Universalis
Saturday 28 May 2022    (other days)
Saturday of the 6th week of Eastertide 

Office of Readings

If this is the first Hour that you are reciting today, you should precede it with the Invitatory Psalm.
INTRODUCTION
O God, come to our aid.
  O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
  and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
  is now, and ever shall be,
  world without end.
Amen. Alleluia.
Hymn
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
To all life thou givest, to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish, like leaves on the tree,
Then wither and perish; but naught changeth thee.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.

Psalm 105 (106)
The Lord's goodness and his people's infidelity

O Lord, remember us: come to us with your help. Alleluia.
Give praise to the Lord, for he is good,
  for his kindness is for ever.
Who shall tell of his powerful deeds?
  Who shall proclaim the praises of the Lord?
Blessed are they who keep his decrees,
  who do right at all times.
Remember us, Lord, in your love for your people,
  and bring us your salvation,
so that we may see the good things you have kept for your chosen ones,
  that we may rejoice in the joys of your people,
  that we may glory with those whom you have made your heirs.
Like our fathers, we too have sinned:
  we have done wrong, we have transgressed.
Our fathers, in Egypt, did not understand your miracles;
  they did not remember the abundance of your mercies,
  but rebelled as they approached the Red Sea.
Still he saved them, for his own name’s sake,
  and to make known his mighty power.
He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up.
  He led them through its depths as if through a desert.
He saved them from the hands of those who hated them,
  he set them free from slavery at the hands of their enemies.
The water covered their oppressors:
  not one was left alive.
Then they believed his word,
  and they sang his praises.
But soon they forgot what he had done,
  and refused to submit to his direction.
They embraced desire in the desert
  and put God to the test in the waterless places.
He gave them all they requested,
  he filled their hearts with his abundance.
But in the camp, they grew jealous of Moses
  and Aaron, consecrated to the Lord.
The earth opened and swallowed Dathan,
  covered the party of Abiram.
Fire broke out against them,
  flames burnt up the sinners.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
  and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
  is now, and ever shall be,
  world without end.
Amen.
O Lord, remember us: come to us with your help. Alleluia.

Psalm 105 (106)

Take care you do not forget the covenant the Lord your God has made with you.
At Horeb they made a calf
  and worshipped a statue.
They exchanged the glory of their people
  for the likeness of a bull, that eats grass.
They forgot their God, who had saved them,
  who had done great miracles for them in Egypt,
  wonders in the land of Ham,
  terrors at the Red Sea.
Then he said that he would destroy them,
  but Moses, his chosen one, was there:
he stood in the breach before him
  to turn aside his wrath,
  to prevent the destruction.
To them, the Promised Land meant nothing,
  they did not believe the Lord’s word.
They stayed muttering in their tents,
  they were deaf to the voice of the Lord.
So he raised his hand against them
  to crush them in the desert,
to scatter their seed among the nations,
  to disperse them in foreign lands.
They made themselves followers of Baal-Peor,
  they ate the sacrifices of the dead.
They angered the Lord by their actions,
  and a plague broke out among them.
Then Phinehas stood up and gave judgement,
  and the plague was stopped.
For this, he is revered as one of the just,
  from generation to generation,
  for all eternity.
At the waters of Meribah they so angered the Lord
  that Moses suffered on their account:
they so embittered his spirit
  that his lips spoke rash words.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
  and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
  is now, and ever shall be,
  world without end.
Amen.
Take care you do not forget the covenant the Lord your God has made with you.

Psalm 105 (106)

O Lord, save us; gather us from among the nations. Alleluia.
They did not destroy the peoples
  as the Lord had told them they must.
They mingled themselves with the peoples,
  and learned to do as they did.
They served the same idols
  until it became their undoing.
They sacrificed their own sons
  and their daughters to demons.
They poured out innocent blood.
  The blood of their own sons and daughters
  was sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.
Their blood polluted the land,
  and their actions defiled them.
  They devoted themselves to whoring.
The Lord blazed out in anger against his own people,
  he detested his own chosen race.
He gave them into the hands of foreigners,
  they were conquered by those who hated them.
Their enemies persecuted them
  and humbled them beneath their hands.
Many times he freed them,
  but they turned him against themselves
  by falling back into wickedness.
Still he looked upon their distress
  when he heard their cries.
He remembered his covenant,
  and in his infinite kindness he repented.
He made them an object of pity
  and kindness to all their captors.
Save us, O Lord, our God,
  and gather us from among the nations,
so that we may proclaim your holy name,
  and rejoice as we praise you.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
  from the beginning and for all time.
  And all the people shall cry, “Amen! Alleluia!”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
  and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
  is now, and ever shall be,
  world without end.
Amen.
O Lord, save us; gather us from among the nations. Alleluia.
℣. God has given us a new birth and a living hope, alleluia.
℟. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, alleluia.
First Reading1 John 3:11-17 ©

