Memory of the Mother of the Lord

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Feast of Mary of Mount Carmel.


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Isaiah 26,7-9.12.16-19

The path of the Upright One is honesty; you smooth the honest way of the upright. Following the path of your judgements, Yahweh, we set our hopes in you, your name, your memory are all our soul desires. At night my soul longs for you and my spirit within me seeks you out; for when your judgements appear on earth the inhabitants of the world learn what saving justice is. Yahweh, you will grant us peace, having completed all our undertakings for us. Yahweh, in distress they had recourse to you, they expended themselves in prayer, since your punishment was on them. As a pregnant woman near her time of delivery writhes and cries out in her pangs, so have we been, Yahweh, in your eyes: we have been pregnant, we have writhed, but we have given birth only to wind: we have not given salvation to the earth, no inhabitants for the world have been brought to birth. Your dead will come back to life, your corpses will rise again. Wake up and sing, you dwellers in the dust, for your dew will be a radiant dew, but the earth will give birth to the shades.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

This passage belongs to the section of the Book of Isaiah known as "the Apocalypse of Isaiah" (chapters 24-27).We can read this passage as the prophet's invitation to trust totally in the Lord who will help us read history, through his eyes and learn from it. Abandonment in God is revealed mostly in turning to Him in the moments of test and suffering - like a woman during her delivery - sure that He will help us. Help can come only from on High and life only from God. The righteous person knows that any of his or her efforts is futile without the help that comes from on high: "We have won no victories on earth, and no one is born to inhabit the world." The awareness of our weakness does not lead to resignation or pessimism. The righteous person knows that only the Lord can wake people back to life. That is why he never stops searching for the Lord in the midst of pain and tribulation, knowing that God is like a father who never abandons his children. Amidst the tragedy of a time without peace - as our world today - we need to look for God once again and let His word shed light on the lives of men and women. Too often because of pain we close in on ourselves and think that the Lord is far from us and our concerns. In truth God does not scorn our suffering; He does not let even one drop of the pain of this world, of the suffering of the poor, fall into the void. Rather He understands their anxiety and their pain and quickly comes to their aid. Let us join in the prayer of the prophet, which is the best and most true response to the world's suffering