Isaiah 47 (Listen)
The Humiliation of Babylon
47:1 Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no more be called
tender and delicate.
2 Take the millstones and grind flour,
put off your veil,
strip off your robe, uncover your legs,
pass through the rivers.
3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
and your disgrace shall be seen.
I will take vengeance,
and I will spare no one.
4 Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name—
is the Holy One of Israel.
5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans;
for you shall no more be called
the mistress of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my people;
I profaned my heritage;
I gave them into your hand;
you showed them no mercy;
on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.
7 You said, “I shall be mistress forever,”
so that you did not lay these things to heart
or remember their end.
8 Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures,
who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow
or know the loss of children”:
9 These two things shall come to you
in a moment, in one day;
the loss of children and widowhood
shall come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
and the great power of your enchantments.
10 You felt secure in your wickedness;
you said, “No one sees me”;
your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray,
and you said in your heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me.”
11 But evil shall come upon you,
which you will not know how to charm away;
disaster shall fall upon you,
for which you will not be able to atone;
and ruin shall come upon you suddenly,
of which you know nothing.
12 Stand fast in your enchantments
and your many sorceries,
with which you have labored from your youth;
perhaps you may be able to succeed;
perhaps you may inspire terror.
13 You are wearied with your many counsels;
let them stand forth and save you,
those who divide the heavens,
who gaze at the stars,
who at the new moons make known
what shall come upon you.
14 Behold, they are like stubble;
the fire consumes them;
they cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame.
No coal for warming oneself is this,
no fire to sit before!
15 Such to you are those with whom you have labored,
who have done business with you from your youth;
they wander about, each in his own direction;
there is no one to save you.
Hebrews 10:19–31 (Listen)
The Full Assurance of Faith
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
John 5:2–18 (Listen)
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
Jesus Is Equal with God
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Morning Psalms
Psalm 108 (Listen)
With God We Shall Do Valiantly
A Song. A Psalm of David.
108:1 My heart is steadfast, O God!
I will sing and make melody with all my being!
2 Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
3 I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
4 For your steadfast love is great above the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth!
6 That your beloved ones may be delivered,
give salvation by your right hand and answer me!
7 God has promised in his holiness:
“With exultation I will divide up Shechem
and portion out the Valley of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin;
upon Edom I cast my shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
10 Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Have you not rejected us, O God?
You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
12 Oh grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
13 With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
Psalm 150 (Listen)
Let Everything Praise the Lord
150:1 Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
3 Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
Evening Psalms
Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, 1622 (January 24)
About the Commemoration
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Continues
Francis was born in the Château de Sales in the Savoy district of France in 1567 and educated at Annecy, Paris, and Padua. In 1593, despite some opposition from his father, he was ordained priest in the Diocese of Geneva. He served there for twenty-nine years, first as priest to the people of his native Chablais country, who had become Calvinists. He approached them in the spirit of love (he said, “Whoever preaches with love preaches effectively”), surviving attacks by assassins, and by the end of four years most of the people had returned to the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1602 Francis was appointed bishop of Geneva. With characteristic gentle persuasion, he began the reform and reorganization of a most difficult diocese. He gave away his private money and lived very simply, resisting all efforts by the French king to have him move to Paris. He governed his diocese with love and gentleness. Children adored him and he himself taught them when they came to the cathedral for instruction. He devoted himself especially to guiding the laity in the spiritual life, something that was previously regarded as the preserve of the religious. He is responsible for what became a spiritual classic, Introduction to the Devout Life, based on notes he originally wrote for one of his penitents, showing how it is possible to live a spiritual life while living in the world. Perhaps his greatest book is The Love of God. His works have been published in twenty-six volumes.
With Jane de Chantal (1552-1641; feast day August 21) he founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610 for the religious education of young girls. Francis died of a stroke in Lyons in 1622 at the age of fifty-five. A Calvinist minister said of him, in a much-quoted remark, “If we honored any man as a saint, I know no one since the days of the apostles more worthy of it than this man.”
