Category: Penitential Rites

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.

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!

PRIEST:                     My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This third Sunday of Advent is a day for rejoicing…rejoicing that the coming of our Saviour is close at hand; rejoicing that his coming will bring Good News to the Poor, a new freedom and an era of healing and liberation; rejoicing that God still sends prophets like John the Baptist to witness to the Light and to challenge us to welcome the Christ who changes all things!
Let us now sing with joy as we witness the Coming of Christ that brings healing to our brokenness and forgiveness to our sinfulness, transforming us with His Coming…

                            [ proceed to wreath, singing ‘Rejoice in the Lord Always!’]

Let us pray…
O God, Mother and Father of all that lives, come among us and dance over us with your joy, as on a day of Festival! Fill our community with that rejoicing that comes from welcoming your Light, Jesus Christ, and sharing that light of forgiveness. liberation and healing with all our world. Bless this Advent Wreath and our parish so that we may hasten the day when your Son, our Brother, will fill all creation with joyous Glory…

                           IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER + AND OF THE SON,
                                           AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT…AMEN!

READER:                     Lord, for the wastelands in our lives,
                                          the deserts of sin within us and our world:
                                          the emptiness that deprives our earth of your joy;
                                          we ask your mercy

                                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY …

                                           Lord, for the violence and war that wastes our world,
                                           for the deserts of unemployment and homelessness,
                                           for the darkness of greed and luxury;
                                           we ask your mercy

                                                                    CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

                                            Lord, because of the joy you have in forgiving us,
                                           because you come to transforming us with healing and reconciliation;
                                           with confidence we ask your mercy

                                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:        O Lord, stir up your might and come! Clothe us in your joyous Light,
                           renew our hearts in your  compassion and forgiveness,
                           and bring us all to  your Day of unending Festival,
                           that we may rejoice to live for ever and ever              

                                                                     AMEN!

PRIEST: We gather on this Bible Sunday, at the beginning of our second week of Advent Preparation and Prayer. On this Bible Sunday, we come together to listen to God’s Holy Word in the Bible, so that we may allow His Word to be made Flesh in our lives. That same Word will be spoken over bread of the earth and wine from the hills, with such power that the Word will become the Flesh and Blood of Christ in Eucharist.

Let us now praise the Light of God’s Word as we sing…

                                         (‘The Lord is my Light’)

                                       [ proceed to the wreath ]

Let us pray…
O God, from all eternity You have spoken forth Your Word, so that all creation may experience Your Love. Your Word first created Light at the dawning of time. In the fullness of that time, Your Word became Flesh in the poor Virgin of Nazareth. For Your People everywhere, Your Word remains the Light that guides our journey, the Lamp revealing the path before us. Bless our Advent Candles, and this our parish family, so that the Light of Your Word may grow in our hearts, inspire our lives, and guide our community,

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER  +  THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

                                     … Amen!

READER:           Too often, Lord, we allow the false lights of our world to guide us,
                                 rather than the Light of Your Word:
                                forgive us when we fail to root our lives in the Word of the Gospel…

                                                       LORD HAVE MERCY …

                                 Lord, for the many times we do not listen to Your Word in the Bible,
                                 for the ways we leave it an unopened book, a treasure sadly neglected

                                                       CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

                                 Lord, the neglect of Your Word makes us less a People of Faith;
                                it weakens our witness to Your Presence and Your Kingdom:
                               so for the ways our lives do not shine with the Light of Your Word

                                                       LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:         O Lord, stir up our hearts to prepare the way of Your Son,
                           the Word made Flesh, so that through His Coming on earth
                           we may serve you with lives filled with the Light of His Word,
                           for He Who will come again lives for ever and ever…

                                                             AMEN!

As our children gather here we echo the Prophetic words of Isaiah

 (‘Prepare the Way of the Lord…’)

PRIEST:  My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
We have come to the Holy and Joyful Season of Advent, these four weeks of preparation…learning to watch with faith for the Coming of the Lord in Glory…learning to welcome with love our brother Jesus who has already come among us…learning to yearn with hope for the final coming of the Kingdom upon the earth.

Let our hearts chant the ancient prayer of our Christian forebears, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’

                                               [proceed to wreath]

Let us pray…

O God, Father and Mother of all Life, by your Word all things are made holy. Send forth your Blessing upon our Advent Wreath, and upon our parish family: may we use this sign of Your growing Light to prepare our hearts and minds to serve Your Kingdom, and so hasten that day when the Lord Jesus will come in His Glory … In the Name of the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit…AMEN!

