Hear It—and Do It
There is a peculiar comfort in agreeing with something.
We hear a good idea and nod. We read a wise sentence and underline it. We hear the Gospel and think, Yes, that is true.
And then breakfast happens.
There are dishes to wash, messages to answer, people to deal with, work to finish, annoyances to endure, promises to keep. Truth has left the comfortable world of sentences and entered the dangerous world of Tuesday mornings and Saturday chores.
Today Jesus gives us one of the shortest lessons in the Gospel.
A woman praises His Mother. Christ does not deny her praise. Instead, He points toward the deeper source of Mary’s blessedness—and ours:
Hear the word of God. Keep it.
Morning Prayer begins by hearing.
The rest of the day will tell whether we kept what we heard.
Opening Verse
Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Invitatory
Antiphon: Come, let us adore the Lord, for he made us.
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.
Today if you shall hear his voice,
harden not your hearts:
As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness:
where your fathers tempted me,
they proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I offended with that generation,
and I said: These always err in heart.
And these men have not known my ways:
so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.
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: Come, let us adore the Lord, for he made us.
Psalmody
Psalm 118 (119):145–152
Antiphon: Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy ways are truth.
I cried with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord:
I will seek thy justifications.
I cried unto thee, save me:
that I may keep thy commandments.
I prevented the dawning of the day, and cried:
because in thy words I very much hoped.
My eyes to thee have prevented the morning:
that I might meditate on thy words.
Hear thou my voice, O Lord, according to thy mercy:
and quicken me according to thy judgment.
They that persecute me have drawn nigh to iniquity:
but they are gone far off from thy law.
Thou art near, O Lord:
and all thy ways are truth.
I have known from the beginning concerning thy testimonies:
that thou hast founded them for ever.
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: Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy ways are truth.
Canticle — Wisdom 9:1–6, 9–11
Antiphon: Wisdom of God, be with me, and labour with me.
God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy,
who hast made all things with thy word,
And by thy wisdom hast appointed man,
that he should have dominion over the creature that was made by thee,
That he should order the world according to equity and justice,
and execute justice with an upright heart:
Give me wisdom, that sitteth by thy throne,
and cast me not off from among thy children:
For I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid,
a weak man, and of short time,
and falling short of the understanding of judgment and laws.
For if one be perfect among the children of men,
yet if thy wisdom be not with him,
he shall be nothing regarded.
And thy wisdom with thee,
which knoweth thy works,
which then also was present when thou madest the world,
And knew what was agreeable to thy eyes,
and what was right in thy commandments.
Send her out of thy holy heaven,
and from the throne of thy majesty,
That she may be with me, and may labour with me,
that I may know what is acceptable with thee:
For she knoweth and understandeth all things,
and shall lead me soberly in my works,
and shall preserve me by her power.
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: Wisdom of God, be with me, and labour with me.
Psalm 116 (117)
Antiphon: The Lord is faithful for ever.
O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise him, all ye people.
For his mercy is confirmed upon us:
and the truth of the Lord remaineth for ever.
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 is faithful for ever.
Short Reading
Philippians 2:14–15
And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations;
That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world.
Short Responsory
I have cried unto thee, O Lord; thou art my hope.
I have cried unto thee, O Lord; thou art my hope.
Thou art my portion in the land of the living.
Thou art my hope.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
I have cried unto thee, O Lord; thou art my hope.
Gospel of the Day
Luke 11:27–28
And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him:
Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck.
But he said:
Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.
Benedictus
Antiphon: Blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.
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: Blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.
Intercessions
Christ has given us his word not merely that we might admire it, but that it might take flesh in our lives. Let us ask him for hearts ready both to hear and to obey.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For thy Church throughout the world: give bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and all the faithful courage to proclaim thy word faithfully and to live what they proclaim.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For those entrusted with authority: grant them wisdom greater than cleverness, justice stronger than convenience, and humility enough to listen before they act.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For our work today: keep us from grumbling, dishonesty, impatience, and carelessness. May even ordinary tasks become acts of fidelity.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For our homes and families: teach us to listen to one another with patience, to forgive quickly, to speak truth kindly, and to recognize thy presence in those nearest to us.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For those who suffer in body, mind, loneliness, poverty, fear, or grief: draw near to them, Lord, and send them companions who will not merely speak of charity but practice it.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For those who have died: remember them in thy mercy and bring them into the light of thy presence.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
For ourselves: save us from becoming hearers who admire the Gospel but postpone obedience. Give us grace to perform today the good we already know ought to be done.
Lord, teach us to hear thy word and keep it.
Our Father
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 those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Concluding Prayer
O God, who hast spoken thy living Word into the world, grant us wisdom to hear him, humility to receive him, and courage to obey him.
Let the faith we confess become charity in our homes, integrity in our work, patience in our trials, mercy toward our neighbour, and praise upon our lips.
May thy word not pass through our ears and leave us unchanged, but take root within us and bear fruit unto eternal life.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Blessing
May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil,
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
The Paradox of the Day
The word of God becomes ours only when we stop merely possessing it and allow it to possess us.
Chesterton for the Morning
“There is only one really startling thing to be done with the ideal, and that is to do it.”
— G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World
A Chestertonian Meditation
There is something wonderfully suspicious about a clean workbench.
A workbench exists for work. If it remains perpetually immaculate, one begins to wonder whether anyone is actually building anything upon it. The hammer is supposed to acquire scratches. The pencil is supposed to grow shorter. The ruler ought occasionally to disappear beneath a pile of things that seemed perfectly organized five minutes earlier.
Tools fulfil themselves by being used.
There is a similar danger with ideas.
We can arrange them very neatly.
We can own excellent books, underline excellent passages, listen to excellent sermons, save excellent quotations, and develop excellent opinions about nearly everything.
We may even become experts on Christianity.
And yet Christianity has never been primarily an arrangement of excellent opinions.
It is an astonishingly practical religion.
Feed somebody.
Forgive somebody.
Visit somebody.
Give something away.
Tell the truth.
Keep your promise.
Pray for your enemy.
Stay when it would be easier to leave.
Get out of bed and go to Mass.
Say you are sorry.
Jesus has an almost alarming habit of turning theology into verbs.
Today’s Gospel is only two verses long, but it contains this entire revolution.
A woman in the crowd sees Christ and cries out with the natural enthusiasm of someone who has encountered greatness. She blesses His Mother.
It is a beautiful instinct.
And Jesus answers with a greater blessing:
“Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
He does not diminish Mary.
He reveals her.
For who heard the Word of God and kept it more completely than she?
At Nazareth the Word came to her, and she did not merely admire it. She answered.
Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
The Word became flesh because someone heard and obeyed.
That is an astonishing thought to carry into an ordinary Saturday morning.
We are accustomed to imagining obedience as something restrictive. The word has acquired the dreary atmosphere of a rule posted on a wall: DO NOT ENTER. DO NOT TOUCH. KEEP OFF THE GRASS.
But Christian obedience is much stranger than that.
It is creative.
God speaks, and things happen.
“Let there be light.”
And there is light.
Christ says, “Come, follow me.”
And fishermen leave their nets.
He says, “Lazarus, come forth.”
And a dead man walks out of a tomb.
The divine Word is never merely information.
It is an invitation to reality.
That explains the remarkable connection between today’s Gospel and today’s Morning Prayer.
The first psalm begins