Monday 21 June 2021
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious
on Monday of week 12 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
Come, Spirit blest, with God the Son
and God the Father, ever one:
shed forth your grace within our breast
and live in us, a ready guest.
By every power, by heart and tongue,
by act and deed, your praise be sung.
Inflame with perfect love each sense,
that others’ souls may kindle thence.
________
Psalm 72 (73):1-12
Why should the just suffer?
“Blessed is the man who does not lose faith in me” (Mt 11:6).
How good God is to Israel, to those who are pure of heart.
How good God is to Israel,
to those who are pure of heart.
Yet my feet came close to stumbling,
my steps had almost slipped
for I was filled with envy of the proud
when I saw how the wicked prosper.
For them there are no pains;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
They have no share in men’s sorrows;
they are not stricken like others.
So they wear their pride like a necklace,
they clothe themselves with violence.
Their hearts overflow with malice,
their minds seethe with plots.
They scoff; they speak with malice;
from on high they plan oppression.
They have set their mouths in the heavens
and their tongues dictate to the earth.
So the people turn to follow them
and drink in all their words.
They say: ‘How can God know?
Does the Most High take any notice?’
Look at them, such are the wicked,
but untroubled, they grow in wealth.
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.
How good God is to Israel, to those who are pure of heart.
________
Psalm 72 (73):13-20
Their rejoicing will be turned to weeping, their joy to sorrow.
How useless to keep my heart pure
and wash my hands in innocence,
when I was stricken all day long,
suffered punishment day after day.
Then I said: ‘If I should speak like that,
I should abandon the faith of your people.’
I strove to fathom this problem,
too hard for my mind to understand,
until I pierced the mysteries of God
and understood what becomes of the wicked.
How slippery the paths on which you set them;
you make them slide to destruction.
How suddenly they come to their ruin,
wiped out, destroyed by terrors.
Like a dream one wakes from, O Lord,
when you wake you dismiss them as phantoms.
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.
Their rejoicing will be turned to weeping, their joy to sorrow.
________
Psalm 72 (73):21-28
All those who abandon you shall perish; but to be near God is my happiness.
And so when my heart grew embittered
and when I was cut to the quick,
I was stupid and did not understand,
no better than a beast in your sight.
Yet I was always in your presence;
you were holding me by my right hand.
You will guide me by your counsel
and so you will lead me to glory.
What else have I in heaven but you?
Apart from you I want nothing on earth.
My body and my heart faint for joy;
God is my possession for ever.
All those who abandon you shall perish;
you will destroy all those who are faithless.
To be near God is my happiness.
I have made the Lord God my refuge.
I will tell of all your works
at the gates of the city of Sion.
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.
All those who abandon you shall perish; but to be near God is my happiness.
Psalm-prayer
It is good to be with you, Father; in you is fullness of life for your faithful people; in you all hope resides. May you lead us to everlasting happiness.
Or:
In your wisdom, Father, you allowed your Son to be fearful and saddened at the prospect of his cross; death, the penalty of sin, was changed into glory by his death. Grant that on our journey to you the cross may not be a stumbling block but rather a beacon to guide us.
________
℣. The Lord led the virtuous man along straight paths.
℟. He showed him the kingdom of God.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
1 Samuel 17:1-10,32,38-51
The Philistines mustered their troops for war; they assembled at Socoh, which is a town of Judah, and pitched camp between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim. Saul and the Israelites also mustered, pitching camp in the Valley of the Terebinth, and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. These took their stand on the hills one side and the Israelites on the hills the other side, with the valley between them.
One of their shock-troopers stepped out from the Philistine ranks; his name was Goliath, from Gath; he was six cubits and one span tall. On his head was a bronze helmet and he wore a breastplate of scale-armour; the breastplate weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin across his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron. A shield-bearer walked in front of him.
He took his stand in front of the ranks of Israel and shouted, ‘Why come out and range yourselves for battle? Am I not a Philistine and are you not the slaves of Saul? Choose a man and let him come down to me. If he wins in a fight with me and kills me, we will be your slaves; but if I beat him and kill him, you shall become our slaves and be servants to us.’ The Philistine then said, ‘I challenge the ranks of Israel today. Give me a man and we will fight in single combat.’
David said to Saul, ‘Let no-one lose heart on his account; your servant will go and fight the Philistine.’
Saul made David put on his own armour and put a bronze helmet on his head and gave him a breastplate to wear, and over David’s armour he buckled his own sword; but not being used to these things David found he could not walk. ‘I cannot walk with these,’ he said to Saul ‘I am not used to them.’ So they took them off again.
He took his staff in his hand, picked five smooth stones from the river bed, put them in his shepherd’s bag, in his pouch, and with his sling in his hand he went to meet the Philistine. The Philistine, his shield-bearer in front of him, came nearer and nearer to David; and the Philistine looked at David, and what he saw filled him with scorn, because David was only a youth, a boy of fresh complexion and pleasant bearing. The Philistine said to him, ‘Am I a dog for you to come against me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, ‘Come over here and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ But David answered the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have dared to insult. Today the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I shall kill you; I will cut off your head, and this very day I will give your dead body and the bodies of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that it is not by sword or by spear that the Lord gives the victory, for the Lord is lord of the battle and he will deliver you into our power.’
No sooner had the Philistine started forward to confront David than David left the line of battle and ran to meet the Philistine. Putting his hand in his bag, he took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead; the stone penetrated his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground. Thus David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine down and killed him. David had no sword in his hand. Then David ran and, standing over the Philistine, seized his sword and drew it from the scabbard, and with this he killed him, cutting off his head.
Responsory
℟. The Lord rescued me from the claws of lion and bear:* he will rescue me now from the power of my foes.
℣. God sent his faithfulness and love. He saved my life when I lay surrounded by lions;* he will rescue me now from the power of my foes.
________
Second Reading
A letter from St Aloysius Gonzaga to his mother
God's mercies shall be my song for ever
May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honoured lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.
The divine goodness, most honoured lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labours, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things, most honoured lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Saviour; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favour and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.
Responsory
℟. You befriended my innocence, O Lord;* never more will you banish me from your presence.
℣. Willingly did I lie forgotten in the house of my God, rather than dwell in the abode of sinners;* never more will you banish me from your presence.
________
Let us pray.
Lord God, source of every grace,
you joined an innocent heart to a penitent’s sorrow
in the life of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.
Grant, through his intercession,
that we, who have failed to imitate his innocence,
may follow his example of penance.
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.
________
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
Copyright © 1996-2021 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.