🌅 Morning Prayer — Thursday
February 26, 2026
Invitatory
℣. O Lord, open thou my lips.
℟. And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Antiphon: Come, let us adore the Lord, for he is merciful and full of compassion.
Psalm 94 (95) — Invitatory Psalm (Douay-Rheims)
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.
To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:
As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness:
Where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.
And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.
Antiphon: Come, let us adore the Lord, for he is merciful and full of compassion.
Hymn (Public Domain Cycle)
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
— Isaac Watts (1707)
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His Blood.
See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Psalmody (Psalter Week II — Thursday Lauds)
Psalm 79 (80)
Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel: thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep.
Thou that sittest upon the cherubims, shine forth
Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasses.
Stir up thy might, and come to save us.
Convert us, O God: and shew us thy face, and we shall be saved.
O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy servant?
How long wilt thou feed us with the bread of tears: and give us for our drink tears in measure?
Thou hast made us to be a contradiction to our neighbours: and our enemies have scoffed at us.
Convert us, O God of hosts: and shew us thy face, and we shall be saved.
Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it.
Why hast thou broken down the hedge thereof, so that all they who pass by the way do pluck it?
The boar out of the wood hath laid it waste: and a singular wild beast hath devoured it.
Turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard:
And perfect the same which thy right hand hath planted.
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself.
And we depart not from thee, thou shalt quicken us: and we will call upon thy name.
Convert us, O Lord God of hosts: shew thy face, and we shall be saved.
Canticle — Isaiah 12:1–6
I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou wast angry with me: thy wrath is turned away, and thou hast comforted me.
Behold, God is my saviour, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and he is become my salvation.
You shall draw waters with joy out of the saviour’s fountains:
And you shall say in that day: Praise ye the Lord, and call upon his name: make his works known among the people: remember that his name is high.
Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath done great things: shew this forth in all the earth.
Rejoice, and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great is he that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel.
Psalm 80 (81)
Rejoice to God our helper: sing aloud to the God of Jacob.
Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel: the pleasant psaltery with the harp.
Blow up the trumpet on the new moon, on the noted day of your solemnity.
For it is a commandment in Israel, and a judgment to the God of Jacob.
I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
But my people heard not my voice: and Israel hearkened not to me.
So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions.
If my people had heard me: if Israel had walked in my ways:
I should soon have humbled their enemies: and laid my hand on them that troubled them.
And I would have fed them with the fat of wheat: and filled them with honey out of the rock.
Short Reading — Isaiah 55:6–7
Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God: for he is bountiful to forgive.
Benedictus — Luke 1:68–79 (Douay-Rheims)
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.
Intercessions
Let us bless our Redeemer, who calls us to conversion of heart:
— Lord, renew us in your mercy.
— Teach us to seek you while you may be found.
— Turn our hearts from pride to gratitude.
— Make our fasting a hunger for justice.
— Let our prayer be the beginning of peace in our homes.
Concluding Prayer
O God, who delightest not in the death of the wicked, but rather that he should be converted and live: grant us grace to turn from our sins and to walk in newness of life; through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
✒ Paradox of the Day
It is only when a man admits he is lost that he begins to discover he is being sought.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
— G.K. Chesterton
Reflection (Chestertonian)
Lent is not a season for the already perfect. It is a season for the already pardoned. That is the extraordinary scandal of it.
The prophet says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found.” This implies, of course, that He is not hiding very well. God is like a king who has disguised Himself as a beggar and then stands directly in the road hoping someone will ask for alms. We complain of divine absence when the real difficulty is divine nearness.
The modern world believes that repentance is an emotional collapse. Christianity insists it is a strategic advance. A general retreats not because he despairs of victory, but because he intends to win it.
To “forsake one’s way” sounds dramatic. In truth, it may be as small as refusing one sharp word, one concealed resentment, one comfortable excuse. Holiness often begins not in thunder but in restraint.
The vineyard in the psalm cries out for restoration. Yet the Gardener has not abandoned it. He prunes because He intends fruit.
So today is not about heroic feats. It is about turning. And the miracle of turning is this: the moment we begin to move toward God, we discover He has been moving toward us all along.
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“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” 🌿