Morning Prayer: Friday 28 August 2015

August 28, 2015

Augustine of Hippo, Bishop & Teacher of the Faith, 430
Morning Prayer – Week B

O Lord, open our lips:
and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever.
Amen.

PSALMODY

Antiphon: Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom;* your dominion endures throughout all ages. (Ps. 145.13)

Opening

VENITE

1 O come let us sing out to the Lord,*
let us shout in triumph to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his face with thanksgiving*
and cry out to him joyfully in psalms.
3 For the Lord is a great God,*
and a great king above all gods.
4 In his hands are the depths of the earth,*
and the peaks of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his and he made it;*
his hands moulded dry land.
6 Come let us worship and bow down,*
and kneel before the Lord our maker.
7 For he himself is our God;*
we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
8 Today if only you would hear his voice:*
‘Do not harden your hearts as Israel did in the wilderness;
9 when your fathers tested me;*
put me to proof though they had seen my works.
10 Of whom I swore in my wrath:*
“They shall not enter my rest.”’

Glory to the Father… (may be said by all)

or (from Psalm 145)

1 I will exalt you, O God my king,*
and bless your name for ever and ever.
2 All your works praise you, O Lord,*
and your faithful servants bless you.
3 They make known the glory of your kingdom*
and speak of your power;
4 that the peoples may know of your power*
and the glorious splendour of your kingdom.

Glory to the Father…

or a suitable hymn

Psalm 22.21-30

21 I will declare your name to my brethren;*
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him;*
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob’s line, give glory.
23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them;*
but when they cry to him he hears them.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly;*
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who
worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him:*
‘May your heart live for ever!’
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord,*
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him .
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord;*
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship;*
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him;*
they shall be known as the Lord’s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn*
the saving deeds that he has done.

Conclusion (Isaiah 40)

1 The Lord is the everlasting God,*
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
2 who does not faint nor grow weary,*
whose understanding is unsearchable,
3 who gives power to the faint,*
increase of strength to those who have no might.
4 Even youth shall faint and be weary;*
the young shall fall exhausted.
5 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;*
they shall mount up with wings like eagles.
6 They shall run and not be weary,*
they shall walk and not faint.

Glory to the Father…

Antiphon: Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom;* your dominion endures throughout all ages. (Ps. 145.13)

READING(S)

1 Kings 5:1 – 6:1, 7
Now King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father; for Hiram had always been a friend to David. Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying, ‘You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. So I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to my father David, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.” Therefore command that cedars from the Lebanon be cut for me. My servants will join your servants, and I will give you whatever wages you set for your servants; for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.’

When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and said, ‘Blessed be the Lord today, who has given to David a wise son to be over this great people.’ Hiram sent word to Solomon, ‘I have heard the message that you have sent to me; I will fulfil all your needs in the matter of cedar and cypress timber. My servants shall bring it down to the sea from the Lebanon; I will make it into rafts to go by sea to the place you indicate. I will have them broken up there for you to take away. And you shall meet my needs by providing food for my household.’ So Hiram supplied Solomon’s every need for timber of cedar and cypress. Solomon in turn gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty cors of fine oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year. So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and the two of them made a treaty.

King Solomon conscripted forced labour out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. He sent them to the Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in the Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labour. Solomon also had seventy thousand labourers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, besides Solomon’s three thousand three hundred supervisors who were over the work, having charge of the people who did the work. At the king’s command, they quarried out great, costly stones in order to lay the foundation of the house with dressed stones. So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites did the stonecutting and prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.

The house was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple while it was being built.

Acts 28:1-16
After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us round it. Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, ‘This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.’ He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

Now in the neighbourhood of that place were lands belonging to the leading man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. It so happened that the father of Publius lay sick in bed with fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and cured him by praying and putting his hands on him. After this happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. They bestowed many honours on us, and when we were about to sail, they put on board all the provisions we needed.

Three months later we set sail on a ship that had wintered at the island, an Alexandrian ship with the Twin Brothers as its figurehead. We put in at Syracuse and stayed there for three days; then we weighed anchor and came to Rhegium. After one day there a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. There we found believers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. The believers from there, when they heard of us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.

When we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him.

Silence

Response (Ps. 86.12)

I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart.
I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart.
I will glorify your name for evermore.
With all my heart.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart.

BENEDICTUS

Benedictus Antiphon: In tender compassion,* God’s dawn has broken upon us.

1 Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,*
for he has come to his people and set them free.
2 He has raised up for us a mighty saviour,*
born of the house of his servant David.
3 Through his holy prophets he promised of old*
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all that hate us.
4 He promised to show mercy to our forebears,*
and to remember his holy covenant.
5 This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:*
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
6 free to worship him without fear,*
holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
7 You my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High,*
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
8 to give his people knowledge of salvation*
by the forgiveness of all their sins.
9 In the tender compassion of our God*
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
10 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… (may be said by all)

Benedictus Antiphon: In tender compassion,* God’s dawn has broken upon us.

PRAYERS

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Do not bring us to to the time of trial,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and for ever.
Amen.

Collect of the Day
Almighty God, we are taught by your word that all our doings without love are worth nothing. Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

God most holy, we give you thanks for bringing us out of the shadow of night into the light of morning; and we ask you for the joy of spending this day in your service, so that when evening comes, we may once more give you thanks, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Let us bless the Lord:
Thanks be to God!

The Lord bless us and preserve us from all evil;
and bring us to life eternal.
Amen.