Invitatory
V. O Lord, open thou my lips.
R. And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Antiphon:
Come, let us adore Christ the Lord, who redeems us.
Psalm 94 (Invitatory)
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 the Lord will not cast off his people:
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…
Antiphon:
Come, let us adore Christ the Lord, who redeems us.
Hymn
(Public-domain hymn cycle)
The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended
The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
The darkness falls at thy behest;
To thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.
We thank thee that thy Church unsleeping
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.
So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away;
Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
Till all thy creatures own thy sway.
Psalm 50
A Morning Prayer of Repentance
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies
blot out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my iniquity,
and my sin is always before me.
To thee only have I sinned,
and have done evil before thee.
Create a clean heart in me, O God,
and renew a right spirit within my bowels.
Cast me not away from thy face;
and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
and strengthen me with a perfect spirit.
Glory be to the Father…
Canticle — Habakkuk 3
O Lord, I have heard thy hearing, and was afraid.
O Lord, thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life:
in the midst of the years thou shalt make it known.
In thy mercy thou wilt remember compassion.
God will come from the south,
and the Holy One from mount Pharan.
His glory covered the heavens,
and the earth is full of his praise.
Glory be to the Father…
Psalm 147
Praise ye the Lord, because psalm is good:
to our God be joyful and comely praise.
The Lord buildeth up Jerusalem:
he will gather together the dispersed of Israel.
Who healeth the broken of heart,
and bindeth up their bruises.
Who telleth the number of the stars:
and calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and great is his power:
and of his wisdom there is no number.
Glory be to the Father…
Short Reading
(Ezekiel 18:30-31)
Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Responsory
V. A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
R. A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
V. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
R. A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Benedictus
(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.
Glory be to the Father…
Intercessions
Let us bless Christ the Lord, who calls us to conversion.
Lord, renew our hearts.
Christ, you desire mercy and not sacrifice.
— teach us the humility that leads to life.
Christ, you forgave Peter after his fall.
— strengthen us when we stumble.
Christ, you heal the brokenhearted.
— bind the wounds of the world.
Christ, you call sinners to repentance.
— draw all souls back to your mercy.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven…
Concluding Prayer
O God, who grantest mercy to the penitent and pardon to sinners, mercifully look upon thy people who call upon thee; that those who confess their sins may obtain thy loving kindness. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The strange truth of repentance is that the man who admits he is wrong is often the first man who becomes right.
A Quote from G.K. Chesterton
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
Reflection
(Chestertonian Meditation — 200–350 words)
There is a curious fact about human beings: we are never so inventive as when we are trying not to admit we were wrong.
A man will construct whole philosophies, social theories, and occasionally even universities in order to avoid the small humiliation of saying, “I made a mistake.”
But the Christian faith begins precisely there.
The Psalms do not begin with congratulation. They begin with confession. David does not write, “Have mercy on me, O God, because I was mostly correct.” He writes, “Have mercy on me, O God.”
And yet the miracle is this: the confession of sin is not the end of the story. It is the beginning.
The modern world imagines repentance as something gloomy — a sort of moral fog in which we wander endlessly apologizing for ourselves.
Christianity, on the contrary, treats repentance as the doorway into joy.
The man who cannot admit sin is like a man trapped in a locked room who insists there is no door. But the man who admits his fault discovers something astonishing: the door was there all along, and it opens outward.
Indeed, repentance is the most hopeful doctrine in the world.
For if evil were simply the inevitable condition of humanity, we could do nothing about it. But if evil is something we have done — then it is also something that can be forgiven.
And that is the cheerful audacity of the Gospel.
It declares that even the worst man may become a saint — not because he was always right, but because God is always merciful.
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