The Season of Advent | 4th Saturday 23 Dec 2023
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Opening:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance
and prepare the way for our salvation:
Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise make ready your way,
by turning the hearts of the disobedient
toward the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world,
we may be found a people acceptable in your sight;
for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
“Doesn’t Scripture say that the Messiah
will come from the descendants of David and
from the village of Bethlehem, where David lived?”
(John 7:42)
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From Psalms: Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26 – | Catholic Music Initiative
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OT Reading: Judges 13:2-24 (GW)
13:2 There was a man from Zorah named Manoah. Manoah was from the family of Dan. His wife was not able to have children. The Messenger of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You’ve never been able to have a child, but now you will become pregnant and have a son. Now you must be careful. Don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean food. You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. You must never cut his hair because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.”
The woman went to tell her husband. She said, “A man of God came to me. He had a very frightening appearance like the Messenger of God. So I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. He told me, ‘You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. So don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean food because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from the time he is born until he dies.’ ”
Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord, “Please, Lord, let the man of God you sent come back to us. Let him teach us what we must do for the boy who will be born.”
God did what Manoah asked. The Messenger of God came back to his wife while she was sitting out in the fields. But her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly to tell her husband. She said, “The man who came to me the other day has just appeared to me ⌞again⌟.”
Manoah immediately followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”
“Yes,” he answered.
Then Manoah asked, “When your words come true, how should the boy live and what should he do?”
The Messenger of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife must be careful to do everything I told her to do. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevines, drink any wine or liquor, or eat any unclean food. She must be careful to do everything I commanded.”
Manoah said to the Messenger of the Lord, “Please stay while we prepare a young goat for you to eat.”
But the Messenger of the Lord responded, “If I stay here, I will not eat any of your food. But if you make a burnt offering, sacrifice it to the Lord.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the Messenger of the Lord.)
Then Manoah asked the Messenger of the Lord, “What is your name? When your words come true, we will honor you.”
The Messenger of the Lord asked him, “Why do you ask for my name? It’s a name that works miracles.”
So Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and sacrificed them to the Lord on a rock he used as an altar. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did something miraculous. As the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Messenger of the Lord went up in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they immediately bowed down with their faces touching the ground.
The Messenger of the Lord didn’t appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that this had been the Messenger of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die because we have seen God.”
But Manoah’s wife replied, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He would not have let us see or hear all these things just now.”
So the woman had a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up, and the Lord blessed him.
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The Blessing Israel Passages | Erez Dan – Director and Producer, Daniel Berkove – Exec. Producer
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NT Reading: John 7:40-52 (GW)
7:40 After some of the crowd heard Jesus say these words, they said, “This man is certainly the prophet.” Other people said, “This man is the Messiah.” Still other people asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Doesn’t Scripture say that the Messiah will come from the descendants of David and from the village of Bethlehem, where David lived?” So the people were divided because of Jesus. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but they couldn’t.
When the temple guards returned, the chief priests and Pharisees asked them, “Why didn’t you bring Jesus?”
The temple guards answered, “No human has ever spoken like this man.”
The Pharisees asked the temple guards, “Have you been deceived too? Has any ruler or any Pharisee believed in him? This crowd is cursed because it doesn’t know Moses’ Teachings.”
One of those Pharisees was Nicodemus, who had previously visited Jesus. Nicodemus asked them, “Do Moses’ Teachings enable us to judge a person without first hearing that person’s side of the story? We can’t judge a person without finding out what that person has done.”
They asked Nicodemus, “Are you saying this because you’re from Galilee? Study ⌞the Scriptures⌟, and you’ll see that no prophet comes from Galilee.”
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O Little Town of Bethlehem – Lyric Video (Chanticleer)
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+ O God, our heavenly Father: Pour out your Spirit on your faithful people in the Middle East, that your Son’s life-giving Gospel may be preached to every tribe and nation. Send forth laborers into your harvest; defend them in all dangers and temptations; and hasten the time when the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in, and faithful Israel shall be saved; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
+ Lord of Heaven’s Armies, we pray for swift and total victory over all evil in the Holy Land. Set free the hostages, and deliver from bondage every person captivated by the evil death cult terrorizing the Middle East. And finally, grant heavenly wisdom to those guiding Israel militarily, politically, diplomatically, and especially those who will restore Israel spiritually, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
+ Hasten, O Father, the coming of your kingdom; and grant that we your servants, who now live by faith, may with joy behold your Son at his coming in glorious majesty; even Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.
Closing: FaithandWorship.com | John Birch
May the Lord, when he comes,
find us watching and waiting.
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
His Son is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact likeness of God’s being. He holds everything together through his powerful words. After he had cleansed people from their sins, he now holds the honored position—the one next to the majestic God [the Father] on the heavenly throne.
“The Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings for you people who fear my name. You will go out and leap like calves let out of a stall. You will trample on wicked people, because on the day I act they will be ashes under the soles of your feet,” says the Lord of Armies.
“Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will send you a prophet, an Israelite like me. Listen to everything he tells you. Those who won’t listen to that prophet will be excluded from the people.’ Samuel and all the prophets who followed him spoke about these days. You are the descendants of the prophets and the heirs of the promise that God made to our ancestors when he said to Abraham, ‘Through your descendant all people on earth will be blessed.’ God has brought his servant back to life and has sent him to you first. God did this to bless you by turning every one of you from your evil ways.”
The Peanut Gallery 