Office of Readings
If this is the first Hour that you are reciting today, you should precede it with the Invitatory Psalm.
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.
Eternal Monarch, King most high,
Whose blood hath brought redemption nigh,
By whom the death of death was wrought,
And conquering grace’s battle fought:
Be thou our joy, O mighty Lord,
As thou will be our great reward;
Earth’s joys to thee are nothing worth,
Thou joy and crown of heaven and earth.
To thee we therefore humbly pray
That thou wouldst purge our sins away,
And draw our hearts by cords of grace
To thy celestial dwelling place.
So when the judgement day shall come,
And all must rise to meet their doom,
Thou wilt remit the debts we owe,
And our lost crowns again bestow.
All glory, Lord, to thee we pay,
Ascending o’er the stars today;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To Father and to Paraclete.
Psalm 68 (69)
I am consumed with zeal for your house |
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I am wearied with all my crying as I await my God. Alleluia.
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I am stuck in bottomless mud;
I am adrift in deep waters
and the flood is sweeping me away.
I am exhausted with crying out, my throat is parched,
my eyes are failing as I look out for my God.
Those who hate me for no reason
are more than the hairs of my head.
They are strong, my persecutors, my lying enemies:
they make me give back things I never took.
God, you know my weakness:
my crimes are not hidden from you.
Let my fate not put to shame those who trust in you,
Lord, Lord of hosts.
Let them not be dismayed on my account,
those who seek you, God of Israel.
For it is for your sake that I am taunted
and covered in confusion:
I have become a stranger to my own brothers,
a wanderer in the eyes of my mother’s children –
because zeal for your house is consuming me,
and the taunts of those who hate you
fall upon my head.
I have humbled my soul with fasting
and they reproach me for it.
I have made sackcloth my clothing
and they make me a byword.
The idlers at the gates speak against me;
for drinkers of wine, I am the butt of their songs.
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.
I am wearied with all my crying as I await my God. Alleluia.
For food they gave me poison, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
But I turn my prayer to you, Lord,
at the acceptable time, my God.
In your great kindness, hear me,
and rescue me with your faithful help.
Tear me from the mire, before I become stuck;
tear me from those who hate me;
tear me from the depths of the waters.
Do not let the waves overwhelm me;
do not let the deep waters swallow me;
do not let the well’s mouth engulf me.
Hear me, Lord, for you are kind and good.
In your abundant mercy, look upon me.
Do not turn your face from your servant:
I am suffering, so hurry to answer me.
Come to my soul and deliver it,
rescue me from my enemies’ attacks.
You know how I am taunted and ashamed;
how I am thrown into confusion.
You can see all those who are troubling me.
Reproach has shattered my heart – I am sick.
I looked for sympathy, but none came;
I looked for a consoler but did not find one.
They gave me bitterness to eat;
when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink.
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.
For food they gave me poison, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Seek the Lord, and he will give life to your soul. Alleluia.
I am weak and I suffer,
but your help, O God, will sustain me.
I will praise the name of God in song
and proclaim his greatness with praises.
This will please the Lord more than oxen,
than cattle with their horns and hooves.
Let the humble see and rejoice.
Seek the Lord, and your heart shall live,
for the Lord has heard the needy
and has not despised his captive people.
Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and all that swims in them.
For the Lord will make Zion safe
and build up the cities of Judah:
there they will live, the land will be theirs.
The seed of his servants will inherit the land,
and those who love his name will dwell there.
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.
Seek the Lord, and he will give life to your soul. Alleluia.
Christ, at your resurrection, alleluia,
– let heaven and earth rejoice, alleluia.
From the Elder: my greetings to the Lady, the chosen one, and to her children, she whom I love in the truth-and I am not the only one, for so do all who have come to know the truth- because of the truth that lives in us and will be with us for ever. In our life of truth and love, we shall have grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.
