Tuesday 30 June 2020
Tuesday of week 13 in Ordinary Time
or The First Martyrs of the See of Rome
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
Worship, glory, praise and honour
To our God, high-throned above:
We, with many generations
Join to praise thy name of love.
In the scriptures, by the Spirit,
May we see the Saviour’s face,
Hear his word and heed his calling,
Know his will and grow in grace.
________
Psalm 9B (10)
Thanksgiving
“Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20).
The Lord will protect the rights of the oppressed.
Lord, why do you stand afar off
and hide yourself in times of distress?
The poor man is devoured by the pride of the wicked:
he is caught in the schemes that others have made.
For the wicked man boasts of his heart’s desires;
the covetous blasphemes and spurns the Lord.
In his pride the wicked says: ‘He will not punish.
There is no God.’ Such are his thoughts.
His path is ever untroubled;
your judgement is far from his mind.
His enemies he regards with contempt.
He thinks: ‘Never shall I falter:
misfortune shall never be my lot.’
His mouth is full of cursing, guile, oppression,
mischief and deceit under his tongue.
He lies in wait among the reeds;
the innocent he murders in secret.
His eyes are on the watch for the helpless man.
He lurks in hiding like a lion in his lair;
he lurks in hiding to seize the poor;
he seizes the poor man and drags him away.
He crouches, preparing to spring,
and the helpless fall beneath his strength.
He thinks in his heart: ‘God forgets,
he hides his face, he does not see.’
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 will protect the rights of the oppressed.
________
Psalm 9B (10)
Lord, you have seen our trouble and our sorrow.
Arise then, Lord, lift up your hand!
O God, do not forget the poor!
Why should the wicked spurn the Lord
and think in his heart: ‘He will not punish’?
But you have seen the trouble and sorrow,
you note it, you take it in hand.
The helpless trusts himself to you;
for you are the helper of the orphan.
Break the power of the wicked and the sinner!
Punish his wickedness till nothing remains!
The Lord is king for ever and ever.
The heathen shall perish from the land he rules.
Lord, you hear the prayer of the poor;
you strengthen their hearts; you turn your ear
to protect the rights of the orphan and oppressed:
so that mortal man may strike terror no more.
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.
Lord, you have seen our trouble and our sorrow.
Psalm-prayer
Rise up, Lord, in defence of your people; do not hide your face from our troubles. Father of orphans, wealth of the poor, we rejoice in making you known; may we find comfort and security in times of pain and anxiety.
________
Psalm 11 (12)
A prayer against the proud
“The Father deigned to send his Son for the sake of us, the poor” (St Augustine).
The words of the Lord are words without alloy, silver from the furnace, seven times refined.
Help, O Lord, for good men have vanished;
truth has gone from the sons of men.
Falsehood they speak one to another,
with lying lips, with a false heart.
May the Lord destroy all lying lips,
the tongue that speaks high-sounding words,
those who say: ‘Our tongue is our strength;
our lips are our own, who is our master?’
‘For the poor who are oppressed and the needy who groan
I myself will arise,’ says the Lord,
‘I will grant them the salvation for which they thirst.’
The words of the Lord are words without alloy,
silver from the furnace, seven times refined.
It is you, O Lord, who will take us in your care
and protect us for ever from this generation.
See how the wicked prowl on every side,
while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men.
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 words of the Lord are words without alloy, silver from the furnace, seven times refined.
Psalm-prayer
Your light is true light, Lord, and your truth shines like the day. Direct us to salvation through your life-giving words. May we be saved by always embracing your word.
________
℣. The Lord guides his humble in the right path.
℟. He teaches his way to the poor.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
2 Samuel 2:1-11,3:1-5
David is anointed King of Judah at Hebron
After this David consulted the Lord. ‘Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?’ he asked. The Lord answered, ‘Go up.’ ‘Which shall I go to?’ David asked. ‘To Hebron’ was the reply. So David went up, with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the wife of Nabal from Carmel. The men who were with him, David made go up too, each with his family, and they settled in the towns of Hebron. There the men of Judah came and anointed David king over the House of Judah.
