Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: James 1:1-11; Psalm 119:67-68.71-72.75-76; Mark 8:11-13

I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult most of the time to count my various trials as joy. This is in no way calls God word into question. Rather, it’s an opportunity to let God’s word interrogate me.

Unless you’re very young and/or inexperienced, it’s difficult to argue with James’ assertion that testing produces perseverance. Perseverance, of course, is the fruit of the fifth Sorrowful Mystery of the Holy Rosary. What is the mystery of which perseverance is the fruit? The Lord’s crucifixion.

Christian discipleship was well-described in the title of a book by the late Eugene Peterson: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.¹ In this book, Peterson wrote about the necessity of patience, perseverance, and community for those who would take up their cross and follow Christ.

Following Jesus is not and never has either been a quick fix or a magical solution to life’s difficulties. As many experience it, becoming a Christian, or taking one’s Christian commitment with due seriousness, creates more difficulties. As Father Daniel Berrigan, one of the most prophetic voices of the last century, wrote:

We need to live our lives in accord with the deepest truths we know, even if it does not produce immediate results in the world²

It bears repeating often that being a Christian requires living a life rooted in spiritual discipline. It is a life of prayer featuring a deep engagement with scripture. It is a life of self-giving service, worship, and witness. A sacrificial life.

Our first reading consists of the first eleven verses of the Letter of Saint James, one of the Bible's most challenging books. As for a life rooted prayer, what James is not saying is something like, “Ask God for anything and if you ask without doubting, He will deliver the goods.”

Rather, he is saying turn to God for wisdom. Turn to God for direction on how you ought to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. True wisdom, divine wisdom isn’t worldly wisdom, as the exhortation to count your trials as joy indicates.

As the quote often misattributed to Flannery O’Connor describes it: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you odd.”³ Counting one’s trials as joy is certainly odd and at odds with the more or less pagan notion that if life isn’t going my way God must be upset with me. This childish way of relating to God or understanding how God relates to you is spiritually crippling. It lacks wisdom.

Jesus makes much the same point James does when it comes not only to prayer but to righteous living. As the Law clearly warns: “You shall not put the LORD, your God, to the test.”⁴ Yet, this is what these Pharisees challenged Him to do.

Since we're just a few days away from the start of Lent, it seems fitting to point out that this is one of the temptationd Jesus undergoes during His forty days and nights in the wilderness.⁵ Certainly in the Synoptics and especially in Mark, the Lord’s attitude to His own miracles is ambivalent at best.

I am not telling you, “Don’t expect anything from God.” Every good Christian spiritual writer warns against seeking miracles and consolations. Inherent in this warning is the belief that God can and does perform miracles and that He gives us consolations. But He does it according to His own will and wisdom, which is not, at least not yet, our will because we lack wisdom.

Wisdom is only gained through experience. What Christ wants you to experience, far from making your troubles and worries magically disappear, is how He walks with you on the journey of life. How He accompanies you, comforts you, loves you, helps you through your various trials.

This means seeing your trials and tribulations as opportunities to experience the Lord firsthand. A preacher can only tell you that Christ walks with you on your journey through life." Just how He does so is something that can only be experienced for yourself.

When it comes to accompanying you, the Lord doesn't lead you over, above, beneath, or around but through your trials, through the valley of the shadow of death.⁶ He is worthy of your trust. This assertion is testable.

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1 Eugene Peterson. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. IVP: 2000 (20th Anniversary Edition).^↩
2 Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings, Ed. John Dear. Orbis: 2009, pg. 31.^↩
2 Mike Shapiro. “A source for the quotation ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.’” Seaspawn and seawrack blog 31 January 2021, updated 3 February 2021.^↩
4 Deuteronomy 6:16.^↩
5 See Matthew 4:1-11- our Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent.^↩
6 Psalm 23:4.^↩

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sir 15:15-20; Ps 119:1-2.4-5.17-18.33-34; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Matt 5:17-37

Genuine obedience cannot be imposed. The root of “obedience” is the Latin verb obedire. Obedire doesn’t just mean to listen, it means to really listen so as to deeply hear what is being said.

