Invitatory
℣. O Lord, open thou my mouth.
℟. And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Antiphon:
If today you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Psalm 94 (Invitatory Psalm)
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.
Antiphon:
If today you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Hymn (Week III)
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.
Psalmody
Psalm 62
O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day.
For thee my soul hath thirsted;
for thee my flesh, O how many ways!
In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water:
so in the sanctuary have I come before thee,
to see thy power and thy glory.
For thy mercy is better than lives:
thee my lips shall praise.
Thus will I bless thee all my life long:
and in thy name I will lift up my hands.
Canticle — Daniel 3 (Benedicite excerpt)
O all ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord:
praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord:
O ye heavens, bless the Lord.
O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord:
O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord.
O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord:
O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord.
Psalm 149
Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle:
let his praise be in the church of the saints.
Let Israel rejoice in him that made him:
and let the children of Sion be joyful in their king.
Let them praise his name in choir:
let them sing to him with timbrel and psaltery.
For the Lord is well pleased with his people:
and he will exalt the meek unto salvation.
Short Reading — Exodus 3:7–8 (Douay-Rheims)
And the Lord said to him: I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry…
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians.
Responsory
℣. The Lord is compassionate and merciful.
℟. Longsuffering and plenteous in mercy.
Benedictus (Canticle of Zachary)
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:
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets,
who are from the beginning:
Salvation from our enemies,
and from the hand of all that hate us.
Intercessions
Let us pray to Christ, who calls us to repentance and life:
℟. Lord, lead us back to thee.
– That we may not harden our hearts, but hear thy voice today
℟. Lord, lead us back to thee.
– That our fasting may become mercy, and our prayer become charity
℟. Lord, lead us back to thee.
– That we may recognize thy presence in the dry places of our lives
℟. Lord, lead us back to thee.
– That we may be instruments of deliverance for others
℟. Lord, lead us back to thee.
Concluding Prayer
O God, who seest that we are destitute of all strength,
keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may hurt the soul.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The desert is the place where nothing grows—and therefore where everything begins.
G.K. Chesterton Quote
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
Reflection (Chestertonian Meditation)
There is something suspiciously comfortable about the man who never finds himself in the desert. He is either very fortunate—or not very alive.
For the desert is not merely a place of sand, but a place of stripping. God removes, not because He delights in absence, but because He intends to reveal presence. The Israelites found God not in Egypt’s abundance, but in its emptiness; Moses met Him not in Pharaoh’s court, but in a wilderness flame that burned without being consumed.
Modern man, who surrounds himself with noise, has done so largely to avoid this holy barrenness. He fears silence because it sounds too much like truth.
Yet Lent insists upon it.
It insists that we go where the water is scarce, where distractions fall away, where we must either meet God—or meet ourselves (which, in the end, amounts to the same terrifying thing).
And here lies the paradox: it is precisely when we feel most abandoned that God is most deliberately present. The desert is not God’s absence; it is His strategy.
For only a man who has thirsted can recognize water.
Only a man who has wandered can rejoice in a path.
And only a man who has stood alone can finally say—
that he was never alone at all.
— Chesterton Radio
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