh and the world lay on the shoulders of those who strive for peace and justice.
Constituted as the Lord by his resurrection, Christ, to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given, is still at work in the hearts of men through the power of his Spirit. Not only does he awaken in them a longing for the world to come, but by that very fact he also inspires, purifies and strengthens those generous desires by which the human family seeks to make its own life more human and to achieve the same goal for the whole world.
The gifts of the Spirit are manifold. He calls some to bear open witness to the longing for a dwelling place in heaven, and to keep this fresh in the minds of all mankind; he calls others to dedicate themselves to the service of men here on earth, preparing by this ministry the material for the kingdom of heaven.
Yet he makes all free, so that, by denying their love of self and taking up all earth’s resources into the life of man, all may reach out to the future, when humanity itself will become an offering acceptable to God.
Responsory
℟. Christ died for all,* so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.
℣. He was put to death for our sins and raised to life to justify us,* so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.
________
Let us pray.
In your gentle mercy, Lord,
guide our wayward hearts,
for we know that left to ourselves
we cannot do your will.
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.
________
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
Copyright © 1996-2020 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.