According to Christ Himself, the first of the two Great Commandments is to love God with your entire being.¹ And so, before it is anything else, to obey God is to love God. Because obedience is a choice made from love, there is nothing legalistic about it. So, contrary to a common misconception, true obedience is not compulsory compliance for fear of punishment.

Our reading from Sirach shows us that God respects our freedom, which derives from being made in God’s own image. At least in part, respecting your freedom means not shielding you from the consequences of your choices. This stands in contrast to the rather pagan concept of God getting angry at your slightest misstep and then actively and deliberately punishing you.

When we confess our sins, receive absolution, and fulfill our penance, the eternal punishment due our sins is taken away. But the natural consequences remain. The sacrament of penance, while it is given to heal, isn’t magic. Healing comes through repentance, which means making a commitment to change, “to sin no more and avoid whatever leads me to sin.”

God is good and always seeks your good. Our loving Father is even able to use the suffering that results when you screw up (again). We are sinners in the hands of a loving God! As Saint Paul wrote, you can’t begin to imagine “what God has prepared for those who love him.”² So, the question for each of us is not “Does God love me?” It is, “Do I love God?” As in any relationship, love is best shown through actions rather than mere words.

This seems an important message as we stand on the threshold of the holy season of Lent. Let's be honest up front, in and of themselves your Lenten efforts and sacrifices will not make you holier. God’s grace is still needed. Far from being an effort to earn something from God or to place Him in your debt, spiritual disciplines are simply tried and true ways of opening yourself to receive God's grace.

Found this on SlideServe- liked it

As for our Gospel, it is important to grasp that in His life and ministry Jesus never denigrates the Law. Instead, He positively extols it. Of course, He is the only person who has completely obeyed the Law both in letter and in spirit, thus fulfilling it.

This is the third of four Sundays during Year A of Sunday lectionary that the Church normally reads from the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. Due to the start of Lent this Wednesday, this year it’s for only three weeks. We do this because this chapter is the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. What we hear today are the antitheses.

The theses with which these teachings are contrasted arise from the Law itself. These take the form “You have heard it said” [thesis] “But I say to you” [antithesis]. With these, Jesus shows us that real obedience is more than mere compliance to an outwardly imposed set of rules. He makes obedience a matter of listening with your heart.

Saint Benedict’s rule begins with this exhortation: “Hearken, my son, to the precepts of the master and incline the ear of your heart.”³ This is just what the Lord teaches us to do today. This is just what the Lord teaches us to do today. Like the Bible, at the core of which are the Gospels, Saint Benedict's regula isn’t a rule book.⁴

What the Lord sets forth is a mode of being, the way of becoming who God created and redeemed you to be. “This is the way we may know that we are in union with him,” scripture teaches, “whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived.”⁵

As Catholics, we embrace the efficacy of rules and precepts. A good example of this are the Church's five precepts, which are given “to guarantee for the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer, the sacramental life, moral commitment and growth in love of God and neighbor.”⁶

What you must be careful not to do is to mistake means for ends. This is the fatal flaw of the scribes and Pharisees. What Christ gives us through His Church are proven means for realizing the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

As for a just love of self, you can selflessly love because you were first selflessly loved. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”⁷ At root, every sin is a failure to love. We acknowledge this in the Act of Contrition: “In choosing to wrong and failing to good, I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things.”

Don’t make Lent a time either to annoy yourself in some arbitrary way or a time for self-driven self-improvement. Make it a time to open yourself to God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pray, fast, abstain, give to the poor, and serve others. Make it a time to heed the call made during the imposition of ashes: “Repent and believe the Gospel.”⁸

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1 Matthew 22:37.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 2:9.^↩
3 Rule of Saint Benedict, Prologue.^↩
4 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation [Dei Verbum], sec. 18.^↩
5 1 John 2:5-6.^↩
6 Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 431.^↩
7 1 John 4:106.^↩
8 Roman Missal. Ash Wednesday, Blessing and Distribution of Ashes.^↩

"I don't know where I am, but I know I don't like it"

Okay, now that I've broken the 60 barrier, I can go on about certain things. I promise I won't go on and on.