Love towards brothers

This is the message
as you heard it from the beginning:
that we are to love one another;
not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One
and cut his brother’s throat;
cut his brother’s throat simply for this reason,
that his own life was evil and his brother lived a good life.
You must not be surprised, brothers, when the world hates you;
we have passed out of death and into life,
and of this we can be sure
because we love our brothers.
If you refuse to love, you must remain dead;
to hate your brother is to be a murderer,
and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them.
This has taught us love –
that he gave up his life for us;
and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers.
If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods
saw that one of his brothers was in need,
but closed his heart to him,
how could the love of God be living in him?
Responsory1 Jn 3:16,14
℟. This has taught us what love is: Christ gave up his life for us,* and we ought to give up our lives for our brothers, alleluia.
℣. We have passed out of death and into life and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers,* and we ought to give up our lives for our brothers, alleluia.
Second Reading
St Augustine's homilies on St John's gospel

The two lives

There are two ways of life that God has commended to the Church. One is through faith, the other is through vision. One is in pilgrimage through a foreign land, the other is in our eternal home; one in labour, the other in repose; one in a journey to our homeland, the other in that land itself; one in action, the other in the fruits of contemplation.
  The first life, the life of action, is personified by the Apostle Peter; the contemplative life, by John. The first life is passed here on earth until the end of time, when it reaches its completion; the second is not fulfilled until the end of the world, but in the world to come it lasts for ever. For this reason Peter is told “Follow me”, but Jesus adds, “If I want John to stay behind till I come, what does it matter to you? You are to follow me”.
  You are to follow me by imitating me in the enduring suffering; he is to remain till I come to restore the blessings that last for ever. To put it more clearly: let action, which is complete in itself, follow me and follow the example of my passion; but let contemplation, which has only begun, remain until I come, wait until the moment of its completion.
  It is the fullness of patience to follow Christ loyally even to death; the fullness of knowledge lies in wait until Christ comes again, when it will be revealed and made manifest. The ills of this world are endured in the land of the dying; the good gifts of God will be revealed in the land of the living.
  We should not understand “I want him to stay behind until I come” as meaning to remain permanently but rather to wait: what is signified by John will not be fulfilled now, but it will be fulfilled, when Christ comes. On the other hand, what is signified by Peter, to whom Jesus says “follow me”, must be realised now or it will never be fulfilled.
  But we should not separate these great apostles. They were both part of the present life symbolized by Peter and they were both part of the future life symbolized by John. Considered as symbols, Peter followed Christ and John remained; but in their living faith both endured the evils of the present life and both looked forward to the future blessings of the coming life of joy.
  It is not they alone that do this but the whole of the holy Church, the bride of Christ, who needs to be rescued from the trials of the present and to be brought to safety in the joys of the future. Individually, Peter and John represent these two lives, the present and the future; but both journeyed in faith through this temporal life and both will enjoy the second life by vision, eternally.
  All the faithful form an integral part of the body of Christ, and therefore, so that they may be steered through the perilous seas of this present life, Peter, first among the Apostles, has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to bind and loose from sin. And also for the sake of the faithful, so that they may keep the still and secret heart of his mode of life, John the evangelist rested on Christ’s breast.
  It is not Peter alone who binds and looses sins, but the whole Church. It is not John alone who has drunk at the fountain of the Lord’s breast and pours forth what he had drunk in his teaching of the Word being God in the beginning, God with God, of the Trinity and Unity of God — of all those things which we shall see face to face in his kingdom but now, before the Lord comes, we see only in images and reflections — not John alone, for the Lord himself spreads John’s gospel throughout the world, giving everyone to drink as much as he is capable of absorbing.
Responsory
℟. You will have to suffer only for a little while: the God of all grace who called you to eternal glory in Christ will see that all is well again:* he will confirm, strengthen and support you, alleluia.
℣. He who raised the Lord Jesus to life will raise us with Jesus in our turn:* he will confirm, strengthen and support you, alleluia.
Let us pray.
God and Father,
  your Son, at his ascension,
  promised the Holy Spirit to his apostles.
They received abundant graces of wisdom from heaven:
  grant us, also, we pray, the gifts of your Spirit.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.

The Creed in Slow Motion

10. One Lord, the Son of God
In one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God.

“The Creed in Slow Motion”, by Martin Kochanski (the creator of Universalis) comes out in four weeks’ time.

Read more about the book.

The psalms and canticles here are our own translation from the Latin. The Grail translation of the psalms, which is used liturgically in most of the English-speaking world, cannot be displayed on the Web for copyright reasons; The Universalis apps and programs do contain the Grail translation of the psalms.

You can also view this page in Latin and English.

Copyright © 1996-2022 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.
 		 This web site © Copyright 1996-2022 Universalis Publishing Ltd · Contact us · Cookies/privacy
(top)