Ribbon Placement:
Liturgy of the Hours Vol. IV:
Ordinary: 615
Psalter: Tuesday, Week IV, 1129
Common of Doctors of the Church: 1777
Proper of Seasons: 380
Proper of Saints: 1483

Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings

Office of Readings for Tuesday in Ordinary Time, the Memorial of Saint Teresa of Avila, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

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 for ever. Amen. Alleluia.

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 Lord, let my cry come to you; do not hide your face from me.

Psalm 102
The longings and prayers of an exile
God comforts us in all our troubles (2 Corinthians 1:4).

I

O Lord, listen to my prayer
and let my cry for help reach you.
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear towards me
and answer me quickly when I call.

For my days are vanishing like smoke,
my bones burn away like a fire.
My heart is withered like the grass.
I forget to eat my bread.
I cry with all my strength
and my skin clings to my bones.

I have become like a pelican in the wilderness,
like an owl in desolate places.
I lie awake and I moan
like some lonely bird on a roof.
All day long my foes revile me;
those who hate me use my name as a curse.

The bread I eat is ashes;
my drink is mingled with tears.
In your anger, Lord, and your fury
you have lifted me up and thrown me down.
My days are like a passing shadow
and I wither away like the grass.

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.

Ant. Lord, let my cry come to you; do not hide your face from me.

Ant. 2 Be attentive, Lord, to the prayer of the helpless.

II

But you, O Lord, will endure for ever
and your name from age to age.
You will arise and have mercy on Zion:
for this is the time to have mercy;
yes, the time appointed has come
for your servants love her very stones,
are moved with pity even for her dust.

The nations shall fear the name of the Lord
and all the earth’s kings your glory,
when the Lord shall build up Zion again
and appear in all his glory.
Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless;
he will not despise their prayers.

Let this be written for ages to come
that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord;
for the Lord leaned down from his sanctuary on high.
He looked down from heaven to the earth
that he might hear the groans of the prisoners
and free those condemned to die.

The sons of your servants shall dwell untroubled
and their race shall endure before you
that the name of the Lord may be proclaimed in Zion
and his praise in the heart of Jerusalem,
when peoples and kingdoms are gathered together
to pay their homage to the Lord.

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.

Ant. Be attentive, Lord, to the prayer of the helpless.

Ant. 3 You, O Lord, established the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

III

He has broken my strength in mid-course;
he has shortened the days of my life.
I say to God: “Do not take me away
before my days are complete,
you, whose days last from age to age.

Long ago you founded the earth
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish but you will remain.
They will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like clothes that are changed.
But you neither change, nor have an end.”

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.

Psalm-prayer

Lord, you live in the hearts of your saints, and so have built up Zion. May you always show your greatness through their good works.

Ant. You, O Lord, established the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell) – a moment to reflect and receive in our hearts the full resonance of the voice of the Holy Spirit and to unite our personal prayer more closely with the word of God and public voice of the Church.

You will hear the word from my mouth.
— You will tell others what I have said.

READINGS

First reading
From the beginning of the book of the prophet Zechariah
1:1–2:4
Vision of the rebuilding of Jerusalem

In the second year of Darius, in the eighth month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:

The Lord was indeed angry with your fathers… and say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Be not like your fathers whom the former prophets warned: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked deeds. But they would not listen or pay attention to me, says the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, can they live forever? But my words and my decrees, which I entrusted to my servants the prophets, did not these overtake your fathers? Then they repented and admitted: “The Lord of hosts has treated us according to our ways and deeds, just as he had determined he would.”

In the second year of Darius, on the twenty-fourth day of Shebat, the eleventh month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, in the following way: I had a vision during the night. There appeared the driver of a red horse, standing among myrtle trees in a shady place, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.

Then I asked, “What are these, my lord?”; and the angel who spoke with me answered me, “I will show you what these are.” The man who was standing among the myrtle trees spoke up and said, “These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.” And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, “We have patrolled the earth; see, the whole earth is tranquil and at rest!”

Then the angel of the Lord spoke out and said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you be without mercy for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that have felt your anger these seventy years? “To the angel who spoke with me, the Lord replied with comforting words.

And the angel who spoke with me said to me, Proclaim: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am deeply moved for the sake of Jerusalem and Zion, and I am exceedingly angry with the complacent nations;
whereas I was but a little angry, they added to the harm. Therefore, says the Lord: I will turn to Jerusalem in mercy; my house shall be built in it, says the Lord of hosts, and a measuring line shall be stretched over Jerusalem. Proclaim further: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion, and again choose Jerusalem.

I raised my eyes and looked: there were four horns. Then I asked the angel who spoke with me what these were. He answered me, “These are the horns that scattered Judah and Israel and Jerusalem.”

Then the Lord showed me four blacksmiths. And I asked, “What are these coming to do?” And he said, “Here are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no man raised his head any more; but these have come to terrify them: to cast down the horns of the nations that raised their horns to scatter the land of Judah.”

RESPONSORY Zechariah 1:16; Revelation 21:23

I turn to Jerusalem in compassion;
— there my house shall be rebuilt.

The city had no need of the sun or the moon for light,
for its lamp was the Lamb.
— There my house shall be rebuilt.

Second reading
From a work by Saint Teresa of Avila, virgin
Let us always be mindful of Christ’s love

If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that if we expect to please him and receive an abundance of his graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through his most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.

Many, many times I have perceived this through experience. The Lord has told it to me. I have definitely seen that we must enter by this gate if we wish his Sovereign Majesty to reveal to us great and hidden mysteries. A person should desire no other path, even if he is at the summit of contemplation; on this road he walks safely. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.

What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our friends in the world, he will never abandon us when we are troubled or distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena. A person must walk along this path in freedom, placing himself in God’s hands. If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favours, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.

RESPONSORY

Those who turn their backs on you will perish.
—What joy to be near my God, to place all my trust in the Lord.

Whoever is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
—What joy to be near my God, to place all my trust in the Lord.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

O God,
who through your Spirit
raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus
to show the Church the way to seek perfection,
grant that we may always be nourished
by the food of her heavenly teaching
and fired with longing for true holiness.
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.

ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)

Let us praise the Lord.
— And give Him thanks.

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