Comfort My People
The prophet comforts the people with the promise of the coming of Christ to forgive their sins. God's almighty power and majesty. (Douay-Rheims Bible)
Isaiah 40: 1 - 11
[1] Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. [2] Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. [3] The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. [4] Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. [5] And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.
[6] The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held. [7] The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass: [8] The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever. [9] Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God: [10] Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.
[11] He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.
Psalm 96:1-3,10-13
{1} For the same David, when his land was restored again to him. The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice: let many islands be glad. [2] Clouds and darkness are round about him: justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne. [3] A fire shall go before him, and shall burn his enemies round about.. [10] You that love the Lord, hate evil: the Lord preserveth the souls of His saints, he will deliver them out of the hand of the sinner. [11] Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart. [12] Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness.
Matthew 18: 12 – 14
[12] What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray? [13] And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoiceth more for that, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray. [14] Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.