Ambrose of Milan, Bishop and Teacher of the Faith, 397
Morning Prayer – Anticipation
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: Show your servants your works*
and your splendour to their children.
(Ps. 90.16)
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 90)
1 Lord, you have been our refuge*
from one generation to another.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or the land and the earth were born,*
from age to age you are God.
3 Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning;*
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
4 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us*
and the years in which we suffered adversity.
Glory to the Father…
or a suitable hymn
Psalm 44
1 We have heard with our ears, O God,
our forefathers have told us,*
the deeds you did in their days, in the days of old.
2 How with your hand you drove the peoples out
and planted our forefathers in the land;*
how you destroyed nations and made your people flourish.
3 For they did not take the land by their sword,
nor did their arm win the victory for them;*
but your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance,
because you favoured them.
4 You are my King and my God;*
you command victories for Jacob.
5 Through you we pushed back our adversaries;*
through your name we trampled on those who
rose up against us.
6 For I do not rely on my bow,*
and my sword does not give me the victory.
7 Surely, you gave us victory over our adversaries*
and put those who hate us to shame.
8 Every day we gloried in God,*
and we will praise your name for ever.
9 Nevertheless, you have rejected and humbled us*
and do not go forth with our armies.
10 You have made us fall back before our adversary,*
and our enemies have plundered us.
11 You have made us like sheep to be eaten*
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You are selling your people for a trifle*
and are making no profit on the sale of them.
13 You have made us the scorn of our neighbours,*
a mockery and derision to those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations,*
a laughing-stock among the peoples.
15 My humiliation is daily before me,*
and shame has covered my face ;
16 Because of the taunts of the mockers and blasphemers,*
because of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this has come upon us;
yet we have not forgotten you,*
nor have we betrayed your covenant.
18 Our heart never turned back,*
nor did our footsteps stray from your path;
19 Though you thrust us down into a place of misery,*
and covered us over with deep darkness.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God,*
or stretched out our hands to some strange god,
21 Will not God find it out?*
for he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Indeed, for your sake we are killed all the day long;*
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake, O Lord! why are you sleeping?*
Arise! do not reject us for ever.
24 Why have you hidden your face*
and forgotten our affliction and oppression?
25 We sink down into the dust;*
our body cleaves to the ground.
26 Rise up, and help us,*
and save us, for the sake of your steadfast love.
God of hosts, be present with those who suffer for no fault of their own: the broken victims of war, oppression, indifference, and neglect. May we see in their sufferings the wounds of Christ, and share with them in his gift of new life. We ask this in his name.
Conclusion (Isaiah 2.2-5)
1 In days to come, the mountain where the Lord dwells*
will be lifted high above all the mountains
and raised above the hills.
2 All the nations will flock to it;*
countless peoples will come to it.
3 And they will say, Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord,*
to the temple of the God of Jacob,
4 who will teach us his ways,*
and we will walk in his paths;
5 who will sit in judgement over the nations;*
be arbiter among many peoples.
6 They will beat their swords into ploughshares,*
and their spears into sickles;
7 nation shall not lift up sword against nation,*
nor ever again prepare for war.
8 O people of Jacob come,*
let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Glory to the Father…
Antiphon: Show your servants your works,
and your splendour to their children.
READING(S)
Isaiah 6.1-13
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ And he said, ‘Go and say to this people:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
and turn and be healed.’
Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said:
‘Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is utterly desolate;
until the Lord sends everyone far away,
and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.
Even if a tenth part remains in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak
whose stump remains standing
when it is felled.’
The holy seed is its stump.
2 Thessalonians 1.1-12
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.
This is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marvelled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfil by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Silence
Response (Ps. 96.10)
Tell it out among the nations: ‘The Lord is King!’
Tell it out among the nations: ‘The Lord is King!’
He will judge the peoples with equity.
The Lord is King.’
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
Tell it out among the nations: ‘The Lord is King!’
BENEDICTUS
Benedictus Antiphon: Prepare the way of the Lord,* make his paths straight. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Luke 3.4,6)
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: Prepare the way of the Lord,* make his paths straight. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Luke 3.4,6)
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 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
Stir up our hearts, Lord, to prepare the way of your only-begotten Son: that, in his coming, we might serve you with our hearts made pure; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. 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.