It has given me great joy to find that your children have been living the life of truth as we were commanded by the Father. I am writing now, dear lady, not to give you any new commandment, but the one which we were given at the beginning, and to plead: let us love one another.
To love is to live according to his commandments: this is the commandment which you have heard since the beginning, to live a life of love.
There are many deceivers about in the world, refusing to admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They are the Deceiver; they are the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, or all our work will be lost and not get the reward it deserves. If anybody does not keep within the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God with him: only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them. If anyone comes to you bringing a different doctrine, you must not receive him in your house or even give him a greeting. To greet him would make you a partner in his wicked work.
There are several things I have to tell you, but I have thought it best not to trust them to paper and ink. I hope instead to visit you and talk to you personally, so that our joy may be complete.
Greetings to you from the children of your sister, the chosen one.
This is the commandment which we have received from the Father – it is not a new commandment but the one which we were given at the beginning: walk in truth and love, alleluia.
Follow the whole way that the Lord your God has marked out for you, and you shall live: walk in truth and love, alleluia.
| Reading | The writings on revelation and temptation by St Mary Magdalene de Pazzi |
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How truly wonderful you are, O Word of God, in the Holy Spirit; you cause him to infuse the soul with you, that it may join itself to God, conceive God, savour God, taste nothing but God.
The Holy Spirit enters the soul, sealed with that precious seal of the blood of the Word, the Lamb that was slain. Indeed it is this blood that urges him to come, although the Spirit is moved of himself and desires to come.
This moving Spirit in himself is the substance of the Father and of the Word, proceeding from the essence of the Father and the will of the Word, coming like a fountain into the soul, which is submerged in it. And just as two streams which rise separately mingle together so that the lesser loses its own name and takes the name of the greater, this divine Spirit acts in the same way when he enters the soul in order to join himself to it. The soul must lose its own name, which is the lesser, and relinquish it to the Spirit; it will do this if it so turns towards the Spirit that it becomes one with him.
This Spirit, the dispenser of the treasures that are in the Father and keeper of the counsels that are between the Father and the Son, pours himself so sweetly into the soul that he is not perceived, and his greatness is understood by few.
Drawn by the force of his love and yet moving with supreme freedom, he moves into all places that are suitable and disposed to receive him. He is heard by all in his frequent utterances and in his profound silence. By the force of love, being both unmoved and swiftest of all in movement, he enters all things.
You do not remain, Holy Spirit, in the unmoved Father, nor in the Word, and yet you are always in the Father and in the Word and in yourself, and in all blessed spirits and creatures. All creatures need you, since the only-begotten Word, by shedding his blood, in his burning love placed all creatures in need of him. You repose in creatures who dispose themselves so that, by receiving your gifts, they may in purity receive your own image in themselves. You repose in those who receive in themselves the effect of the blood of the Word, and make themselves worthy dwelling-places for you.
Come, Holy Spirit. May the union of the Father and the will of the Son come to us. You, Spirit of truth, are the reward of the saints, the refreshment of souls, light in darkness, the riches of the poor, the treasury of lovers, the satisfaction of the hungry, the consolation of the pilgrim Church; you are he in whom all treasures are contained.
Come, you who, descending into Mary, caused the Word to take flesh: effect in us by grace what you accomplished in her by grace and nature.
Come, you who are the nourishment of all chaste thoughts, the fountain of all clemency, the summit of all purity.
Come, and take away from us all that hinders us from being absorbed in you.
What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, things beyond our imagining — all that God has prepared for those who love him: these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
The Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God: these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
Let us pray.
God the Father, you love Christian virginity.
You enriched the virgin Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi with your grace.
Grant that, as we celebrate her feast day,
we may imitate her purity and love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Let us bless the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
The psalms and canticles here are our own translation. The Grail translation of the psalms, which is used liturgically in most of the English-speaking world, cannot be displayed on the Web for copyright reasons. The Universalis downloads do contain the Grail translation of the psalms.
