Thursday 11 June 2020
Saint Barnabas, Apostle
on Thursday of week 10 in Ordinary Time
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. Alleluia.
________
Hymn
The eternal gifts of Christ the King,
The Apostles’ glory let us sing;
And all with hearts of gladness raise
Due hymns of thankful love and praise.
For they the Church’s princes are,
Triumphant leaders in the war,
In heavenly courts a warrior band,
True lights to lighten every land.
Theirs is the steadfast faith of saints,
And hope that never yields nor faints,
The love of Christ in perfect glow
That lays the prince of this world low.
In them the Father’s glory shone,
In them the will of God the Son,
In them exults the Holy Ghost,
Through them rejoice the heavenly host.
________
Psalm 43 (44)
In time of defeat
“In all these trials, we triumph through the power of him who has shown his love for us” (Rom 8:37).
It was you who saved us, Lord: we will praise your name without ceasing.
We heard with our own ears, O God,
our fathers have told us the story
of the things you did in their days,
you yourself, in days long ago.
To plant them you uprooted the nations;
to let them spread you laid peoples low.
No sword of their own won the land;
no arm of their own brought them victory.
It was your right hand, your arm
and the light of your face; for you loved them.
It is you, my king, my God,
who granted victories to Jacob.
Through you we beat down our foes;
in your name we trampled down our aggressors.
For it was not in my bow that I trusted
nor yet was I saved by my sword:
it was you who saved us from our foes,
it was you who put our foes to shame.
All day long our boast was in God
and we praised your name without ceasing.
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.
It was you who saved us, Lord: we will praise your name without ceasing.
________
Psalm 43 (44)
Spare us, Lord, do not let your people be put to shame.
Yet now you have rejected us, disgraced us;
you no longer go forth with our armies.
You make us retreat from the foe
and our enemies plunder us at will.
You make us like sheep for the slaughter
and scatter us among the nations.
You sell your own people for nothing
and make no profit by the sale.
You make us the taunt of our neighbours,
the laughing-stock of all who are near.
Among the nations, you make us a byword,
among the peoples a thing of derision.
All day long my disgrace is before me;
my face is covered with shame
at the voice of the taunter, the scoffer,
at the sight of the foe and avenger.
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.
Spare us, Lord, do not let your people be put to shame.
________
Psalm 43 (44)
Arise, Lord! Redeem us because of your love.
This befell us though we had not forgotten you,
though we had not been false to your covenant,
though we had not withdrawn our hearts;
though our feet had not strayed from your path.
Yet you have crushed us in a place of sorrows
and covered us with the shadow of death.
Had we forgotten the name of our God
or stretched out hands to another god,
would not God have found this out,
he who knows the secrets of the heart?
It is for you that we face death all day long
and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep?
Arise, do not reject us for ever!
Why do you hide your face
and forget our oppression and misery?
For we are brought down low to the dust;
our body lies prostrate on the earth.
Stand up and come to our help!
Redeem us because of your love!
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.
Arise, Lord! Redeem us because of your love.
Psalm-prayer
Lord, rise up and come to our aid; with your strong arm lead us to freedom, as you mightily delivered our forefathers. Since you are the king who knows the secrets of our hearts, fill them with the light of truth.
Or:
Lord Jesus, you foretold that we would share in the persecutions that brought you to a violent death. The Church formed at the cost of your precious blood is even now conformed to your Passion; may it be transformed, now and eternally, by the power of your resurrection.
________
℣. Lord, to whom shall we go?
℟. You have the words of eternal life.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
Joshua 5:13-6:21
The most powerful enemy city is destroyed
When Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw a man standing there before him, grasping a naked sword. Joshua walked towards him and said to him, ‘Are you with us or with our enemies?’ He answered, ‘No, I am captain of the army of the Lord, and now I come…’. Joshua fell on his face to the ground and worshipped him and said, ‘What are my Lord’s commands to his servant?’ The captain of the army of the Lord answered Joshua, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy.’ And Joshua obeyed.
Now Jericho had been carefully barricaded against the Israelites; no one came out, no one went in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Now I am delivering Jericho and its king into your hands. All you fighters, valiant warriors, will march round the town and make the circuit once, and for six days you will do the same thing. But seven priests will carry seven trumpets in front of the ark. On the seventh day you will go seven times round the town and the priests will blow their trumpets. When the ram’s horn rings out, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, the whole people must utter a mighty war cry and the town wall will collapse then and there; then the people can storm the town, each man going straight ahead.’
Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, ‘Take up the ark of the covenant, and seven priests are to carry seven trumpets of ram’s horn in front of the ark of the Lord.’ He said to the people, ‘Forward! March round the town and let the vanguard march before the ark of the Lord.’ All was done as Joshua ordered the people. Seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of ram’s horn in front of the Lord moved onwards and blew their trumpets; the ark of the covenant of the Lord came behind them, the vanguard marched in front of the priests with their trumpets, the rearguard followed behind the ark; the men marched, the trumpets sounded.
Joshua had given the people the following order: ‘Do not shout, do not utter even a word; let nothing be heard from you till the day when I say: Raise the war cry. Then you are to shout.’
At Joshua’s command, the ark of the Lord went round the town and made the circuit once; then they returned to the camp and spent the night there. Joshua rose early and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. Bearing the seven ram’s horn trumpets, the seven priests walked before the ark of the Lord sounding their trumpets as they went, while the vanguard marched before them and the rearguard behind the ark of the Lord, and the march went on to the sound of the trumpet.
They marched once round the town on the second day and returned to the camp, and so on for six days. On the seventh day they rose at dawn and marched seven times round the town in the same manner. Only on that day did they march round seven times. At the seventh time the priests blew their trumpets and Joshua said to the people, ‘Raise the war cry, because the Lord has given the town into your hands.
‘The town and everything inside it must be set apart for the Lord under a ban; only the life of Rahab the harlot is to be spared, with all who are in her house, since she hid the messengers we sent. But beware of the ban yourselves; do not be covetous and take anything that is under the ban; that would lay the whole camp of Israel open to the same ban and bring disaster on it. All the silver and all the gold, all the things of bronze and things of iron are consecrated to the Lord and must be put into his treasury.’
The people shouted, the trumpets sounded. When they heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a mighty war cry and the wall collapsed then and there. At once the people stormed the town, every man going straight ahead; and they captured the town. They enforced the ban on everything in the town: men and women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all.
Responsory
Is 25:1-2; Heb 11:30
℟. Lord, you are my God: I extol you, I praise your name.* The town which you have made a ruin will never be rebuilt.
℣. It was through faith that the walls of Jericho fell down when the people had marched round them for seven days.* The town which you have made a ruin will never be rebuilt.
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Second Reading
A treatise on Matthew by St Chromatius
You are the light of the world
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp only to put it under a bushel basket; they put it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house. The Lord called his disciples the salt of the earth because they seasoned with heavenly wisdom the hearts of men rendered insipid by the devil. Now he calls them the light of the world as well, because they have been enlightened by him, the true and everlasting light, and have themselves become a light in the darkness.
Since he is the Sun of Justice, he fittingly calls his disciples the light of the world. The reason for this is that through them, as through shining rays, he has poured out the light of the knowledge of himself upon the entire world. For by manifesting the light of truth, they have dispelled the darkness of error from the hearts of men.
Moreover, we too have been enlightened by them. We have been made light out of darkness as the Apostle says: For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light. He says another time: For you are not sons of the night and of darkness, but you are all sons of light and of the day.
Saint John also rightly asserts in his letter: God is light, and whoever abides in God is in the light just as God himself is in the light. Therefore, because we rejoice in having been freed from the darkness of error, we should always walk in the light as children of light. This is why the Apostle says: Among them you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.
If we fail to live in the light, we shall, to our condemnation and that of others, be veiling over and obscuring by our infidelity the light men so desperately need. As we know from Scripture, the man who received the talent should have made it produce a heavenly profit, but instead he preferred to hide it away rather than put it to work and was punished as he deserved.
Consequently, that brilliant lamp which was lit for the sake of our salvation should always shine in us. For we have the lamp of the heavenly commandment and spiritual grace, to which David referred: Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Solomon also says this about it: For the command of the law is a lamp.
Therefore, we must not hide this lamp of law and faith. Rather, we must set it up in the Church, as on a lamp-stand, for the salvation of many, so that we may enjoy the light of truth itself and all believers may be enlightened.
Responsory
℟. When Barnabas came to Antioch and saw the grace of God at work there, he was glad,* for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
℣. He encouraged them all to hold fast to the Lord with resolute hearts,* for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
________
Let us pray.
Lord God,
you filled Saint Barnabas with faith and the Holy Spirit
and set him apart for the conversion of the nations.
Grant that the gospel of Christ,
which he preached so strenuously,
may, in our day, be faithfully proclaimed
by word and deed.
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.