PRAYER FOR THIS MORNING (SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21)
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Prayer for the Morning
How many are the wonders God has worked for us!
With the blessed Virgin, let us sing praise!
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!
HYMN
Upon her presentation,
A gift of great delight
Appears in dedication
As pleasing in Your sight.
For in Your holy Temple,
The place Your glories fill,
A daughter meek and humble
Now comes to do Your will.
Beyond the incense rising,
Surpassing goat and dove,
Preferred to bullocks dying,
And bread for show above,
This girl in faith believing
Will hold the off’ring true,
When Christ the Lamb conceiving
She is the Temple new.
The Church in praises telling
Acclaims from East to West
The glory of Your dwelling
Among a people blest.
O Father, Son, and Spirit,
One God in majesty,
Your angel sent will hear it—
Her words of “Let it be.”
PSALM 40:6-12
My food is to do the will of the one who sent me. (Jn 4:34)
The story of the presentation of Mary in the Temple as a child captures the essential Gospel portrait of Mary as a woman entirely dedicated not merely to doing but to living the will of God. Her own willing obedience, unhesitatingly given and never revoked, lies at the heart of her life of self-sacrifice offered in love.
How many, O Lord my God,
are the wonders and designs
that you have worked for us;
you have no equal.
Should I proclaim and speak of them,
they are more than I can tell!
You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I.
In the scroll of the book it stands written
that I should do your will.
My God, I delight in your law
in the depth of my heart.
Your justice I have proclaimed
in the great assembly.
My lips I have not sealed;
you know it, O Lord.
I have not hidden your justice in my heart
but declared your faithful help.
I have not hidden your love and your truth
from the great assembly.
O Lord, you will not withhold
your compassion from me.
Your merciful love and your truth
will always guard me.
Glory to the Father….
Word of God (1 Samuel 15:22)
Does the Lord so delight in holocausts and sacrifices/ as in obedience to the command of the Lord?/ Obedience is better than sacrifice,/ and submission than the fat of rams.
Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.
(Rom 12:1)
CANTICLE OF ZECHARIAH
Live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God. (Eph 5:2)
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…
INTERCESSIONS
With the Blessed Virgin Mary, we pray:
R/Receive us, O Lord!
You are our Creator and our Redeemer: R/
You are our beginning and our end: R/
You are the joy of our salvation: R/
(Personal intentions)
Our Father….
God our Father, you received the dedication of the Blessed Virgin Mary as an offering made in love. Through her intercession, gather all people to yourself through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