Francis de Sales was introduced to the Lutheran calendar by Wilhelm Löhe (1868) and is on the 1997 calendar of the Church of England, the Christian Year.
Excerpts from New Book of Festivals & Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints by Philip H. Pfatteicher, copyright, 2008 by Fortress Press, an imprint of Augsburg Fortress.
See also: Francis de Sales; Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Reading
From Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis de Sales, Part 1, chapter 3
When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each in accord with one’s individual character, station, and calling.
I say that devotion must be practiced in different ways by the noble and by the worker, by the servant and by the master, by the widow, by the unmarried girl, and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation, and to the duties of each individual person.
Do you think, my dear Philothea, that it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a worker to spend the whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be, like a bishop, constantly meeting the needs of our neighbor? Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganized, and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently. True devotion, however, does not destroy anything at all. Instead, it perfects and fulfills all things. Devotion that contradicts anyone’s legitimate station and calling is certainly false devotion.
The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and it leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as it found them. True devotion does still better. Not only does it not injure any sort of calling or occupation, it even embellishes and enhances it.
Moreover, just as every sort of gem, cast in honey, becomes brighter and more sparkling, each according to its color, so each person becomes more acceptable and fitting in personal vocation by setting vocation in the context of devotion. Through devotion your family cares become more peaceful, mutual love between husband and wife becomes more sincere, the service we owe to the master becomes more faithful, and our work, no matter what it is, becomes more pleasant and agreeable.
It is therefore an error and even a heresy to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from the military life, the workshop, the court, or the family. I acknowledge, my dear Philothea, that the type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic, and religious surely cannot be exercised in those occupations, but there are many other kinds of devotion suitable for perfecting those who live in secular life.
Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to spiritual perfection.
Trans. PHP, based on A Short Breviary by the monks of St. John’s Abbey and the English translation of the Office of Readings from the Liturgy of the Hours by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy.
Propers
O God, you gave your blessed bishop Francis de Sales the spirit of compassion to befriend all on the way of salvation: By his example, lead us to show to the world the tenderness of your own love in the service of others; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
RS, trans. PHP
Readings: Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13; Psalm 94:1-14; John 15:9-17
Hymn of the Day: “Faith of our fathers, living still” (H82 558, SBH 516; LBW 500, ELW 812) [Stanza 3 describes Francis de Sales’s way of love; the meaning, however, has unfortunately been undermined in the LBW and ELW alteration of the original text.]
Prayers: For devotion to Christ in our daily lives, whatever our circumstances; For faithful stewardship of possessions; For men and women in their everyday life; For writers and journalists; For the unity of the church; For Pentecostal and charismatic churches.
Preface: A Saint (1)
Color: White
This daily prayer and Bible reading guide, Devoted to Prayer (based on Acts 2:42), was conceived and prepared by the Rev. Andrew S. Ames Fuller, director of communications for the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). After a challenging year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been provided with a unique opportunity to revitalize the ancient practice of daily prayer and Scripture reading in our homes. While the Reading the Word of God three-year lectionary provided a much-needed and refreshing calendar for our congregations to engage in Scripture reading, this calendar includes a missing component of daily devotion: prayer. This guide is to provide the average layperson and pastor with the simple tools for sorting through the busyness of their lives and reclaiming an act of daily discipleship with their Lord. The daily readings follow the Lutheran Book of Worship two-year daily lectionary, which reflect the church calendar closely. The commemorations are adapted from Philip H. Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals and Commemorations, a proposed common calendar of the saints that builds from the Lutheran Book of Worship, but includes saints from many of those churches in ecumenical conversation with the NALC. The introductory portion is adapted from Christ Church (Plano)’s Pray Daily. Our hope is that this calendar and guide will provide new life for congregations learning and re-learning to pray in the midst of a difficult and changing world.