Electronic means of communication! Well, at least in my experience, these constitute a very mixed bag. Not included in this are voice communication, like an actual phone call. I believe most mobile phones still feature this capability (sarcasm).

On the one hand, it's nice to able to communicate with people directly, especially people I know very well whether they live near or far. These communications run the gamut from brief, insightful conversations about books, sports, music, movies, shared articles, etc., to the mundane, like "Hey, can you pick up some milk on your way home?"

Again, in my experience, such media are not built to be a relationship in toto. Communicating exclusvely via electronic means with someone, especially when you don't have the foundation of a well-developed personal relationship or any in-person interaction, is not only unsustainable, it's imprudent. In-person communication is often difficult enough under the best of circumstances. It becomes impossible when more than half of how human beings communicate is always missing.

So, what's missing? Easy. Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, eye contact or lack thereof, etc. Also, knowing someone, knowing how they "are" thus allowing you to filter what they write through your experience of the person. If you're limited to communicating with someone exclusively by electronic means (i.e., texting, Snapchat, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Dm'ing on other platforms, etc.) and the two people don't know each other well it can be impossible to know what s/he is trying to say. "Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm," as the song goes, even if in a different context. I kind of miss the days when, apart from sending a letter or card through the post or passing someone a note, communicating meant talking.

This past week provided me with a great chance to be gentler with myself. This always happens when I spend more time with the Lord. Many times, my impetus to spend more time in personal prayer is something going sideways, sadly. It's not always the case, just more often than it should be. Either way, Christ gazes on me with such tender gentleness. This enables me to be gentler with myself and, in turn, with others. It doesn't matter to Him that I am flawed and in many ways a deeply deficient person. I already know that and often pay the price for it, which leads to me to berate and shame myself. Like many people, I have some very deep insecurities. Insecurities are vulnerabilities.

It would be easy for me to choose not make myself vulnerable by keeping to myself. As an introvert, though not a shy introvert, I am perfectly content by myself. I don't get bored. But too much self isn't good. No matter how introverted you are, being human requires you to be relational. With no thou there is no I. By making myself vulnerable, I take the risk of having my insecurities exposed and my scabs ripped off. I am grateful to have recourse to the One who loves me best, always, without fail, warts, weaknesses, insecurities, deficiencies and all. Here's something beautiful: He is disposed the same way toward you!

Someone I knew well and who I helped return to the Church some years ago wound up taking his own life a few years after his return. Casey was a wonderful, kind, and creative person. At his memorial service, in which I was privileged to participate, cards were given to each person that read: Be gentle with yourself & with others (I have posted the picture above before). These remain good words for me to live by even if I can only strive to do so in my weak and forgetful way.

On the brink of the holy season of Lent, being kinder and gentler give me a focus. In his Lenten message, the Holy Father has invited us "to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor."

In the tradition prevalent among Eastern Christians prior to Great Lent, if I have ever been less than gentle and/or patient with you, please forgive me. Not only do I bring these lapses to the Lord one-on-one but to Him through the sacrament of penance because, when I say the Confiteor at Mass, I mean it. . . "and you my brothers and sisters. . ."

I used to be a Utah Jazz fan. In response to a post about the franchise being fined $500K for tanking (i.e., losing games on purpose in the hope of securing a top draft pick), I wrote "They should be called the Utah Tankopotamuses. They've been doing this since [Ryan] Smith bought the team. This is why I retired as a fan." To which some stranger replied, complete with GIF, "No one cares." I initially responded with, "You know this because you're no one?" After several seconds, I went back and deleted my original comment, which automatically deletes all replies. I don't want to interact in that way with anyone. Neither do I want to be treated that way. The Golden Rule remains in effect.

