Category: Penitential Rites

PRIEST: Today we lift our voices in thanksgiving and praise for the ‘inestimable gift’ of the Eucharist;  we lift our eyes to gaze upon the awesome presence of our Lord and Saviour in the poverty of bread and wine;  we lift up our hearts to embrace the love whereby God touches the depths of our being.  In the Eucharist we taste the redeeming Blood of Christ, we enter into the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross that saves the whole world. The Body and Blood of Christ we share gives us life, shaping and renewing our lives and our communities:  let us repent the ways we are not the love of Christ…

READER:              The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Unity and Love:
for all divisions among Christians,
                                    for every denial of love in our own hearts

                                                            LORD HAVE MERCY …

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Healing:
for the ways that our touch and words hurt rather than heal;
                                     for the ways our Church excludes rather than welcomes and feeds

                                                            CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Christ’s Redeeming Sacrifice:
for the ways we do not love with a sacrificial love;
do not forgive with a divine generosity of mercy;
excluding others from our love, friendship and community

                                                            LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:           May God rain down upon us the Bread of Forgiveness;
                              may Jesus pour out His redeeming Blood that heals our brokenness
                             and liberates freedom and love;
                            may the Spirit draw us into the Unity that reconciles;
                            and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                            AMEN!

PRIEST:          Having for months celebrated the great actions of God in Christ that bring us salvation and life, today we celebrate the being of God: not what God does, but Who God is! Today is a day for gazing with wonder, a day to contemplate the mystery of God Who is Love – always Love, never other than Love! And each one of us, without exception are made in the image and likeness of this God. Today we celebrate that there is such diversity in identity, creating such a profound harmony. So we celebrate who we truly are and all that God wants us to become – a freedom for Love … like God! And yet we know we are not such love! Let us entrust ourselves and the Church to God’s infinite loving mercy …

READER:              Father, you so loved the world You sent Your Only Son
not to condemn, but to save and to give Life:
Confidently we cry out to you ….  

                                                                LORD HAVE MERCY…

Eternal Word and Son, made flesh in the womb of Mary,
You came home into our humanity to set love free within us:
                                    Confidently we cry out to you ….  

                                                                CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

Holy Spirit, love shared between the Father and the Son,
You are poured out into our hearts,
                                     You flow through our lives into the world to renew the face of the earth
Confidently we cry out to you ….   

                                                                LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:            May the God whose best name is Love …
                               Be the Father who forgives us, the Brother who redeems us,
                               and the Loving Holy Spirit who gives us a new heart,
                               bringing us and all creation to everlasting life

                                                                    AMEN!

PRIEST: Fifty days ago we celebrated Jesus’ Resurrection – now we celebrate the Power of Resurrection set free to transform the world! Today is not only the birthday of the Church in a ferment of Praise and Mission, it is also the beginnings of a New World, a New Creation, for through the Church and beyond it, the Spirit is recreating the face of the earth!  On this Pentecost day, this day of the Spirit bringing the Church to a new beginning, let us welcome, through the Global Synod we are all engaged in, the Spirit’s mighty wind and love’s fire into our lives and our community so that through forgiveness we will ever grow in holiness.

READER:                The Holy Spirit comes as a mighty wind!
For our fears and timidity, our lack of courage,
                                     in witnessing to Jesus and speaking out Gospel Justice! 

                                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY…

The Holy Spirit comes as flames of fire, fire of Love!
For every denial of love that starves the world of hope;
For every division between Christians that hides the face of Christ

                                                                    CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

The Holy Spirit gives us a new language of faith and praise!
That we might ever speak the language of mercy and forgiveness
Healing and hope to our broken but beautiful world 

                                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:         May the Father set us free to be Children of God;
                           may Jesus enthroned in Glory pour out upon us the Spirit of Love and Mercy;
                           may the Holy Spirit rush through our lives to lead us to new beginnings
                           and bring all the Creation to everlasting life

                                                                      AMEN!

PRIEST:  The disciples at Emmaus recognise the Risen Lord in the breaking of Bread and rush to tell the Good News to the others in Jerusalem. And there He comes once again to meet us his People:  to stretch out his wounded hands,  to walk our path with his feet pierced with love.  He asks us to nourish him,  with the depth of our love and strength of our faith.  He sends us as His witnesses! Let us allow his Word to draw us again to pray for mercy because as we resist our share in the Cross, so deprive our world of its share of Resurrection.

