Lord, open Thou my lips.
And my mouth shall declare Thy praise.
O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Alleluia.
INVITATORY
Come, let us adore the Lord,
who gives speech to the silent
and sends labourers into His harvest.
Psalm 94
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.
Today if you shall hear His voice,
harden not your hearts.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Come, let us adore the Lord,
who gives speech to the silent
and sends labourers into His harvest.
HYMN
O Christ, whose word made dumb men sing,
Whose mercy broke the devil’s chain,
Awake in us the morning spring,
And make the barren field bear grain.
Cast down the idols we have made,
The golden calves of fear and pride;
Let not our hearts seek painted shade
When Thou, the living God, dost guide.
The harvest waits beneath the sun,
The weary world is bruised and dumb;
Send labourers till Thy work is done,
And bid Thy Kingdom fully come.
Amen.
CHESTERTONIAN MEDITATION
The idol is always practical. That is why it is so dangerous. It promises to save time, to simplify trouble, to make religion manageable, to give us a god small enough to carry and convenient enough to command.
But the true God is not convenient. He is alive.
Israel’s calf was not merely a statue. It was the ancient temptation to make heaven portable, predictable, and profitable. It had a mouth and could not speak. Christ meets a man who has no speech, and gives him a voice.
That is the difference between idols and God.
The idol borrows our hands and leaves us silent.
Christ touches our silence and makes us human again.
This morning, let us ask not merely to be efficient, but to be faithful; not merely to be busy, but to be sent; not merely to speak, but to speak after Christ has cast out the thing that kept us dumb.
COLLECT
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who didst look upon the crowds and have compassion,
because they were troubled and cast down
as sheep having no shepherd:
deliver us from the idols of our own making,
open our lips with Thy truth,
and send faithful labourers into Thy harvest.
Who livest and reignest with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
God, world without end.
Amen.
The Psalmody
Antiphon I
The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain; blessed is the man whom He teacheth.
Psalm 1
Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stood in the way of sinners,
nor sat in the chair of pestilence.
But his will is in the law of the Lord,
and on His law he shall meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree
which is planted near the running waters,
which shall bring forth its fruit in due season.
And his leaf shall not fall off:
and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper.
Not so the wicked, not so:
but like the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth.
Therefore the wicked shall not rise again in judgment:
nor sinners in the council of the just.
For the Lord knoweth the way of the just:
and the way of the wicked shall perish.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain; blessed is the man whom He teacheth.
Antiphon II
Trust not in princes, nor in the works of men’s hands, but in the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 113 (115)
Not to us, O Lord, not to us;
but to Thy name give glory.
For Thy mercy, and for Thy truth’s sake:
lest the Gentiles should say: Where is their God?
But our God is in heaven:
He hath done all things whatsoever He would.
The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold,
the works of the hands of men.
They have mouths and speak not:
they have eyes and see not.
They have ears and hear not:
they have noses and smell not.
They have hands and feel not:
they have feet and walk not:
neither shall they cry out through their throat.
Let them that make them become like unto them:
and all such as trust in them.
The house of Israel hath hoped in the Lord:
He is their helper and their protector.
The house of Aaron hath hoped in the Lord:
He is their helper and their protector.
They that fear the Lord have hoped in the Lord:
He is their helper and their protector.
The Lord hath been mindful of us, and hath blessed us.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Trust not in princes, nor in the works of men’s hands, but in the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Short Reading
Hosea 8:7
For they shall sow wind, and reap a whirlwind.
Thanks be to God.
Responsory
℣. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.
℟. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.
℣. He guideth the humble in judgment and teacheth the meek His ways.
℟. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.
℣. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
℟. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.
Chestertonian Meditation
The prophet does not say that men sow evil and reap evil. He says something stranger: they sow wind.
There are many things in modern life that are wonderfully busy and astonishingly empty. We produce endless opinions, endless arguments, endless advertisements, endless plans, and yet somehow arrive exactly where we started. We mistake motion for pilgrimage.
Wind is not wicked because it moves. Wind is tragic because it cannot remain.
The idols of Psalm 113 are equally curious. They possess every feature of life except life itself. Eyes without vision. Ears without hearing. Hands without touch. Feet without pilgrimage. They resemble men precisely because men first resembled God.
An idol is not merely a false god. It is humanity after it has forgotten its Maker.
Christ enters today’s Gospel and restores speech to the silent man. The devil had imprisoned not only his tongue but his communion with the world. The first miracle is not eloquence. It is relationship.
Our civilization often believes salvation lies in finding a louder microphone. Christ begins by giving us something worth saying.
May we sow today not the wind of distraction, but the quiet seed of fidelity, trusting that God alone can give the harvest.
Gospel Canticle
Antiphon
The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest.
The Canticle of Zachary
(Luke 1:68–79)
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:
To perform mercy to our fathers,
and to remember His holy testament,
The oath, which He swore to Abraham our father,
that He would grant to us,
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
we may serve Him without fear,
In holiness and justice before Him,
all our days.
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways:
To give knowledge of salvation to His people,
unto the remission of their sins:
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.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest.
Intercessions
Let us pray to Christ, the Good Shepherd, who looked upon the multitude with compassion.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For Thy holy Church throughout the world, that she may proclaim the Gospel with courage and charity, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For our Holy Father, bishops, priests, deacons, religious, missionaries, and all who labor in Thy vineyard, that they may never grow weary in well-doing, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For those discerning their vocation, especially to the priesthood and religious life, that they may hear Thy voice above every worldly distraction, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For those whose hearts have become captive to the idols of power, wealth, comfort, or reputation, that they may discover the freedom found only in the living God, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For those who cannot speak for themselves: the unborn, the forgotten, the lonely, the persecuted, and those suffering from illness or despair, that Christ may be their voice and consolation, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For our families, friends, benefactors, and all who join us each morning in prayer through Chesterton Radio, that together we may become joyful witnesses to Christ, let us pray to the Lord.
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
For our own intentions, which we now offer in the silence of our hearts.
(Pause.)
℟. Lord, hear our prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Concluding Prayer
O God,
whose beloved Son
didst have compassion upon the weary and scattered multitude,
grant that we, who have received the riches of Thy mercy,
may neither fashion idols from the works of our own hands
nor place our trust in passing things.
Make us steadfast in faith,
generous in charity,
and faithful in every vocation to which Thou dost call us.
Strengthen those who labor in Thy harvest,
comfort those who are burdened,
bring back those who have wandered,
and make us ready instruments of Thy peace.
Through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Blessing
May the Lord bless us,
and keep us from all evil,
and bring us to life everlasting.
Amen.
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Closing Reflection
There is a curious temptation to imagine that the world will finally be saved by better systems, stronger institutions, cleverer machinery, or more efficient management. All these have their place, just as a plow has its place in a field. But no harvest has ever been gathered by the plow alone.
Christ does not say, “Pray for better methods.”
He says, “Pray... that He send forth labourers.”
The Kingdom has always advanced by souls before systems, by saints before strategies. The greatest revolutions in history have begun not with an invention, but with a conversion.
So as this day begins, ask not merely, “What work must I accomplish?”
Ask first, “Lord, how may I be one of Thy labourers today?”
For even the smallest act done in charity—a kind word, an honest task, a hidden prayer, a cheerful sacrifice—is gathered by the Master of the harvest, and nothing offered to Him is ever lost.