The online exchange about the Jazz isn't what precipitated this post. I just helps make my point without getting too specific. To be clear, I still hold to my view about the Jazz and their cyncial approach to the game, despite promises to the contrary at the start of the season. Feel free to disagree or not care.

Anyway, our Friday traditio is General Public's "Tenderness." Indeed, "without tenderness, there's something missing." I must say, "Mirror in the Bathroom" was a temptation.

Monday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13; Psalm 132:6-10; Mark 6:53-56

There is a great contrast between the way God is present in our first reading and in today’s Gospel. One way to see this contrast immediately is by comparing the length of these readings.

In our reading from 1 Kings, we read an account of the dedication of the First Temple, Solomon’s Temple. There is a parallel account in 2 Chronicles that runs to three chapters.¹ After the Temple was dedicated God manifested His presence there through a dark cloud. This cloud was so thick and dark that Temple service could not be conducted.

In our Gospel, while the people “immediately recognized” Jesus, it isn’t clear that they recognized Him as the Only Begotten Son of the Father, that is, as “true God from true God” in the flesh. Rather, they recognized the guy who had been going around Galilee healing the sick and performing other signs and wonders, like miraculously feeding five thousand people who followed Him and the disciples as they attempted to make a retreat after a busy time of ministry.²

It was while making their way back from their failed retreat, while Jesus stayed behind to pray, that the Lord came to His disciples walking on the water.³ Arriving back on the western shore of Lake Gennesaret (a different name for the same body of water also known as the Sea of Galilee), they landed in the town of Gennesaret, which, along with Capernaum (Jesus’s base of operations during the early part of the Galilean ministry), is located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Geography plays an important role in Saint Mark's Gospel.

Gennesaret is a fertile plain about three miles long and one mile wide. It is delineated by the hills of Galilee on the west and the Sea of Galilee on the east. Gennesaret is not, therefore, a Gentile territory but a Jewish one. And so, it makes sense that this Nazarene who had been going around healing the sick and performing miracles would be recognized there.

During the dedication of the Temple, God is not the dark cloud. He is not incense. He is not the ark of the covenant. God is not the tablets inside the ark. Rather, God’s presence is mediated through these holy things. Something about which we, as Catholics, can grasp.

While this relatively non-descript Galilean peasant is God in the flesh, He is not recognized as such. He is recognized as a healer, as someone who might give sight to the blind, open the ears of the deaf, make the lame walk, etc.

Despite this, there doesn’t seem to be any talk among these Galileans that perhaps this is Messiah. One doesn’t have to be a New Testament scholar to notice that Jesus’ divinity wasn’t intuitively obvious to the casual or even to the engaged observer most of the time. There was no golden halo or shimmering glow as we see in so many artistic depictions of the events of His ministry.

It doesn’t matter who people say Jesus is. What matters is who you believe or maybe even know Him to be, based on your experience. A few chapters further on in Mark’s Gospel, as Jesus was making His way with His disciples to another region of Galilee- Caesarea Philippi- He asks those closest to Him who people are saying that He is. After listening to the various answers, spoken by Peter, the Lord asks him the most important question in the world: “But who do you say that I am?”⁴

And so, who do you say Jesus is? Is He merely someone you turn to in dire need, someone who can and just might, in His goodness, do what you ask of Him? Do you follow Jesus for what you think He will do for you? In other words, is your relationship with the Lord transactional? Keep in mind the reward for following Jesus is Jesus.

Bread and wine are very ordinary things. It isn’t intuitively obvious that these consecrated, transubstantiated elements become Christ’s body and blood. Nonetheless, He gives Himself to you wholly in Holy Communion. All He asks in return is for you to give yourself wholly to Him.