They told David that the people of Jabesh-gilead had given Saul burial, so David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh-gilead. ‘May you be blessed by the Lord’ he said ‘for doing this kindness to Saul your lord, and for burying him. And now may the Lord show kindness and faithfulness to you! I too shall treat you well because you have done this. And now take courage and be men of valour. Saul your lord is dead, but the House of Judah has anointed me to be their king.’
Abner son of Ner, Saul’s army commander, had taken Ishbaal son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim. He had made him king over Gilead, over the Ashurites, over Jezreel and Ephraim and Benjamin, and indeed over all Israel. Ishbaal son of Saul was forty years old when he became king of Israel, and he reigned for two years. Only the House of Judah supported David. The length of David’s reign over Judah in Hebron was seven years and six months.
So the war dragged on between the House of Saul and the House of David, but David grew steadily stronger, and the House of Saul ever weaker.
Sons were born to David at Hebron: his first-born Amnon, by Ahinoam of Jezreel; his second Chileab, by Abigail the wife of Nabal from Carmel; the third Absalom the son of Maacah, daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; the fourth Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth Shephatiah the son of Abital; the sixth Ithream, by Eglah wife of David. These were born to David at Hebron.
Responsory
Gn 49:10,8
℟. The sceptre shall not pass from Judah* until the one comes to whom it belongs, to whom the peoples shall render obedience.
℣. Judah, your brothers shall praise you, your father’s sons shall do you homage,* until the one comes to whom it belongs, to whom the peoples shall render obedience.
________
Second Reading
From a sermon by Saint Augustine
If I wanted to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ
This is our glory: the witness of our conscience. There are men who rashly judge, who slander, whisper and murmur, who are eager to suspect what they do not see, and eager to spread abroad things they have not even a suspicion of. Against men of this sort, what defence is there save the witness of our own conscience?
My brothers, we do not seek, nor should we seek, our own glory even among those whose approval we desire. What we should seek is their salvation, so that if we walk as we should they will not go astray in following us. They should imitate us if we are imitators of Christ; and if we are not, they should still imitate him. He cares for his flock, and he alone is to be found with those who care for their flocks, because they are all in him.
And so we seek no advantage for ourselves when we aim to please men. We want to take our joy in men – and we rejoice when they take pleasure in what is good, not because this exalts us, but because it benefits them.
It is clear who is intended by the apostle Paul: If I wanted to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. And similarly when he says: Be pleasing to all men in all things, even as I in all things please all men. Yet his words are as clear as water, limpid, undisturbed, unclouded. And so you should, as sheep, feed on and drink of his message; do not trample on it or stir it up.
You have listened to our Lord Jesus Christ as he taught his apostles: Let your actions shine before men so that they may see your good deeds, and give glory to your Father who is in heaven, for it is the Father who made you thus. We are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hands. If then you are good, praise is due to him who made you so; it is no credit to you, for if you were left to yourself, you could only be wicked. Why then do you try to pervert the truth, in wishing to be praised when you do good, and blaming God when you do evil? For though he said: Let your works shine before men, in the same Sermon on the Mount he also said: Do not parade your good deeds before men. So if you think there are contradictions in Saint Paul, you will find the same in the Gospels; but if you refrain from troubling the waters of your heart, you will recognise here the peace of the Scriptures and with it you will have peace.
And so, my brothers, our concern should be not only to live as we ought, but also to do so in the sight of men; not only to have a good conscience but also, so far as we can in our weakness, so far as we can govern our frailty, to do nothing which might lead our weak brother into thinking evil of us. Otherwise, as we feed on the good pasture and drink the pure water, we may trample on God’s meadow, and weaker sheep will have to feed on trampled grass and drink from troubled waters.
Responsory
℟. Fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike, loving one another equally, humbly reckoning others better than yourselves.* Look to each other’s interest and not merely to your own.
℣. Support the weak and be very patient with them all, always aiming at doing the best you can for each other and for all men.* Look to each other’s interest and not merely to your own.
________
Let us pray.
Lord God,
since by the adoption of grace
you have made us children of light,
do not let false doctrine darken our minds,
but grant that your light may shine within us
and we may always live in the brightness of truth.
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.