Chesterton Radio Daily Office
Lauds — Tuesday of Week II (US Liturgy of the Hours, 4-Week Psalter
)
Invitatory
Antiphon: The Lord is risen, alleluia.
Psalm 94 (95)
Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
For in his hand are all the ends of the earth: and the heights of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.
For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts…
Antiphon: The Lord is risen, alleluia.
Psalmody
Antiphon 1: Lord, you have blessed your land; you have forgiven the guilt of your people.
Psalm 84 (85)
Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob.
Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people: thou hast covered all their sins.
Thou hast mitigated all thy anger: thou hast turned away from the wrath of thy indignation.
Convert us, O God our saviour: and turn off thy anger from us.
Wilt thou be angry with us for ever: or wilt thou extend thy wrath from generation to generation?
Thou wilt turn, O God, and bring us to life: and thy people shall rejoice in thee.
Shew us, O Lord, thy mercy; and grant us thy salvation.
Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed.
Truth is sprung out of the earth: and justice hath looked down from heaven.
Antiphon 1 repeated
Antiphon 2: My soul is thirsting for the living God.
Canticle – Isaiah 26:1–4, 7–9, 12
We have a strong city: salvation shall be appointed therein for walls and bulwarks.
Open ye the gates, and let the just nation, that keepeth the truth, enter in.
The old error is passed away: thou wilt keep peace: peace, because we have hoped in thee.
You that hope in the Lord, for ever strong in the Lord God:
The way of the just is right, the path of the just is right to walk in.
And in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have patiently waited for thee: thy name, and thy remembrance are the desire of the soul.
My soul hath desired thee in the night: yea, and with my spirit within me in the morning early I will watch to thee.
Lord, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works for us.
Antiphon 2 repeated
Antiphon 3: The Lord is king; let the earth rejoice.
Psalm 96 (97)
The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice: let many islands be glad.
Clouds and darkness are round about him: justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne.
The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord.
The heavens declared his justice: and all people saw his glory.
Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart.
Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness.
Antiphon 3 repeated
Short Reading – Romans 13:11–13
Brethren, knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.
Responsory
V. Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us.
R. Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us.
V. Thou that art risen from the dead.
R. Have mercy on us.
V. Glory be to the Father…
R. Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us.
Benedictus
Antiphon: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has visited and redeemed his people.
Luke 1:68–79 (Canticle of Zechariah)
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people:
And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us, in the house of David his servant…
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us:
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace.
Antiphon repeated
Intercessions
Christ, the light of the world and the daystar of our lives, let us call upon him:
— Lord, give us your light and your peace.
— Keep us faithful to your Gospel in word and deed.
— Bless our work today; make it serve your kingdom.
— Guide Chesterton Radio and all who listen, that truth and joy may meet.
— Let the mercy and truth that have kissed in heaven take flesh again in us.
Concluding Prayer
Lord God, heavenly King, you give us this day. Cast out from our hearts the works of darkness, and clothe us in the armor of light, that walking honestly as in the day, we may rejoice in your risen Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The man who wakes early discovers that he has been asleep all his life.
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
— G. K. Chesterton
Reflection (Chestertonian Meditation)
The morning is the most democratic of hours. It comes alike to the saint and the scoundrel, to the monk in his stall and the engineer at his drafting desk. It does not ask whether we feel heroic; it merely insists that we rise.
St. Paul tells us that the night is far spent and the day is at hand. We imagine that the night he speaks of is some dramatic darkness — tyranny, persecution, catastrophe. But very often it is simply comfort. The warm bed of habit. The soft pillow of delay. We do not commit grand sins at dawn; we commit small postponements.
Yet mercy and truth have met each other. Justice and peace have kissed. That is the astonishing thing about morning prayer: Heaven has already moved toward us before we move an inch toward it. The sun does not rise because we are virtuous; it rises because God is.
To rise, then, is not to achieve something impressive. It is to agree with reality. It is to admit that light exists.
Today’s armor of light may look very ordinary — answering an email honestly, designing a system carefully, speaking gently at breakfast, resisting a small temptation that no one else would notice. But these are not trifles. They are beams of sunrise breaking through the shutters of the world.
The man who rises with Christ discovers that inconvenience becomes adventure — and duty becomes delight.
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