Chesterton Radio Morning Prayer
Friday, May 15, 2026, Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter — Psalter Week II
God, come to my assistance.
Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia.
Invitatory
Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Antiphon: The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.
Psalm 94
Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
For in his hand are all the ends of the earth: and the heights of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.
For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Glory be to the Father...
Antiphon: The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.
Hymn
At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide
Flowing from his pierced side;
Praise we him, whose love divine
Gives his sacred Blood for wine,
Gives his Body for the feast,
Christ the Victim, Christ the Priest.
Mighty Victim from the sky,
Hell’s fierce powers beneath thee lie;
Thou hast conquered in the fight,
Thou hast brought us life and light:
Now no more can death appall,
Now no more the grave enthrall;
Thou hast opened paradise,
And in thee thy saints shall rise.
Psalmody
Antiphon 1
Have courage, my son; thy sins are forgiven thee, alleluia.
Psalm 50
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my iniquity,
and my sin is always before me.
To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee:
that thou mayest be justified in thy words, and mayest overcome when thou art judged.
For behold I was conceived in iniquities;
and in sins did my mother conceive me.
For behold thou hast loved truth:
the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast made manifest to me.
Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed:
thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.
To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness:
and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.
Turn away thy face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create a clean heart in me, O God:
and renew a right spirit within my bowels.
Cast me not away from thy face;
and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
and strengthen me with a perfect spirit.
I will teach the unjust thy ways:
and the wicked shall be converted to thee.
Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salvation:
and my tongue shall extol thy justice.
O Lord, thou wilt open my lips:
and my mouth shall declare thy praise.
For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it:
with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted.
A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit:
a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Deal favourably, O Lord, in thy good will with Sion;
that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up.
Then shalt thou accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and whole burnt offerings:
then shall they lay calves upon thy altar.
Glory be to the Father...
Antiphon 1: Have courage, my son; thy sins are forgiven thee, alleluia.
Antiphon 2
Thou hast loved us, O Lord, and hast washed us from our sins in thy blood, alleluia.
Canticle — Tobit 13
Bless the Lord, ye his elect, keep days of joy, and give glory to him.
Jerusalem, city of God, the Lord hath chastised thee for the works of thy hands.
Give glory to the Lord for thy good things,
and bless the God eternal.
That he may rebuild his tabernacle in thee,
and may call back all the captives to thee.
Thou shalt shine with a glorious light:
and all the ends of the earth shall worship thee.
Nations from afar shall come to thee:
and shall bring gifts, and shall adore the Lord in thee.
Blessed are they that love thee:
and blessed are they that rejoice in thy peace.
My soul, bless thou the Lord,
because the Lord our God hath delivered Jerusalem his city from all her troubles.
Glory be to the Father...
Antiphon 2: Thou hast loved us, O Lord, and hast washed us from our sins in thy blood, alleluia.
Antiphon 3
The Lord hath built up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the dispersed of Israel, alleluia.
Psalm 147
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem:
praise thy God, O Sion.
Because he hath strengthened the bolts of thy gates,
he hath blessed thy children within thee.
Who hath placed peace in thy borders:
and filleth thee with the fat of corn.
Who sendeth forth his speech to the earth:
his word runneth swiftly.
Who giveth snow like wool:
scattereth mists like ashes.
He sendeth his crystal like morsels:
who shall stand before the face of his cold?
He shall send out his word, and shall melt them:
his wind shall blow, and the waters shall run.
Who declareth his word to Jacob:
his justices and his judgments to Israel.
He hath not done in like manner to every nation:
and his judgments he hath not made manifest to them.
Glory be to the Father...
Antiphon 3: The Lord hath built up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the dispersed of Israel, alleluia.
Short Reading
Romans 10:8–10
The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart. This is the word of faith, which we preach. For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Responsory
The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia.
He who hung upon the cross for us,
Alleluia, alleluia.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
The Lord is risen from the tomb, alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Canticle
Antiphon
Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, alleluia.
Benedictus
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people:
And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us,
in the house of David his servant:
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets,
who are from the beginning:
Salvation from our enemies,
and from the hand of all that hate us:
To perform mercy to our fathers,
and to remember his holy testament,
The oath, which he swore to Abraham our father,
that he would grant to us,
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
we may serve him without fear,
In holiness and justice before him,
all our days.
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways:
To give knowledge of salvation to his people,
unto the remission of their sins:
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God,
in which the Orient from on high hath visited us:
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death:
to direct our feet into the way of peace.
Glory be to the Father...
Antiphon: Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, alleluia.
Intercessions
Christ our Lord promised that sorrow would become joy. Let us pray:
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
Lord Jesus, when the world rejoices at what is passing away,
teach us to rejoice in what cannot perish.
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
You comforted your disciples before the hour of grief,
comfort all who suffer in silence today.
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
You turned the Cross into the tree of life,
turn our trials into trust, and our fears into faith.
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
Bless the work of our hands this day,
that it may become an offering of patience, honesty, and charity.
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
Bring home those who have wandered from prayer,
and let them discover that your mercy was waiting before they returned.
Risen Lord, make our hearts rejoice.
Our Father
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil. Amen.
Concluding Prayer
O risen Christ, who promised that the grief of thy disciples would be changed into joy, grant that we may pass through the sorrows of this life with Easter faith. Let no suffering make us forget thy victory, and no passing gladness make us lose the greater joy of thy presence; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The Christian does not escape sorrow by denying it, but by discovering that sorrow itself has become a doorway.
G.K. Chesterton Quote
“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Chestertonian Reflection
Our Lord does not promise His disciples that they shall not weep. That would be a small promise, and not a Christian one. He promises something far stranger: that their weeping shall become joy.
The world imagines joy as the absence of trouble, as a quiet room without thunder, a road without stones, a life without Good Friday. But Christianity, with its usual scandalous realism, does not pretend that the nails were not sharp or that the tomb was not sealed. It merely insists that the tomb had a door on the other side.
This is why Easter joy is not optimism. Optimism is often a cheerful guess. Easter is a fact with wounds in its hands.
Christ compares sorrow to a woman in labor. That is to say, pain is not always a contradiction of life. Sometimes pain is the sign that life is arriving. The Christian is not asked to admire suffering for its own sake. He is asked to believe that in the hands of Christ even suffering may be made fruitful.
So today, when some burden presses upon the heart, we need not pretend it is light. We may name it honestly. We may even weep over it. But we must not give it the final word. The final word belongs to the risen Christ, who says not merely, “You shall feel better,” but, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”
And that joy no man shall take from you.
Chesterton Radio Sign-Off
This is Chesterton Radio Morning Prayer.
May your sorrow be transfigured, your work be sanctified, and your joy be found where the world least expects it: in the risen Christ.