PRIEST: Jesus sees with a clear eye to the core of every human person; he speaks a life-giving word from a pure heart of love; his life bears God’s fruitfulness from the tree of the Cross. Today His Word really challenges each of us who are His disciples: as we near Lent and the beginning of this time of Renewal, we need to recognise how blind we can be to our own failures, while so prone to judge harshly the failures of others; we need to look at the soundness of our tree – whether we are truly rooted in Christ and so one heart with him, bearing the same fruit as him…
READER: For all the hidden ways we judge each other,
see the faults of others without being honest about our own
LORD HAVE MERCY…
For words that wound rather than heal, deceive rather than enlighten, tear down rather than build up
CHRIST HAVE MERCY…
For the ways our heart is not a heart of prayer, a heart of love, and so we do not bear the fruit that brings people to know our Beloved Christ
LORD HAVE MERCY…
PRIEST: May the God who sees to the heart challenge our hypocrisy and forgive our weakness;
may the Saviour transform us by the mercy of the Tree of His Cross;
may the Spirit be the light of love to heal us into the fruitfulness of God
and bring us all into everlasting life…
AMEN!