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1 See 2 Chronicles 5-7.^↩
2 See Mark 6:34-44.^↩
3 See Mark 6:45-52.^↩
4 See Mark 8:27-30.^↩

A very short take

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; Psalm 112:4-9; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

What Saint Paul is driving at in our reading from his First Letter the Corinthians is that the power of God isn't made known through the luminous demonstration of one's gifts and abilities, even though those are bestowed on us by God. Rather, God's power, manifested by the Holy Spirit, mostly happens through our weakness.

Something easy to glance over in the Incarnation of God's Son but made clear in the kenotic hymn is Jesus' vulnerability. In the Eucharist He makes Himself more vulnerable still. To genuinely love someone, not merely romantically but in that way, is to take a risk. Making yourself vulnerable is just a different way of saying "to take a risk." Embracing a certain degree of vulnerability is what it means to know Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

As for the rest, stay salty and be lit.

But what does that mean? In answer, I urge you to revisit last week's Gospel, which consisted of the Beatitudes (See Matthew 5:1-12). Then, to complete the answer, see today's first reading from Isaiah. Sometimes short is simple and simple is good. It's easy to oversimplify things and it's also easy to over complicate things.

Blessings at the start of new week. Stay salty, be lit, different from getting lit! A fair reminder on Super Bowl Sunday, no?

Being human beings

Well, we're already in the second month of the first year of the second quarter of the twenty-first century. One thing I learned during the first quarter of this century is to never be so foolish as to think things couldn't get worse. Techology, it seems, has aided the transnational corporate entities in pretty much controlling everything. As the Epstein files clearly show, we're all subject to a dubious oligarchy. Dear Lord, even Noam Chomsky is in on this!

What is really at stake right now is our humanity. But Qoeleth is correct: there is nothing new under the sun. From our beginning, we have wanted to transcend our humanity with its concomitant mortality. This is precisely what constitutes the original sin, an element present in every actual sin. Yet, rather than making us freer, this impulse leads to slavery. "Transhumanism" is discussed not only as a genuine possibility but very often as something good, a goal to be attained.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in eternal life. I also believe that, like mortal life, eternal life is a gift from God and not a human technological achievement.

I am grateful Robert Prevost was chosen to be Pope Leo XIV. I eagerly await his first encyclical, which, I believe, will address these matters. I think the title of his first enyclical is going to be Magnifica humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”). According to reliable media sources, it's currently undergoing a third revision.

It is the largely peaceful protests in different cities, like Minneapolis and earlier Portland, Oregon, and in Maine that I see something promising. Permitting one person or group of people to be dehumanized threatens our common humanity. As John Donne so eloquently stated it:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main

We do well to always and everywhere bear these things in mind.

Homo curvatus in se- "man curved in on himself" is the way Saint Augustine described the unjustified human condition. Building on Augustine's metaphor, it is Christ who comes not to straighten us out but to bend us outward, toward God by bending us toward one another. Scripture is pretty plain. You can't say you love God and hate your brother (1 John 4:20).

This could easily veer off into a something of a economic discourse, but I will limit myself to Pope Saint John Paul II's exhortation that in a genuinely human civilization, people don't serve the economy but the economy is built for people. Simple enough, right? Well, obviously no. Practically everyone has become an economic determinist.

While this would've been a better post to end with Oasis' "Live Forever," our traditio is Pixies with "Gouge Away." Kurt Cobain has this to say about this underrated band: "When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band — or at least in a Pixies cover band."

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Readings: Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 24:7-10; Hebrews 2:14-8; Luke 2:22-40

For old school Roman Catholics, including those in the Vatican, today marks the end of Christmas. Falling forty days after the Lord’s Nativity, the Church’s observance of the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph presenting the infant Jesus in the Temple in accordance with the Law is a fitting end to the season of Christmas.

On the reformed calendar, the Church only observes two octaves: Easter and Christmas. The Christmas octave ends on New Year’s Day with the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. For many, Christmas ends at Epiphany, which remains in most places on the fixed date of 6 January.

