Tuesday 8 March 2022
Tuesday of the 1st week of Lent
(optional commemoration of Saint John of God, Religious)
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.
________
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.
________
℣. Behold, now is the favourable time.
℟. This is the day of salvation.
________
The one-year and two-year cycles of readings are identical today.
First Reading
Exodus 6:29-7:25
Egypt’s first plague
The Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I make you as a god for Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother is to be your prophet. You yourself must tell him all I command you, and Aaron your brother will tell Pharaoh to let the sons of Israel leave his land. I myself will make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn, and perform many a sign and wonder in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh will not listen to you, and so I will lay my hand on Egypt and with strokes of power lead out my armies, my people, the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt. And all the Egyptians shall come to know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.’ Moses and Aaron obeyed; they did what the Lord commanded them. Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three at the time of their audience with Pharaoh.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘If Pharaoh says to you, “Produce some marvel,” you must say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh, and let it turn into a serpent.”’ To Pharaoh, then, Moses and Aaron duly went, and they did as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and his court, and it turned into a serpent. Then Pharaoh in his turn called for the sages and the sorcerers, and with their witchcraft the magicians of Egypt did the same. Each threw his staff down and these turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up the staffs of the magicians. Yet Pharaoh’s heart was stubborn and, as the Lord had foretold, he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh is adamant. He refuses to let the people go. In the morning go to him as he makes his way to the water and wait for him by the bank of the river. In your hand take the staff that turned into a serpent. Say to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say: Let my people go to offer me worship in the wilderness. Now, so far you have not listened. Here is the Lord’s message: That I am the Lord you shall learn by this: with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the river and it shall be changed into blood. The fish in the river will die, and the river will smell so foul that the Egyptians will not want to drink the water of it.”’
The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say this to Aaron, “Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers and their canals, their marshland, and all their reservoirs, and let them turn to blood throughout the land of Egypt, even down to the contents of every tub or jar.”’ Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. He raised his staff and in the sight of Pharaoh and his court he struck the waters of the river, and all the water in the river changed to blood. The fish in the river died, and the river smelt so foul that the Egyptians found it impossible to drink its water. Throughout the land of Egypt there was blood. But the magicians of Egypt used their witchcraft to do the same, so that Pharaoh’s heart was stubborn and, as the Lord had foretold, he would not listen to Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh turned away and went back into his palace, taking no notice even of this. Meanwhile, all the Egyptians dug holes along the banks of the river in search of drinking water; they found the water of the river impossible to drink. After the Lord had struck the river, seven days passed.
Responsory
Rv 16:4-7
℟. The angel emptied his bowl into the rivers, and they turned into blood, and I heard him say, You are the Holy, the Just One, and this is a just punishment,* for they have spilt the blood of the saints and the prophets.
℣. And I heard the altar itself say, Truly, Lord God Almighty, the punishments you give are true and just,* for they have spilt the blood of the saints and the prophets.
________
Second Reading
From a treatise on the Lord's Prayer by Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr
He has given us life: he has also taught us how to pray
Dear brothers, the commands of the Gospel are nothing else than God’s lessons, the foundations on which to build up hope, the supports for strengthening faith, the food that nourishes the heart. They are the rudder for keeping us on the right course, the protection that keeps our salvation secure. As they instruct the receptive minds of believers on earth, they lead safely to the kingdom of heaven.
God willed that many things should be said by the prophets, his servants, and listened to by his people. How much greater are the things spoken by the Son. These are now witnessed to by the very Word of God who spoke through the prophets. The Word of God does not now command us to prepare the way for his coming: he comes in person and opens up the way for us and directs us towards it. Before, we wandered in the darkness of death, aimlessly and blindly. Now we are enlightened by the light of grace, and are to keep to the highway of life, with the Lord to precede and direct us.
The Lord has given us many counsels and commandments to help us towards salvation. He has even given us a pattern of prayer, instructing us on how we are to pray. He has given us life, and with his accustomed generosity, he has also taught us how to pray. He has made it easy for us to be heard as we pray to the Father in the words taught us by the Son.
He had already foretold that the hour was coming when true worshippers would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. He fulfilled what he had promised before, so that we who have received the spirit and the truth through the holiness he has given us may worship in truth and in the spirit through the prayer he has taught.
What prayer could be more a prayer in the spirit than the one given us by Christ, by whom the Holy Spirit was sent upon us? What prayer could be more a prayer in the truth than the one spoken by the lips of the Son, who is truth himself? It follows that to pray in any other way than the Son has taught us is not only the result of ignorance but of sin. He himself has commanded it, and has said: You reject the command of God, to set up your own tradition.
So, my brothers, let us pray as God our master has taught us. To ask the Father in words his Son has given us, to let him hear the prayer of Christ ringing in his ears, is to make our prayer one of friendship, a family prayer. Let the Father recognise the words of his Son. Let the Son who lives in our hearts be also on our lips. We have him as an advocate for sinners before the Father; when we ask forgiveness for our sins, let us use the words given by our advocate. He tells us: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. What more effective prayer could we then make in the name of Christ than in the words of his own prayer?
Responsory
℟. So far you have asked nothing in my name.* Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be complete.
℣. Anything you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.* Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be complete.
________
Let us pray.
Look with favour on your family, Lord,
and as at this time we restrain the desires of the body,
may our hearts burn with love of you.
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 © 1996-2022 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.