SAINTE Virginie
Centurione Bracelli
Foundress of the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia, also called the Servants of Charity. In the cholera epidemic of 1836, she became well-known as she directed a home for girls and began another residence for deaf and mute young ladies. Maria died at Brescia on December 15. She was canonized in 1954.
Entrance Antiphon
Behold, the Lord will come descending with splendour to visit his people with peace, and he will bestow on them eternal life.
Collect
Grant that your people, we pray, almighty God, may be ever watchful for the coming of your Only Begotten Son, that, as the author of our salvation himself has taught us, we may hasten, alert and with lighted lamps, to meet him when he comes. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
First reading: Isaiah 48: 17-19
Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I, the Lord, your God, teach you what is good for you, I lead you in the way that you must go. If only you had been alert to my commandments, your happiness would have been like a river, your integrity like the waves of the sea. Your children would have been numbered like the sand, your descendants as many as its grains. Never would your name have been cut off or blotted out before me.
Psalm 1: 1-4, 6
R/ Anyone who follows you, O Lord, will have the light of life.
Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinners nor sits in the company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders his law day and night.
He is like a tree that is planted beside the flowing waters, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves shall never fade; and all that he does shall prosper.
Not so are the wicked, not so! For they like winnowed chaff shall be driven away by the wind: for the Lord guards the way of the just but the way of the wicked leads to doom.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia! See, the king, the Lord of the world, will come. He will free us from the yoke of our bondage. Alleluia!
Gospel: Matthew 11: 16-19
Jesus spoke to the crowds: “What description can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place: ‘We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn’t be mourners.’ For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He is possessed.’ The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom has been proved right by her actions.”
Prayer over the Offerings
Be pleased, O Lord, with our humble prayers and offerings, and, since we have no merits to plead our cause, come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Phil 3: 20-21
We await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our mortal bodies, to conform with his glorified body.
Prayer after Communion
Replenished by the food of spiritual nourishment, we humbly beseech you, O Lord, that, through our partaking in this mystery, you may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
Do know how to daily recognize the Lord who comes to visit us through the multiple situations we encounter? Every situation we face is not a coincidence but a call, pending a response. God’s call comes to us on a daily basis. If today God needs our compassion, tomorrow it will be our joy or our repentance; all this for our edification and that of our neighbours. Learning to recognize these different signs or calls and responding to them is learning to recognize God at work in our lives and the world around us. In so doing, God teaches us every day and guides us through the path leading to him. May we be attentive to these signs today, lest we become like this generation that did not recognize God visiting them.