The Twelve Days of Christmas run from 25 December to 5 January. Epiphany, of course, marks the arrival of magi, who represent God’s revelation to extension of the Covenant to the Gentiles through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. For Roman Catholics in the United States, who observe Epiphany on the second Sunday after Christmas day rather than on the traditionally fixed date, Christmas extends to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. As noted, for some, their observance extends to 2 February.

Biblically, Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, along with the note that closes this pericope noting that the Holy Family returned to Nazareth where “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him,”¹ brings the Gospel of Luke’s extensive Infancy Narrative to a close.

The parallel between the Presentation happening forty days after Christmas day and the Transfiguration being forty days after the Lord's Resurrection should not be lost on us. Both are relevations of God in Christ.

Of course, Jesus’ Presentation in the Temple is the fourth Joyful Mystery of Our Lady’s Rosary. Lest we forget, the fruit of the mystery is obedience. Both Simeon and Anna recognize in the Holy Infant not only their hope, not only the hope of Israel, but as Simeon’s canticle, known by its Latin name the Nunc Dimittis, points out, the hope of the whole world.

Simeon's canticle includes the words, referring to the child: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”² As Jesus plainly tells the Samaritan woman in Saint John’s Gospel: “salvation is from the Jews.”³

In an era of rampant anti-Semitism, this merits foot stomping. Let’s face, in its early decades and probably into the second century, for many, Christianity appeared to be nothing other than a Jewish sect. Without Judaism, Christianity is rendered incoherent.

Simeon and Anna and the Infant Jesus

Being presented in the Temple in accordance with Torah, to include the prescribed sacrificial offering, indicates quite clearly that Jesus is a Jew.⁴ Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus nowhere denigrates or dismisses the Law. He reveres it.

Jesus Christ embodies perfect Torah adherence, letter and spirit, accomplishing in His own person what Israel could not do and you and I could never do without divine assistance: “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”⁵ It was just yesterday that, listening to the Beatitudes, we heard Christ’s roadmap to holiness.

While not easy in itself, obedience, as Simeon warns our Blessed Mother, often (as in usually) brings suffering. This, too, the Lord mentions in the Sermon on the Mount. He calls “Blessed” those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness and urges those who experience calumny for His sake to “Rejoice and be glad.”⁶

Eerily predicting the Christ child’s gruesome death, Simeon tells the Blessed Virgin- “and you yourself a sword will pierce.”⁷ Obedience requires patience and perseverance. To persevere, you must have hope. Hope is realized through suffering. Joy is the fruit of hope because joy happens when suffering is overcome.

As our reading from Hebrews reveals to us, in Christ, we have “merciful and faithful high priest,” who expiates our sins and who is seated at the Father’ s right hand to intercede for us.⁸ Moreover, in Jesus Christ, we have a brother to help us in our trial because He “was tested through what he suffered.”⁹

Today is also known as Candlemas. Hence, it is a festival of light. Christ is the Light of the world. At baptism, each of us was entrusted with and called to carry forth Christ’s Light into the world of darkness. In the same Sermon on the Mount, the Lord tells His disciples: “You are the light of the world.”¹⁰

These candles are blessed to be lit in times of darkness, be it physical or spiritual. They remind you not only that Christ is the Light in some abtract way, but He is your Light and that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”¹¹ Given this, let us heed the Lord’s exhortation to let your light “shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”¹²

As the next-to-last verse of a beautiful hymn written for today’s feast puts it:

Our bodies and our souls/
Are temples now for him,/
For we are born of grace,/
God lights our souls within¹³

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1 Luke 2:39-40.^↩
2 Luke 2:32.^↩
3 John 4:22.^↩
4 Exodus 13:2.12.^↩
5 Matthew 5:48.^↩
6 Matthew 5:10-12.^↩
7 Luke 2:35.^↩
8 Hebrews 2:17.^↩
9 Hebrews 2:18.^↩
10 Matthew 5:14.^↩
11 John 1:5.^↩
12 Matthew 5:16.^↩
13 Liturgy of the Hours. Volume III. February 2, pg 1207. Paulines Publication, Africa.^↩