Tuesday 11 January 2022
Tuesday of week 1 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
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):1-11
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):12-18
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 the humble in the right path.
℟. He teaches his way to the poor.
________
Readings (official one-year cycle)
First Reading
Ecclesiasticus 11:12-30
Put your trust in God alone
Another man is a poor creature begging for assistance,
badly off for support, but rich in poverty,
and the Lord turns a favourable eye on him,
sets him on his feet out of his abject condition,
and enables him to hold his head high,
to the utter amazement of many.
Good and bad, life and death,
poverty and wealth, all come from the Lord.
The Lord’s gift remains constant to the devout
and his goodwill means a good journey for ever.
A man grows rich by his sharpness and grabbing,
and here is the reward he receives for it:
he says, ‘I have found rest,
and now I can enjoy my goods’;
but he does not know how long this will last;
he will have to leave his goods for others and die.
Persevere at your duty, take pleasure in doing it,
and grow old at your work.
Do not be astonished at the sinner’s achievements;
trust the Lord and keep to your duty;
since it is a trifle in the eyes of the Lord,
in a moment, suddenly to make a poor man rich.
The devout man receives the Lord’s blessing as his reward,
in a moment God brings his blessing to flower.
Do not say, ‘What are my needs,
what will be my profits in future?’
And do not say, ‘I am self-supporting,
what losses can I suffer in future?’
In a time of profit, losses are forgotten,
and in a time of loss, no one remembers profits.
Yet it is a trifle for the Lord on the day a man dies
to repay him as his conduct deserves.
A moment’s adversity, and pleasures are forgotten;
in a man’s last hour his deeds will stand revealed.
Call no man fortunate before his death;
it is by his end that a man will be known.
Responsory
Si 11:19; Lk 12:18
℟. When the rich man says, I have found rest and now I shall enjoy my goods,* he does not know how much time will pass until he leaves them to others and dies.
℣. The rich man thinks to himself, I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my goods.* He does not know how much time will pass until he leaves them to others and dies.
________
Second Reading
From the Detailed Rules for Monks by Saint Basil the Great, bishop
The ability to love is within each of us
Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same – perhaps even more so – with our love for God: it does not come by another’s teaching. As soon as the living creature (that is, man) comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing within it the ability and the need to love. When the school of God’s law admits this power of reason, it cultivates it diligently, skilfully nurtures it, and with God’s help brings it to perfection.
For this reason, as by God’s gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit.
First, let me say that we have already received from God the ability to fulfil all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. When we use this ability in a right and fitting way, we lead a life of virtue and holiness. But if we misuse it, we fall into sin.
This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commands. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God’s command.
Since this is so, we can say the same about love. Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. The proof of this is not to be sought outside ourselves, but each one can learn this from himself and in himself. It is natural for us to want things that are good and pleasing to the eye, even though at first different things seem beautiful and good to different people. In the same way, we love what is related to us or near to us, though we have not been taught to do so, and we spontaneously feel well disposed to our benefactors.
What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and wonderful than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.
Responsory
℟. I love you, Lord, my strength,* my defender, my fortress, my saviour.
℣. My God is the stronghold where I take refuge,* my defender, my fortress, my saviour.
________
Let us pray.
In your love, Lord,
answer our humble prayer:
give us the grace to see what we have to do
and the strength to do it.
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.