INTROIT Ps. 68:5b,6a,35b; Ps. 68:1
(Antiphon) God is in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families;
The God of Israel is He who gives strength and power to His people.
Let God arise, Let His enemies be scattered; Let those also who hate Him flee before Him.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
COLLECT
Almighty and Everlasting God, always more ready to hear than we to pray and wont to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of Your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
OLD TESTAMENT READING 2 Samuel 22:21-29
21 “The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me. 22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord, And have not wickedly departed from my God. 23 For all His judgments were before me; And as for His statutes, I did not depart from them. 24 I was also blameless before Him, And I kept myself from my iniquity. 25 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness in His eyes. 26 “With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; 27 With the pure You will show Yourself pure; And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. 28 You will save the humble people; But Your eyes are on the haughty, that You may bring them down. 29 “For You are my lamp, O Lord; The Lord shall enlighten my darkness. (NKJV)
GRADUAL Ps. 28:7b,1a,2a
My heart trusted in God, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him.
To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock: Do not be silent to me, Hear the voice of my supplications.
EPISTLE READING 1 Corinthians 15:1-10
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. (NKJV)
VERSE Ps. 90:1
Alleluia. Alleluia. LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Alleluia.
HOLY GOSPEL Luke 18:9-14
9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (NKJV)
