God will not force
His grace upon anyone. He insists only that every person accept His
ordinary channels of grace: the Sacraments, sacramentals, people,
circumstances, events, things. When a man does not believe in God's
power to use anything or anybody as His instrument, God gives His
grace to other men who do so believe. To disbelieve, and to reject
God's way and time for answering prayer, is to be like the Nazarene's
who rejected Christ. Souls in mission lands, as well as thousands
everywhere, await the faith to see God at work in everything,
especially through the Sacraments and the Mass.
INTROIT: Ps.
55:5
Through God I will glory in this word, through the Lord I
will praise this speech: in God I trust, and I will not fear what man
can do to me.
Ps. 55:2. Have pity on me, O God, for men
trample upon me; all the day they press their attack against me.
V.
Glory be . . .
COLLECT
O Lord, mercifully fill
our hearts with Your grace. We mortify our bodies by abstaining from
food; may we also guard our senses from the danger of unbridled
pleasures. Through Our Lord . . .
LESSON: IV Kings 5:1-15 [2
Kings]
In those days, Naaman, general of the army, of the king of
Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable: for by him
the Lord gave deliverance to Syria: and he was a valiant man, and
rich, but a leper.
Now there had gone out robbers from Syria, and
had led away captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid, and
she waited upon Naaman's wife. And she said to her mistress: I wish
my master had been with the prophet that is in Samaria: he would
certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he hath.
Then
Naaman went in to his lord, and told him, saying: Thus and thus said
the girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said to him:
Go; and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed,
and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of
gold, and ten changes of raiment; And brought the letter to the king
of Israel, in these words: When thou shalt receive this letter, know
that I have sent to thee Naaman, my servant, that thou mayst heal him
of his leprosy.
And when the king of Israel had read the letter,
he rent his garments, and said: Am I God, to be able to kill and give
life, that this man hath sent to me to heal a man of his leprosy?
mark, and see how he seeketh occasions against me.
And when
Eliseus, the man of God, had heard this, to wit, that the king of
Israel had rent his garments, he sent to him, saying: Why hast thou
rent thy garments? let him come to me, and let him know that there is
a prophet in Israel.
So Naaman came with his horses and chariots,
and stood at the door of the house of Eliseus: And Eliseus sent a
messenger to him, saying: Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and
thy flesh shall recover health, and thou shalt be clean. Naaman was
angry, and went away, saying: I thought he would have come out to me,
and standing, would have invoked the name of the Lord his God, and
touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and healed me. Are
not the Abana, and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all
the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean? So
as he turned, and was going away with indignation, His servants came
to him, and said to him: Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some
great thing, surely thou shouldst have done it: how much rather what
he now hath said to thee: Wash, and thou shalt be clean?
Then he
went down, and washed in the Jordan seven times, according to the
word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored, like the flesh of
a little child: and he was made clean. And returning to the man of
God, with all his train, he came, and stood before him, and said: In
truth, I know there is no other God, in all the earth, but only in
Israel: I beseech thee, therefore, take a blessing of thy
servant.
GRADUAL: Ps. 55:9 2
O God, I have recounted my
life to You; You have placed my tears before You.
V. Have pity on
me, O God, for men trample upon me; all the day they press their
attack against me.
TRACT: Ps. 102:10; 78:8-9
O Lord, repay
us not according to the sins we have committed, nor according to our
iniquities.
V. O Lord, remember not our iniquities of the past;
let Your mercy come quickly to us, for we are being brought very
low. (All kneel.)
V. Help us, O God our Savior, and for the
glory of Your name. O Lord, deliver us; and pardon us our sins for
Your name's sake.
GOSPEL: Luke 4:23-30
At that time, Jesus
said to the Pharisees: "Doubtless you will say to me this
similitude: 'Physician, heal thyself. As great things as we have
heard done in Capharnaum, do also here in thy own country.' " And
he said: "Amen I say to you that no prophet is accepted in
his own country. In truth I say to You, there were many widows in the
days of Elias in Israel, when heaven was shut up three years and six
months, when there was a great famine throughout all the earth. And
to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of Sidon, to a widow
woman. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Eliseus
the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the
Syrian."
And all they in the synagogue, hearing these
things, were filled with anger. And they rose up and thrust him out
of the city: and they brought him to the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he
passing through the midst of them, went his way.
OFFERTORY
ANTIPHON: Ps. 54:2-3
Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and turn not
away from my pleading; give heed to me, and answer me.
SECRET
O
Lord, transform this gift we offer You in worship into the Sacrament
of our salvation. Through Our Lord . . .
COMMUNION
ANTIPHON: Ps. 13:7
Who shall bring out of Sion the salvation of
Israel? When the Lord shall have restored His people from captivity,
then shall Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.
POSTCOMMUNION
Almighty
and merciful God, may we cherish with our hearts the Sacrament we
have received with our lips. Through Our Lord . . .