Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Episcopalian Daily Readings For Tuesday, 15 March

From satucket.com, wapedia.com and forewardmovement.org:


Daily Readings:


Saints/Martyrs/Heroes/Feasts/Fasts to be observed/commemmorated/celebrated:  Lent


Scriptural Readings:

Morning Office:

Psalm 45


Ode for a Royal WeddingTo the leader: according to Lilies. Of the Korahites. A Maskil. A love song.

1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme;

I address my verses to the king;

my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.





2 You are the most handsome of men;

grace is poured upon your lips;

therefore God has blessed you for ever.

3 Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one,

in your glory and majesty.





4 In your majesty ride on victoriously

for the cause of truth and to defend* the right;

let your right hand teach you dread deeds.

5 Your arrows are sharp

in the heart of the king’s enemies;

the peoples fall under you.





6 Your throne, O God,* endures for ever and ever.

Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity;

7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you

with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.

From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;

9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honour;

at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.





10 Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;

forget your people and your father’s house,

11 and the king will desire your beauty.

Since he is your lord, bow to him;

12 the people* of Tyre will seek your favour with gifts,

the richest of the people 13with all kinds of wealth.





The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes;*

14 in many-coloured robes she is led to the king;

behind her the virgins, her companions, follow.

15 With joy and gladness they are led along

as they enter the palace of the king.





16 In the place of ancestors you, O king,* shall have sons;

you will make them princes in all the earth.

17 I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations;

therefore the peoples will praise you for ever and ever.

 
Deuteronomy 9:4-12


4 When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land’; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. 5It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of those nations that the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfil the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

6 Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. 7Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

8 Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. 9When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. 11At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.’

 
Hebrews 3:1-11


Moses a Servant, Christ a Son3Therefore, brothers and sisters,* holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also ‘was faithful in all* God’s* house.’ 3Yet Jesus* is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honour than the house itself. 4(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5Now Moses was faithful in all God’s* house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. 6Christ, however, was faithful over God’s* house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm* the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.

Warning against Unbelief7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

‘Today, if you hear his voice,

8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

as on the day of testing in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors put me to the test,

though they had seen my works 10for forty years.

Therefore I was angry with that generation,

and I said, “They always go astray in their hearts,

and they have not known my ways.”

11 As in my anger I swore,

“They will not enter my rest.” ’

 
 
Evening Office:
 
Psalm 47


God’s Rule over the NationsTo the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.

1 Clap your hands, all you peoples;

shout to God with loud songs of joy.

2 For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome,

a great king over all the earth.

3 He subdued peoples under us,

and nations under our feet.

4 He chose our heritage for us,

the pride of Jacob whom he loves.

Selah





5 God has gone up with a shout,

the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;

sing praises to our King, sing praises.

7 For God is the king of all the earth;

sing praises with a psalm.*





8 God is king over the nations;

God sits on his holy throne.

9 The princes of the peoples gather

as the people of the God of Abraham.

For the shields of the earth belong to God;

he is highly exalted.

 
Psalm 48


The Glory and Strength of ZionA Song. A Psalm of the Korahites.

1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised

in the city of our God.

His holy mountain, 2beautiful in elevation,

is the joy of all the earth,

Mount Zion, in the far north,

the city of the great King.

3 Within its citadels God

has shown himself a sure defence.





4 Then the kings assembled,

they came on together.

5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded;

they were in panic, they took to flight;

6 trembling took hold of them there,

pains as of a woman in labour,

7 as when an east wind shatters

the ships of Tarshish.

8 As we have heard, so have we seen

in the city of the Lord of hosts,

in the city of our God,

which God establishes for ever.

Selah





9 We ponder your steadfast love, O God,

in the midst of your temple.

10 Your name, O God, like your praise,

reaches to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with victory.

11 Let Mount Zion be glad,

let the towns* of Judah rejoice

because of your judgements.





12 Walk about Zion, go all around it,

count its towers,

13 consider well its ramparts;

go through its citadels,

that you may tell the next generation

14 that this is God,

our God for ever and ever.

He will be our guide for ever.

 
John 2:13-22


Jesus Cleanses the Temple13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 
Eucharistic Office:
 
Psalm 34:15-22
 
15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,


and his ears are open to their cry.

16 The face of the Lord is against evildoers,

to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,

and rescues them from all their troubles.

18 The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,

and saves the crushed in spirit.





19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

but the Lord rescues them from them all.

20 He keeps all their bones;

not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil brings death to the wicked,

and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

 
Isaiah 55:6-11


6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,

call upon him while he is near;

7 let the wicked forsake their way,

and the unrighteous their thoughts;

let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.





10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.



Matthew 6:7-15


7 ‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 ‘Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.*

12 And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,*

but rescue us from the evil one.*

14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
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Foreward Movement:

Today's Meditation


TUESDAY, March 15

John 2:13-22. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple.



Touring a large cathedral, I saw the shop in the corner selling books, postcards, and gifts. “We’ve restored the money changers to the temple,” I grumbled. But that wasn’t true. People weren’t forced to buy something in order to worship in the cathedral, as they were at the Jerusalem temple, and the cathedral gift shop was small and tasteful, not like the barnyard animals tethered outside the temple. No, I can’t see Jesus running out the ladies operating the cathedral gift shop.



But I’m not so sure about the clergy and officers of the cathedral. Same goes for many parish churches. I’ve sat in vestry meetings at which the main topic was how to get more money out of the people—more fundraisers, special appeals, sales, raffles, and auctions. At one parish I visited, I was even asked to pay a dollar for a cookie at the coffee hour. Where is God in all that? Surely God is there somewhere, but I have trouble locating God in some churches. What we do in God’s name shouldn’t make God hard to find.



PRAY for the Missionary Area of Macau (Hong Kong)



Ps 45 * 47, 48; Deuteronomy 9:4-12; Hebrews 3:1-11



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