SAINT COLMAN OF DROMORE
He was active in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. He spent most of his life in the Dromore area of County Down. He was persuaded by Saint Mac Nissi to settle at Dromore in around 514, where he became the first bishop of the See of Dromore.
Entrance Antiphon
Turn to me and have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am alone and poor. See my lowliness and suffering and take away all my sins, my God.
Collect
O God, whose providence never fails in its design, keep from us, we humbly beseech you, all that might harm us and grant all that works for our good. 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: Tobit 3: 1-11, 16-17
Sad at heart, I, Tobit, sighed and wept, and began this prayer of lamentation: “You are just, O Lord, and just are all your works. All your ways are grace and truth, and you are the Judge of the world. Therefore, Lord, remember me, look on me. Do not punish me for my sins or for my heedless faults or for those of my fathers. For we have sinned against you and broken your commandments; and you have given us over to be plundered, to captivity and death, to be the talk, the laughing-stock and scorn of all the nations among whom you have dispersed us. Whereas all your decrees are true when you deal with me as my faults deserve, and those of my fathers, since we have neither kept your commandments nor walked in truth before you; so now, do with me as you will; be pleased to take my life from me; I desire to be delivered from earth and to become earth again. For death is better for me than life. I have been reviled without a cause and I am distressed beyond measure. Lord, I wait for the sentence you will give to deliver me from this affliction. Let me go away to my everlasting home; do not turn your face from me, O Lord. For it is better to die than still to live in the face of trouble that knows no pity; I am weary of hearing myself traduced.” It chanced on the same day that Sarah the daughter of Raguel, who lived in Media at Ecbatana, also heard insults from one of her father’s maids. You must know that she had been given in marriage seven times, and that Asmodeus, that worst of demons, had killed her bridegrooms one after another before ever they had slept with her as man with wife. The servant-girl said, “Yes, you kill your bridegrooms yourself. That makes seven already to whom you have been given, and you have not once been in luck yet. Just because your bridegrooms have died, that is no reason for punishing us. Go and join them, and may we be spared the sight of any child of yours!” That day, she grieved, she sobbed, and went up to her father’s room intending to hang herself. But then she thought, “Suppose they blamed my father! They will say, “You had an only daughter whom you loved, and now she has hanged herself for grief.” I cannot cause my father a sorrow which would bring down his old age to the dwelling of the dead. I should do better not to hang myself, but to beg the Lord to let me die and not live to hear anymore insults.” This time the prayer of each of them found favour before the glory of God, and Raphael was sent to bring remedy to them both. He was to take the white spots from the eyes of Tobit, so that he might see God’s light with his own eyes; and he was to give Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, as bride to Tobias son of Tobit, and to rid her of Asmodeus, that worst of demons. For it was to Tobias before all other suitors that she belonged by right. Tobit was coming back from the courtyard into the house at the same moment as Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was coming down from the upper room.
Psalm 24 (25): 2-9
R/ To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
I trust you, let me not be disappointed; do not let my enemies triumph. Those who hope in you shall not be disappointed, but only those who wantonly break faith.
Lord, make me know your ways. Lord, teach me your paths. Make me walk in your truth, and teach me: for you are God my saviour.
In you I hope all day long because of your goodness, O Lord. Remember your mercy, Lord, and the love you have shown from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth. In your love remember me.
The Lord is good and upright. He shows the path to those who stray, He guides the humble in the right path, He teaches his way to the poor.
Gospel Acclamation: Jn17:17
Alleluia, alleluia! Your word is truth, O Lord: consecrate us in the truth. Alleluia!
Gospel: Mark 12:18-27
Some Sadducees – who deny that there is a resurrection – came to him and they put this question to him, “Master, we have it from Moses in writing, if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died leaving no children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus said to them, “Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.”
Prayer over the Offerings
Trusting in your compassion, O Lord, we come eagerly with our offerings to your sacred altar, that, through the purifying action of your grace, we may be cleansed by the very mysteries we serve. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Cf. Ps 16: 6
To you I call, for you will surely heed me, O God; turn your ear to me; hear my words.
Prayer after Communion
Govern by your Spirit, we pray, O Lord, those you feed with the Body and Blood of your Son, that, professing you not just in word or in speech, but also in works and in truth, we may merit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
To make himself known to Moses, God referred to the three patriarchs as living. They are alive when God speaks to Moses, because they have been enlivened by the power of God since the moment of their bodily death, and so they are destined for the Resurrection. The same mystery will happen to all those who die in friendship with God. The Resurrection is not a reproduction of the habits of this world; it is communion with the life of God. Thus, whether it be brotherly life, married life, filial piety or the tenderness of loved ones, all love which, on earth, will have translated the love of God, will be taken up, assumed, and transcended by the love of God which will be all in all, for love of God. Yes, to believe in the Resurrection is to allow oneself to be inhabited by hope. It changes the way we look around us. May we be graced to taste the fruits of the Resurrection through each Eucharist.