O God, come to my aid.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
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.
A suitable hymn may be inserted at this point.
| Psalm 17 (18) |
|---|
| Thanksgiving for salvation and victory |
| I will love you, Lord, my strength: Lord, you are my foundation and my refuge, you set me free. My God is my help: I will put my hope in him, my protector, my sign of salvation, the one who raises me up. I will call on the Lord – praise be to his name – and I will be saved from my enemies. The waves of death flooded round me, the torrents of Belial tossed me about, the cords of the underworld wound round me, death’s traps opened before me. In my distress I called on the Lord, I cried out to my God: from his temple he heard my voice, my cry to him came to his ears. 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. |
| Psalm 17 (18) |
|---|
| The earth moved and shook, at the coming of his anger the roots of the mountains rocked and were shaken. Smoke rose from his nostrils, consuming fire came from his mouth, from it came forth flaming coals. He bowed down the heavens and descended, storm clouds were at his feet. He rode on the cherubim and flew, he travelled on the wings of the wind. He made dark clouds his covering; his dwelling-place, dark waters and clouds of the air. The cloud-masses were split by his lightnings, hail fell, hail and coals of fire. The Lord thundered from the heavens, the Most High let his voice be heard, with hail and coals of fire. He shot his arrows and scattered them, hurled thunderbolts and threw them into confusion. The depths of the oceans were laid bare, the foundations of the globe were revealed, at the sound of your anger, O Lord, at the onset of the gale of your wrath. He reached from on high and took me up, lifted me from the many waters. He snatched me from my powerful enemies, from those who hate me, for they were too strong for me. They attacked me in my time of trouble, but the Lord was my support. He led me to the open spaces, he was my deliverance, for he held me in favour. 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. |
| Psalm 17 (18) |
|---|
| The Lord rewards me according to my uprightness, he repays me according to the purity of my hands, for I have kept to the paths of the Lord and have not departed wickedly from my God. For I keep all his decrees in my sight, and I will not reject his judgements; I am stainless before him, I have kept myself away from evil. And so the Lord has rewarded me according to my uprightness, according to the purity of my hands in his sight. You will be holy with the holy, kind with the kind, with the chosen you will be chosen, but with the crooked you will show your cunning. For you will bring salvation to a lowly people but make the proud ashamed. For you light my lamp, Lord; my God illuminates my path. For with you I will attack the enemy’s squadrons; with my God I will leap over their wall. 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. |
| Reading | Ezekiel 37:1 - 14 © |
|---|---|
| The hand of the Lord was laid on me, and he carried me away by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley, a valley full of bones. He made me walk up and down among them. There were vast quantities of these bones on the ground the whole length of the valley; and they were quite dried up. He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘You know, Lord’. He said, ‘Prophesy over these bones. Say, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says this to these bones: I am now going to make the breath enter you, and you will live. I shall put sinews on you, I shall make flesh grow on you, I shall cover you with skin and give you breath, and you will live; and you will learn that I am the Lord.”’ I prophesied as I had been ordered. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, a sound of clattering; and the bones joined together. I looked, and saw that they were covered with sinews; flesh was growing on them and skin was covering them, but there was no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, “The Lord says this: Come from the four winds, breath; breathe on these dead; let them live!”’ I prophesied as he had ordered me, and the breath entered them; they came to life again and stood up on their feet, a great, an immense army. Then he said, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They keep saying, “Our bones are dried up, our hope has gone; we are as good as dead”. So prophesy. Say to them, “The Lord says this: I am now going to open your graves; I mean to raise you from your graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people. And I shall put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I shall resettle you on your own soil; and you will know that I, the Lord, have said and done this – it is the Lord who speaks.”’ |
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| Reading | St Augustine's sermon On Pastors |
|---|---|
| Do what they say, not what they do | |
| Well then, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord!” What must you shepherds hear? Thus says the Lord God: behold, I am above the shepherds and I will call them to account for the sheep in their hands. Listen, sheep of God, listen and learn: God will call the bad shepherds to account for his sheep and for their deaths. As he says elsewhere in Ezekiel: Son of man, I have appointed you as sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, warn them in my name. If I say to a wicked man, “Wicked wretch, you are to die”, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin but I will hold you responsible for his death. If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin but you yourself will have saved your life. You see, brethren? Do you see how dangerous it is to keep quiet? If you remain silent, you die; and rightly. You die for your impiety and sin – it is your negligence that kills you. He who has said, As I live, says the Lord might have found