R: May we drink of the water of wisdom
[and be fed with the bread of life].
O Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not raised in haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters,
with things that are too high for me. R
But I have quieted and stilled my soul,
like a weaned child on its mother’s breast;
so my soul is quieted within me. R
O Israel, trust in the Lord,
from this time forth for evermore. R
Psalm 131
A reading from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians.
Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
This is the word of the Lord.
Philippians 3.7–14
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Luke 12.32–37
Post Communion
Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Aelred
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 January
Benedict Biscop
Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar
England: Commemoration
If celebrated otherwise, Common of Religious
Born a Northumbrian nobleman in 628, Benedict Biscop served at the court of King Oswiu of Northumbria until he joined Wilfrid of York on his pilgrimage to Rome to the tombs of the apostles. He made a second trip accompanied by the King’s son and on his way home was clothed a monk at the Benedictine house of Lérins. It was on his third trip to Rome that he met and returned to England with Theodore, the newly-appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, who made him Abbot of St Augustine’s in 669. Five years later, he was permitted to make his own foundation at Wearmouth, which he had built in the Roman style and endowed with a huge library. He encouraged the development of the Uncial script which also acted as a vehicle for the propagation of the Roman Rite. His own scholarship, and that promoted through the religious houses he founded, played a large part in the acceptance of the primacy of Roman over Celtic practice throughout northern England. Benedict Biscop died on this day in 689.
13 January
Hilary
White
Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith
England: Lesser Festival – Wales: V
14 January – Scotland: Commemoration
Hilary was born at Poitiers in about the year 315; his family, though pagan, gave him an excellent education and he was proficient in Latin and Greek. After extensive personal study he was baptized, he tells us, at the age of thirty. He was elected bishop of the city in the year 350 and immediately became caught up in the Arian controversy, himself asserting that mortals of this world were created to practise moral virtues thus reflecting the one in whose image they are made, the eternal and creative first cause, God, and that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is of one substance with the Father. His learning and oratory led to his title of ‘Athanasius of the West’. He was known as a gentle, kind friend to all, even though his writings seemed severe at times. He died in the year 367.
Collect
Everlasting God,
whose servant Hilary
steadfastly confessed your Son Jesus Christ
to be both human and divine:
grant us his gentle courtesy
to bring to all the message of redemption
in the incarnate Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
A reading from the prophecy of Isaiah.
Listen, and hear my voice;
Pay attention, and hear my speech.
Do those who plough for sowing plough continually?
Do they continually open and harrow their ground?
When they have levelled its surface,
do they not scatter dill, sow cummin,
and plant wheat in rows
and barley in its proper place,
and spelt as the border?
For they are well instructed;
their God teaches them.
Dill is not threshed with a threshing-sledge,
nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin;
but dill is beaten out with a stick,
and cummin with a rod.
Grain is crushed for bread,
but one does not thresh it for ever;
one drives the cartwheel and horses over it,
but does not pulverize it.
This also comes from the Lord of hosts;
he is wonderful in counsel,
and excellent in wisdom.
This is the word of the Lord.
Isaiah 28.23–29
Responsorial