PRIEST: This morning we celebrate Jesus the compassionate shepherd. Longing for quiet time with his disciples, he sets aside his own (and their) needs, because the hungry, broken crowds bring their yearnings for life and hope to him. Compassion and caring cost him; as St Paul reminds us today, peace and the healing of hostility cost the Cross! … it will cost us too if we seek to live and love like him, and to be bearers and makers of peace. Are we prepared to pay the price of love?
READER: For the times when we care only when it is convenient to ourselves,
and provided it does not cost us too much
LORD HAVE MERCY …
When we avoid times of quiet, reflection and peace;
when we fill our days with activism to avoid the God
who whispers in the silence of the night
CHRIST HAVE MERCY …
For all hostility that we find in our heart towards any person;
for the ways we do not proclaim the Gospel of Peace
to each other and our world
LORD HAVE MERCY …
PRIEST: May the God of all compassion touch our broken lives
and set us free with his mercy;
may Jesus the Shepherd gather us into the peace of forgiveness;
may the Spirit of their love heal us and send us to our world
with the same compassion,
to bring all to everlasting life
AMEN!