a living shepherd – but since the shepherd was negligent, not warning those he had been given authority over, those whose sentry he was, he will die justly and the sentry will be justly condemned. But if – the Lord continues – you say “you are to die” with one I have threatened with the sword, and he does not avoid the sword and it comes and kills him, he will die in his sin but you will have set your soul free. That is why we must not keep silent – and you, even if we did keep silent, must listen to the words of the true Shepherd in holy Scripture. Since I raised the question, let us see if he takes the sheep from the dead shepherds and gives them to good ones. I certainly see him taking the sheep from the bad shepherds: I am above the shepherds, and I shall take my flock back from them and I shall not allow them to feed my flock. In this way the shepherds will stop feeding themselves. For when I say to them, “Feed my sheep”, they feed themselves and not my sheep. I shall not allow them to feed my flock. How does he stop them from looking after his sheep? Do whatever they say, but do not do what they do. It is as if he were saying, “Their words are my words but their actions are their own”. When you avoid what the bad shepherds do, you are not in charge of you any more: when you do what they say, it is I who am tending you. |
|
| Concluding Prayer |
|---|
| O God, you have summed up the entire Law as love of you and our neighour. Grant that we may obey your commandments and deserve to come to eternal life. 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. |
From: Luke 9:1-6
The Mission of the Apostles
[1] And He (Jesus) called the Twelve together and gave them power
and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, [2] and He sent
them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal. [3] And He said
to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread,
nor money; and do not have two tunics. [4] And whatever house you
enter, stay there, and from there depart. [5] And wherever they do
not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from
your feet as a testimony against them.” [6] And they departed and
went through the villages, preaching the Gospel and healing every-
where.
Commentary:
1-4. This is the first mission the Apostles were sent on. Jesus wants
them to gain experience which will stand to them in the mission they
will have after He ascends into Heaven. He charges them to do what
He Himself did—preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick. This
scene is commented on at greater length in notes on Matthew 10:7-8;
10:9-10; and Mark 6:8-9.
[Notes on Matthew 10:7-8 states:
7-8. Previously, the prophets, when speaking of the messianic times,
had used imagery suited to the people’s spiritual immaturity. Now,
Jesus, in sending His Apostles to proclaim that the promised Kingdom
of God is imminent, lays stress on its spiritual dimension. The power
mentioned in verse 8 are the very sign of the Kingdom of God or the
reign of the Messiah proclaimed by the prophets. At first (chapters 8
and 9) it is Jesus who exercises these messianic powers; now He gives
them to His disciples as proof that His mission is divine (Isaiah 35:5-6;
40:9; 52:7; 61:1).]
[Notes on Matthew 10:9-10 states:
9-10. Jesus urges His disciples to set out on their mission without
delay. They should not be worried about material or human equip-
ment: God will make up any shortfall. This holy audacity in setting
about God’s work is to be found throughout the history of the Church:
if Christians had bided their time, waiting until they had the necessary
material resources, many, many souls would never have received the
light of Christ. Once a Christian is clear in his mind about what God
wants him to do, he should not stay at home checking to see if he
has the wherewithal to do it. “In your apostolic undertakings you are
right—it’s your duty—to consider what means the world can offer you
(2 + 2 = 4), but don’t forget—ever!—that, fortunately, your calculations
must include another term: God + 2 + 2...” ([St] J. Escriva, “The
Way”, 471).
However, that being said, we should not try to force God’s hand, to
have Him do something exceptional, when in fact we can meet needs
by our own efforts and work. This means that Christians should gene-
rously support those who, because they are totally dedicated to the
spiritual welfare of their brethren, have no time left over to provide for
themselves: in this connection see Jesus’ promise in Matthew
10:40-42.]
[Notes on Mark 6:8-9 states:
8-9. Jesus requires them to be free of any form of attachment if they
are to preach the Gospel. A disciple, who has the mission of bringing
the Kingdom of God to souls through preaching, should not rely on
human resources but on God’s Providence. Whatever he does need
in order to live with dignity as a herald of the Gospel, he must obtain
from those who benefit from his preaching, for the laborer deserves
his maintenance (cf. Matthew 10:10).
“The preacher should so trust in God that he is convinced that he will
have everything he needs to support life, even if he cannot himself ob-
tain it; for he should not neglect eternal things through worrying about
temporal things” (St. Bede, “In Marci Evangelium Expositio, in loc.”).
“By these instructions the Lord did not mean that the evangelists
should not seek to live in any other way than by depending on what
was offered them by those to whom they preached the Gospel; other-
wise this very Apostle [St. Paul] would have acted contrary to this
precept when he earned his living by the labor of his own hands” (St.
Augustine, “De Consensu Evangelistarum”, II, 30).]
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”.
Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate.
Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University
of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin,
Ireland.
Reprinted with permission from from Four Courts Press and Scepter
Publishers, the U.S. publishers.