READER:         For being so slow to believe
                               that love will turn our suffering into resurrection hope…

                                               Lord have mercy…

                                For lacking courage in witnessing to the name of Jesus
                                and to the radical Gospel of our Risen Christ…

                                               Christ have mercy…

                                 Because His resurrection is our Reconciliation;
                                 because His wounded-ness is our wholeness…

                                                Lord have mercy…

PRIEST:      May the God of all life embrace us with mercy;
                        may the Risen Lord touch us with forgiveness;
                       may the Spirit of Easter Joy transform us
into a living parable of reconciliation;
                      bringing us and our world to everlasting life…

                                                AMEN!

PRIEST: Today we rejoice:  it is ‘Laetare Sunday’ – a day to celebrate that the call to Lenten conversion is a call to a deeper joy. We hear the Gospel of the healing of the blind man at the pool of Siloam. Our deepest joy is to grow into Christ; to reflect his light onto our tragically war-torn and poverty-stricken world; to embrace His world with a love that will heal humanity’s blindness to injustice and oppression.  That today is also ‘Mothering Sunday’ gives us added reason to rejoice as we thank God for the gift of the mothers who have given us life and love. But let us not forget the millions of mothers and children fleeing the bombing and missiles both in Gaza and Ukraine and in other theatres of war. Today we need to ask ourselves – What and who are we blind to? Let us ask forgiveness for so many refusals to recognise the presence of God in ourselves and in every human person…

READER:         When we refuse to see the evil of war
when we will not see the suffering or joy of those around us;
when we have closed our eyes and hearts to another’s need for friendship and caring …

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY…

For ignoring the injustices in our world or in our own hearts;
when we take for granted the love of our mothers and families and fail to give thanks –
when we do not tell those to whom we are close that  we love them …

                                              CHRIST HAVE MERCY…  

When we will not see and trust in God’s deep love for us;
When we will not recognise the dignity of each human person
                                when pain or crisis makes us blind to the God who holds us, to friends who care for us …

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:     May the God of joy set us free with loving mercy;
                       may Jesus our brother heal us of wilful blindness to love;
                       may the Holy Spirit wash us clean in the pool of God’s compassion and forgiveness;
                       and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                  AMEN!

PRIEST:    We hear today how Jesus begins his ministry – immersed in a world of pain and oppression, he brings an explosion of life-giving and healing!  Healing was his chosen way to proclaim the Good News of New Life in God’s love.  Healing was the gift of his compassion as well as the sign of his Kingdom.  Like St Paul, all of us also have the sacred duty of proclaiming the Good News to the world around us. Let us welcome the healing of Christ into our own woundedness, the freedom of Christ into all that is imprisoned and not yet fully free for love within us.  By his unconditional mercy and forgiveness may we truly come alive in his wholeness, the better to proclaim His Good News and serve His healing will for our world!

READER:     Our sins are often our wounds crying out for healing
… let us welcome the healing of Christ
that we might find freedom from sin

                                           LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we do not believe enough in God’s love for us;
when we doubt he really wants to make us whole…

                                           CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When our lack of love and compassion
                             deprives others of healing and hides His Good News;
                             when we imprison others by our attitudes
and hurtful words and actions…

                                           LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:   May Abba Father, the Life-giver, make us whole;
                     May Jesus, the Pain-bearer, free us from the burden of our guilts;
                     May the Holy Spirit, the Love-maker, raise us up to be fully alive
                     to bring to all the world everlasting life…

                                             AMEN!

PRIEST: The Wisdom of God has guided each of us here today, as surely as the Magi’s Star:  for we too are pilgrims on a journey searching for wisdom,  walking by faith and yearning in hope for the peace for our world.  We gather to offer our gifts,  our talents and our very selves on this feast of the Epiphany,  the Manifestation of Christ’s Redeeming Light to all the Nations of the world, the glory of the Father’s infinite love for all creation.  Let us find in the Wise Men inspiration to give all we are in the service of the Light of Christ’s Good News.

READER:       We welcome the wisdom of the Gift of Gold…
                             our love given to Christ our King:
                             may we so grow in love that we can offer the world
                             Christ’s healing, justice and New Life…

                                       O COME LET US ADORE HIM!

We welcome the wisdom of the Gift of Frankincense…
our worship for our God in human flesh:
                             may we so grow in prayer that we will find strength
and inspiration to shine before the world with Christ’s Light…

                                       O COME LET US ADORE HIM!

We welcome the wisdom of the Gift of Myrrh…
our share in the passion of Christ for the salvation of our world:
                             may we so grow in his sacrificial love
that we may place the demands of the Kingdom
                             before our own desires and wants…

                                       O COME LET US ADORE HIM!

PRIEST:         May our God forgive the coldness of our love,
                          the poverty of our prayer,
                          the shallowness of our sacrifice;
                          that we may shine with the splendour of Christ’s Light,
                          and journey with Gospel Wisdom to everlasting life…

                                         AMEN!

