🌅 Chesterton Radio Morning Prayer (Lauds)
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Invitatory Antiphon
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: come, let us adore Him.
Invitatory Psalm – Psalm 94 (95)
Come let us praise the Lord
and sing for joy to God our savior.
Let us come before him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.
A mighty God is the Lord,
a great king above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his.
To him belongs the sea, for he made it,
and the dry land shaped by his hands.
Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us:
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
“Harden not your hearts as at Meriba,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.
For forty years I was wearied of these people
and I said: ‘Their hearts are astray,
these people do not know my ways.’
Then I took an oath in my anger:
‘Never shall they enter my rest.’”
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.
Hymn (Week III Cycle)
(Public Domain Hymn)
O blest Creator of the light,
Who mak’st the day with radiance bright,
And o’er the forming world didst call
The light from chaos first of all.
Whose wisdom joined in meet array
The morn and eve, and named them Day:
Night comes with all its darkling fears;
Regard Thy people’s prayers and tears.
Psalmody
Antiphon 1
The Lord is my light and my help; whom shall I fear?
Psalm 26 (27)
The Lord is my light and my help;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
before whom shall I shrink?
When evildoers draw near
to devour my flesh,
it is they, my enemies and foes,
who stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me
my heart would not fear.
Though war break out against me
even then would I trust.
There is one thing I ask of the Lord,
for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to savor the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold his temple.
Glory be to the Father…
Antiphon 2
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.
Canticle – Exodus 15:1–4, 8–13, 17–18
I will sing to the Lord, glorious his triumph!
Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!
The Lord is my strength and my song;
he is my savior.
He is my God, I praise him;
the God of my father, I extol him.
The Lord is a warrior!
“The Lord” is his name.
At the blast of your anger the waters piled high;
the moving waters stood up like a dam.
The deeps turned solid in the midst of the sea.
You stretched forth your hand, the sea engulfed them;
they sank like lead in the mighty waters.
Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?
Glory be to the Father…
Antiphon 3
Sing a new song to the Lord; his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Psalm 149
Sing a new song to the Lord,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,
let Zion’s sons exult in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music with timbrel and harp.
For the Lord takes delight in his people.
He crowns the poor with salvation.
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory,
shout for joy and take their rest.
Let the praise of God be on their lips.
Glory be to the Father…
Short Reading – Hosea 6:1–3
Come, and let us return to the Lord:
for he hath taken us, and he will heal us;
he will strike, and he will cure us.
He will revive us after two days:
on the third day he will raise us up,
and we shall live in his sight.
We shall know, and we shall follow on,
that we may know the Lord.
Responsory
℣. He will revive us after two days.
℟. On the third day he will raise us up.
℣. And we shall live in his sight.
℟. On the third day he will raise us up.
Benedictus Antiphon
The publican stood afar off and said: Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Benedictus – Luke 1:68–79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people…
(full Benedictus continues in standard Douay-Rheims form)
Intercessions
Let us bless Christ, who loves the Church and nourishes her with his word:
— Lord, hear our prayer.
Remember all who seek you with a sincere heart,
— lead them into the light of your truth.
Bless those who labor today,
— grant that their work may serve your glory.
Have mercy on the poor and the afflicted,
— and give them strength and hope.
Our Father
Our Father, who art in heaven…
Concluding Prayer
O God, who through the grace of adoption
didst choose us to be children of light,
grant, we beseech thee,
that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error
but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ…
Amen.
✨ Paradox of the Day
We return to God not because we have found Him—but because He has already found us.
📜 G.K. Chesterton Quote
“It is not that they cannot see the solution. It is that they cannot see the problem.”
🎙 Chestertonian Reflection
There is something curiously modern about the ancient sin of refusing to return. Not refusing to go forward—no, we are endlessly going forward—but refusing to go back. And yet, in the spiritual life, the road forward is almost always the road back.
The prophet cries, “Come, let us return to the Lord.” He does not say, “Come, let us improve ourselves,” or “Come, let us reinvent our lives.” He says, quite simply, return. For the tragedy of man is not that he has lost the path, but that he has forgotten that he ever left it.
We imagine repentance to be a grand and dramatic affair, something fit for saints or scandalous sinners. But it is, in fact, a quiet turning—so quiet that pride scarcely notices it. The publican, standing afar off, says only, “Lord, be merciful to me.” And in that small sentence, heaven moves.
The modern world is full of people searching for answers, yet strangely unwilling to admit the question. As Chesterton observed, the difficulty is not that we cannot see the solution, but that we cannot see the problem. And the problem, as ever, is ourselves—not in our complexity, but in our refusal.
Yet here is the wonder: God does not wait for our perfection before welcoming our return. He anticipates it. He prepares for it. He runs to meet it.
And so the paradox stands: we return to God not by discovering Him anew, but by discovering that He has been waiting all along.
Chesterton Radio
Broadcasting from Atchison, Kansas
📻 Where Old Truths Sound New Again