God, come to my assistance.
- Lord, make haste to help me
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
HYMN
Mary immaculate, star of the morning,
Chosen before the creation began,
Chosen to bring, for thy bridal adorning,
Woe to the serpent and rescue to man.
Here, in an orbit of shadow and sadness,
Veiling thy splendor, thy course thou hast run;
Now thou art throned in all glory and gladness,
Crowned by the hand of the savior and Son.
Sinners, we worship thy sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak for thy pity we plead;
Grant us the shield of thy sovereign protection,
Measure thine aid by the depth of our need.
Bend from thy throne at the voice of our crying,
Bend to this earth which thy footsteps have trod;
Stretch out thine arms to us, living and dying,
Mary immaculate, Mother of God.
Music: Melody from Himmels-Lust 1675, adapted and
harmonized by J.S. Bach, 1685-1750
Text: F.W. Weatherell
Or:
Virgin of virgins,
you were untouched by that stain of sin,
that first of all evils,
the sad inheritance of the human race.
From my earliest years
I have placed my hope in you.
Where the power of evil overcomes me
and makes my life too sinful for your gaze,
all the more will your unbounded compassion
show me your generous love,
because my suffering is so deep,
my sinfulness so unworthy of your aid.
PSALMODY
Ant.1 Oh Mother, how pure you are, you are untouched by sin; yours was the privilege to carry God within you.
or: Blessed are you, O Mary, for the world's salvation came forth from you; now in glory, you rejoice forever with the Lord. Intercede for us with your Son.
Psalm 90
May we live in the radiance of God
There is no time with God: a thousand years, a single day: it is all one (2 Peter 3:8)
O Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to the next.
Before the mountains were born
or the earth or the world brought forth,
you are God, without beginning or end.You turn men back to dust
and say: “go back, sons of men.”
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.You sweep men away like a dream,
like grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.So we are destroyed in your anger,
struck with terror in your fury.
Our guilt lies open before you;
our secrets in the light of your face.All our days pass away in your anger.
Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years
or eighty for those who are strong.And most of these are emptiness and pain.
They pass swiftly and we are gone.
Who understands the power of your anger
and fears the strength of your fury?Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Give us joy to balance our affliction
for the years when we knew misfortune.Show forth your work to your servants;
let your glory shine on their children.
Let the favor of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands,
give success to the work of our hands.
Ant. 2 The Lord God most high has blessed you, Virgin Mary, above all the women on the earth.
Or: You are the glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel; you are the fairest of our race.
God victor and savior
They were singing a new hymn before the throne of God (Revelation 14:3)
Sing to the LORD a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth:
Let the sea and what fills it resound,
the coastlands, and those who dwell in them.
Let the steppe and its cities cry out,
the villages where Kedar dwells;Let the inhabitants of Sela exult,
and shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the LORD,
and utter his praise in the coastlands.The LORD goes forth like a hero,
like a warrior he stirs up his ardor;
He shouts out his battle cry,
against his enemies he shows his might:I have looked away, and kept silence,
I have said nothing, holding myself in;
But now, I cry out as a woman in labor,
gasping and panting.I will lay waste mountains and hills,
all their herbage I will dry up;
I will turn the rivers into marshes,
and the marshes I will dry up.I will lead the blind on their journey;
by paths unknown I will guide them.
I will turn darkness into light before them,
and make crooked ways straight.
Ant. 3: Sinless virgin, let us follow joyfully in your footsteps; draw us after you in the fragrance of your holiness.
Or: O Virgin Mary, how great your cause for joy; God found you worthy to bear Christ our Savior.
Psalm 146
Those who trust in God know what it is to be happy
To praise God in our lives means all we do must be for his glory (Arnobius)
My soul, give praise to the Lord;
I will praise the Lord all my days,
make music to my God while I live.Put no trust in princes,
in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay
and their plans that day come to nothing.He is happy who is helped by Jacob's God,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who alone made heaven and earth,
the seas and all they contain.It is he who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free,the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord, who protects the stranger
and upholds the widow and orphan.It is the Lord who loves the just
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion's God, from age to age.
FIRST READING Isaiah 43:1
But now, thus says the LORD,
who created you, O Jacob,
and formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name: you are mine.
Or Galatians 4:4-5
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption.
Or Proverbs 8:22-31
"The LORD begot me, the first-born of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
From of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
Before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
While as yet the earth and the fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.
"When he established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
When he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
When he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
Then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
Playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the sons of men.
SECOND READING
From a sermon by St. Anselm, bishop
(Oratio 52:PL 158, 955-956)
Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendor by men who believe in God.
The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.
Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom, and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.
Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator himself has been blessed by creation.
To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.
God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.
Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.
RESPONSORY
The God of power has given me his strength.
- The God of power has given me his strength.
He has kept me in the way of holiness.
- And has given me his strength.
Glory to the Father...
- The God of power has given me his strength.
Or:
O Virgin Mary, no other daughter of Jerusalem is your equal,
for you are the mother of the King of kings,
you are the Queen of heaven and of angels.
- Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with you.
- Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
CANTICLE OF ZECHARIAH Luke 1:68-79
Ant. The Lord God said to the serpent: I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring; she will crush your head, alleluia.
Or: Holy Mary, ever-virgin, Mother of God, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham,
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
To give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
INTERCESSIONS
Let us glorify our Savior, who chose the Virgin Mary for his mother. Let us ask him:
May your mother intercede for us, Lord.
Sun of Justice, the Immaculate Virgin was the white dawn announcing your rising,
- grant that we may always live in the light of your coming.
Savior of the world, by your redeeming might you preserved your mother beforehand from all stain of sin,
- keep watch over us lest we sin.
You are our redeemer, who made the Immaculate Virgin Mary your purest home and a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit:
- make us temples of your Spirit forever.
King of kings, you lifted up your mother, body and soul, into heaven:
- help us fix our thoughts on things above.
Our Father...
CONCLUDING PRAYER
Father,
you prepared the Virgin Mary
to be the worthy mother of your Son.
You let her share beforehand
in the salvation Christ would bring by his death,
and kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.
Help us by her prayers
to live in your presence without sin.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Father,
the image of the Virgin is found in the Church.
Mary had a faith that your Spirit prepared
and a love that never knew sin,
for you kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.
Trace in our actions the lines of her love,
in our hearts her readiness of faith.
Prepare once again a world for your Son
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
May the Lord bless us,
protect us from evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
- Amen.