PRIEST:     On this first day of the New Year, the Church celebrates Mary “Theotokos’, the Bearer of God to the world. We look to the first and greatest disciple as we are about to embark on making this year truly the Year of Our Lord 2024. We commend all that is past into the Mercy of God, all that is present into the Love of God and all that is the future into the Providence of God, and journey ahead in faith and trust in the God who leads us. 

READER:     Mary said ‘Yes’ to God with her whole being holding nothing back:
For the weakness of our ‘yeses’ and the strength of our ‘no’s’

                                       LORD HAVE MERCY…

Mary pondered and treasured the Word she carried in her heart
so that she could treasure the Word enfleshed in her womb:
for so often taking the wonder of the Word for granted 

                                       CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

Mary embraced an unknown future for the sake of the Kingdom
trusting that the promises of God would be fulfilled;
for our fears of God’s unknown, failing to trust that God is Love

                                       LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:    May the Father strengthen our ‘yes’ with His forgiving mercy;
                      May the Word be enfleshed in our lives with the healing of forgiveness;
                      May the Spirit carry us forward into God’s Future of Reconciliation
                     To bring all the world to everlasting life…

                                           AMEN!

PRIEST:    As we draw near the end of this year we gather as a family of families … around the simplicity and poverty, the love and the faith of the Holy Family of Bethlehem and Nazareth.  Like too many families today, torn by poverty, oppression and war, Jesus’ family was far from trouble-free family life: trapped in poverty, homeless, fleeing for their lives into exile because of the fears of the powerful, destined to be refugees for years, growing up in the midst of a guerrilla war.  Yet we celebrate the wonder of God’s great confidence in us and in our families, entrusting His own Son to a family like ours, for Jesus to grow and develop into the power of love that He became.  In the midst of so many diverse forms of family life among us, let us rededicate ourselves to the task of love, recognising that our failures are forgiven…

READER:     The family is the school of love:
                           that we may replace harshness with forgiveness,
                           criticism with encouragement, deafness with sensitive listening

                                       LORD HAVE MERCY…

The family is called to be a healing community:
                              that we may care rather than judge, accept rather than reject,
cherish rather than take for granted

                                       CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

The family is called to be a place of prayer:
                              that Christ may be the centre of our homes, not on the edge,
                              that parents may be the first and best of teachers of their children
                              in the ways of faith,
                             that love may set all free to search and develop,
                             not criticism  to stifle and limit

                                       LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:      May our God who is family, Father, Son and Spirit,
                        bring mercy to our failures, fire to our love grown cold,
                      healing peace to our hurting hearts,
                      and renewed hope to the challenge of love and growth
                      bringing us all to everlasting life…

                                           AMEN!

PRIEST:          My dear sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus,
                  We gather today on this last Sunday of Advent Preparation to share in this Eucharist God’s great call to bear Christ to the world.  Mary heard this call and answered with such love that he whom she already carried in her heart,  was now  conceived in her womb.  Overshadowed by the Spirit and abandoned to God’s Word and Will,  the Saviour can come to us, flesh of our flesh.  Let us utter our ‘Yes’ to the God who calls as we share Mary’s song of joy in the Coming of our Saviour.

[approaching the Advent wreaths we sing ‘Magnificat’]

Let us pray…
O God of our History, from all eternity You have spoken forth Your Word of Love that gives Life, creating the heavens and earth,  making man and woman in Your own image and likeness.  You dreamed of a People ready  to serve Your Truth and Kingdom in the world. And in the fullness of time, You found a woman so full of love that Your Word could make His home in her heart and her womb. Through her your Son,  the Divine Word, is made Flesh and dwells among us.  Bless these Advent Candles of Light and Expectancy and bless our community with the faith and love of Mary,  that we might dare to abandon ourselves to You and welcome the Day of your Kingdom … In the Name of the Father, + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit… AMEN!

READER:   Mary, the woman of faith, risked saying ‘yes’
                        to an unknown future in God’s plan:
                        for our lack of faith and trust,

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

                        Mary,  the woman of hope, embraced the overshadowing Spirit
                        and dared the impossible for God:
                        for the ways we risk little in the service of God and His kingdom,

                                         CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

                         Mary, the woman of love, welcomed the Word in her heart
before she welcomed the Word in her womb:
                         for our lack of love that silences God’s Word in today’s world,

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:   O Lord, stir up your might and come!
                      Touch us with Your overshadowing Spirit,
                      speak Your Word of forgiveness to our hearts and to our world,
                      so that the Saviour, our Emmanuel, may come again
                      and bring us to  everlasting life

                                         …AMEN!