FRIDAY

20

August

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

(1090 – 1153)

White

He was born in France. In 1112 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux. Within three years he had been sent out to found a new monastery at Clairvaux, in Champagne, where he remained abbot for the rest of his life. By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter houses of Clairvaux itself.

Entrance Antiphon

Filled by the Lord with a spirit of understanding, blessed Bernard ministered streams of clear teaching to the people of God.

Collect

O God, who made of the Abbot Saint Bernard a man consumed with zeal for your house and a light shining and burning in your Church, grant, through his intercession, that we may be on fire with the same spirit and walk always as children of light. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

First reading: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22

In the days of the Judges famine came to the land and a certain man from Bethlehem of Judah went – he, his wife and his two sons – to live in the country of Moab. Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she and her two sons were left. These married Moabite women: one was named Orpah and the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died and the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband. So she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and went back to her people. But Ruth clung to her. Naomi said to her, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. You must return too; follow your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you and to turn back from your company, for wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live, I will live. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.’ This was how Naomi, she who returned from the country of Moab, came back with Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Psalm 145 (146):5-10

R/     My soul, give praise to the Lord.

1.     He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who alone made heaven and earth, the seas and all they contain.

2.     It is he who keeps faith for ever, who is just to those who are oppressed. It is he who gives bread to the hungry, the Lord, who sets prisoners free!

3.     the Lord who gives sight to the blind, who raises up those who are bowed down, the Lord, who protects the stranger and upholds the widow and orphan.

4.   It is the Lord who loves the just but thwarts the path of the wicked. The Lord will reign for ever,Zion’s God, from age to age.

Gospel Acclamation: Ps 118:18

Alleluia, alleluia! Open my eyes, O Lord, that I may consider the wonders of your law. Alleluia!

Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees they got together and, to disconcert him, one of them put a question, ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets also.’

Prayer over the Offerings

We offer to your majesty, O Lord, the Sacrament of unity and peace, as we celebrate the Memorial of the Abbot Saint Bernard, a man outstanding in word and deed, who strove to bring order and concord to your Church. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Antiphon: Jn 15: 9

As the Father loves me, so I also love you; remain in my love, says the Lord.

Prayer after Communion

May the food we have received, O Lord, as we honour Saint Bernard, work its effect in us, so that, strengthened by his example and instructed by his teaching, we may be caught up in love of your incarnate Word. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Meditation

In the Gospel, Jesus summarises the whole of the law into two great commandments found in Deuteronomy, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”, and in Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. Love directs all that God does. This is why He commands us to love God above all else and obey His commandments and love our neighbour as ourselves. “God’s love must be poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit—” as St. Paul says in Romans 5:5.