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Novena to St Francis of Assisi - Day 1

OUR VOCATION
1st -25th September
Hymn
Almighty, eternal God, humbly we bring
Our prayer and our pleading to you:
O make us to do for your sake everything
We know that you want us to do.
And make us to want in our hearts and our minds
What pleases you, merciful Lord,
O break us and shape us to your own designs,
To your holy will to accord
So, cleansing our eyes and enlightening our hearts
With fire of your Spirit aglow,
Our feet may you set on the roads and the paths
That Jesus Christ walked here below
And thus by your favour alone and your grace
Shall journey of ours be closed,
Where we shall eternally gaze on your face
With son and the most Holy Ghost.
Psalmody
Ant. 1 The Rule and Life of the Friars Minor is this: to observe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience without anything of one’s own and in Chastity (LR I : 1)
Psalm 139: 1-18, 23-24
Where can I go from your spirit,
Where can I flee from you presence?
Lord, you search me and you know me,
You know my resting and my rising,
You discern my purpose from afar.
You mark when I walk or lie down.
All my ways lie open to you.
Before ever a word is on my tongue
You know it, O Lord, through and through.
Behind and before you besiege me,
Your hand ever laid upon me.
Too wonderful for me, this knowledge,
Too high, beyond my reach.
O where can I go from your spirit,
Or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there.
If I lie in the grave, you are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn
And dwell at the sea’s furthest end,
Even there your hand would lead me,
Your right hand would hold me fast.
If I say: “Let the darkness hide me
And the light around me be night,”
Even darkness is not dark for you
And the night is as clear as the day.
For it was you who created my being,
Knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
For the wonders of all your creation.
Already you knew my soul,
My body held no secret from you
When I was being fashioned in secret
And moulded in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw all my actions,
They were all of them written in your book;
Every one of my days was decreed
Before one of them came into being.
To me, how mysterious your thoughts,
The sum of them not to be numbered!
If I count them, they are more than the sand;
To finish, I must be eternal like you,
O search me, God, and know my heart
O test me and know my thoughts.
See that I follow not the wrong path
And lead me in the Path of life eternal.
Ant. 1 The Rule and Life of the Friars Minor is this: to observe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience without anything of one’s own and in Chastity. (LR I:1)
Ant. 2 Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord, you who have come together from many parts and provinces. (ILCl 1)
Canticle: Ephesians 1:3-10
Praised be the God and Father
Of our Lord Jesus Christ ,
Who has bestowed on us in Christ
Every spiritual blessing in the heavens
God chose us in him
Before the world began
To be holy
And blameless in his sight.
He predestined us
To be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ,
Such was his will and pleasure,
That all might praise the glorious favour
He has bestowed on us in his beloved.
In him and through his bleed, we have been redeemed,
And our sins forgiven,
So immeasurably generous
Is God’s favour to us.
God has given us the wisdom
to understand fully the mystery,
the plan he was pleased
to decree in Christ.
A plan to be carried out
In Christ, in the fullness of time,
To bring all things into one in him,
In the heavens and on earth.
Ant. 2 Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord, you who have come together from many parts and provinces. (ILCl 1)
Ant. 3 And the Lord gave me brothers, no one showed me what I should do, but the most High Himself revealed to me His Holy Gospel. (Test 14)
Psalm 45
My heart overflows with noble words
To the king I must speak the song I have made;
My tongue as nimble as the pen of a scribe.
Your are the fairest of the children of men
And graciousness is poured upon your lips:
Because God has blessed you for evermore.
O mighty one, gird your sword upon your thigh;
In splendour and state, ride on in triumph
For the cause of truth and goodness and right.
Take aim with your bow in your dread right hand.
Your arrows are sharp: peoples fall beneath you.
The foes of the king fall down and lose heart.
Your throne, O God, shall endure forever,
A sceptre of justice is the sceptre of your kingdom.
Your love is for justice; your hatred for evil.
Therefore God, your God has anointed you
With the oil of gladness above other kings:
Your robes are fragrant with aloes and myrrh.
Ant. 3 And the Lord gave me brothers; no one showed me what I should do, but the most High Himself revealed to me the Holy Gospel. (Test 14)
Scripture Reading (1Cor 1: 26-31)
Consider you own call, brothers and sisters not many or you are wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Responsory
V/- Because of God’s Mercy and love, He saw fit to speak these words about our vocation and selection through His saint. (TestCl 5)
R/- Because of God’s Mercy and love, He saw fit to speak these words about our vocation and selection through His saint. (TestCl 5)
V/- If anyone, desiring by divine inspiration to accept this life, should come to our brother, let him be received by them with kindness. (ER II 1)
R/- Because of God’s ......
V/- Glory to the Father.....
R/- Because of God’s
Magnificart Ant. According to the Gospel: No one having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. (Lk 9: 62. LR II. 13)
Intercessions
Lord help us that therefore let us desire nothing else, let us wish nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause us delight - except our creator and redeemer and saviour, the one true God. (ER XXIII 9)
Res: Lord, hear our prayer.
Lord make me understand, that there were indeed many reasons why you should have not called me and still, you did call me - give us hope, O God to hope against hope, that we never lose our hope, even when community living tends to become more and more hotel-like rather than home-like.
Lord you called Moses who was a stammerer, Abraham who was too old, Solomon who was too rich, Noah who got drunk, Miriam who was a gossip, Jacob who was a liar. David who had an affair, Jeremiah who suffered from depressions, Peter who was a coward and Paul who was a murderer - As you chose them, O God, you have chosen us. Help us to think beyond and to go beyond our faults and failures and our downs and doubts.
Our Father...
Concluding prayer (By All)
Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, grant us in our misery (the grace) to do for You along what we know you want us to do, and always to desire what pleases you. Thus inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened, and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footprints of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And, by Your grace alone, may we make our way to You, Most High, who live and rule in perfect Trinity, simple Unity, and are glorified; God all-powerful forever and ever.
Hymn
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love,
Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in You
Oh Master, grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness - only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to each one that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
Br. Jesu Raja A.
OFM Franciscans India

 

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