READER:     The purple candles and ribbon call us to repentance,
                          making our hearts wide open and ready for His Coming:
Lord, grant us the grace of conversion to your Gospel this Advent…

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY …

The circle of evergreen reminds us that God is ever faithful to us,
in His love and mercy that never ends:
Lord, forgive us all our unfaithfulness to your call to love…

                                                 CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

The red berries remind us that Jesus came among us to die on a Cross,
                               and that we drink the Cup of His Redeeming Blood:
Lord, by Your wounds we are healed,
and by Your death we are freed from the death of sin…

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:    O Lord, stir up Your might and come!
                      Be our protector and liberator;
                      rescue us from the dangers that threaten us because of our sins,
                      and lead us to our salvation, for ever and ever…

                                                   AMEN!

PRIEST:    As we come to this last Sunday of our Liturgical Year, we celebrate Jesus Christ, King of all Creation. We celebrate the One who came with a dream for the world, for the Universe – a dream of creation alive with divine love, drawn together in the deepest Unity in Christ. We celebrate our Shepherd-King who identifies Himself with the poor and excluded of our world and who laid down His life on the Cross to make this Dream a reality. On this great Feast, which is also National Youth Sunday, we rejoice in the gift of  our young people who are called to make the Dream of God a reality for the world. So we ask ourselves:  does Jesus reign in our hearts and in our lives? Do we share His Dream with our young people and draw them joyfully to serve His Kingdom? Does the quality of our loving reveal the Servant and Shepherd King to our wounded world? Do we serve each other and our suffering planet in the name of our King?

READER:       Father, your Spirit prays within us ‘Your Kingdom Come…’,
                             When we do not seek and serve first the Coming of Your Kingdom
A Kingdom Justice, Love and Peace

                                                       LORD HAVE MERY …

                             Jesus, our Servant-King, from your heart flowed living water,
                             well-spring of our love and healing for our wounds:
                             wash us clean of our compromises,
                             that we may live your Gospel and build your Kingdom…

                                                       CHRIST HAVE MERY …

                             Holy Spirit, come and refresh our wearied hearts and tired bodies,
                             that we may once more live the challenge of the Kingdom,
                             becoming each day your New Creation
listening always to the cry of the Earth, the cries of the Poor,…

                                                       LORD HAVE MERY …

PRIEST:           Lord God, Trinity of Love and source of Life,
                             touch us with the mercy of Your Kingdom,
                             work in our hearts, renewing our lives,
                             and lead us in the ways of the Beatitudes:
                             heal our blindness that we may see,
                             cleanse our hearts that we may love,
                             and renew our dedication
                            that we may work for the coming of Your Kingdom upon the earth
                            bringing us and all the world to everlasting life…

                                                            AMEN!

RICHARD:  Today we celebrate that God is the generous giver of so many gifts … He lavishes His Gifts upon us. But on this World Day of the Poor we recognise each gift is also a responsibility,  a call to action in the service of the Kingdom. We are given these gifts of the Spirit in order that we can become a Gift in the Spirit to our world. Not to use these gifts, to refuse to be creative, perpetuates injustice, damages our planet and its creatures, and inhibits our own growth and development.  Let us seek forgiveness that we may use God’s many gifts to extend God’s Kingdom of Freedom and Justice among us.

READER:           For the ways we deny God’s gifts,
                                 refuse to use them in the service of God and His world

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY …

                                 When we fail to be alert to God’s challenge,
                                 when we resent God’s giftedness in others,
when we refuse to recognise and accept others’ gifts
                                 when we deny growth in ministry to each other, especially women

                                                          CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

                                When we do not hear the cries of the poor and the oppressed,
                                when we pass by on the other side,
                                when we allow the size of the problem to paralyse us,
rather than deepen our faith and energise our response

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY …

RICHARD:         May God the Giver of all Good Gifts
                                     lavish his mercy upon us,
                                         set us free to serve and build peace,
                                                and gift us with forgiveness,
                                bringing us all to everlasting life

                                                           AMEN!

PRIEST:    We gather on this day of Remembrance, while there continues to be fear of terror attacks and war rages in so many nations. We bring to mind those too many who have died in the innumerable and tragic wars and conflicts of the past more than one hundred years.  We gather too that we might pray for peace.  Jesus tells us today to wake up to the call to build peace, to find a new wisdom – the wisdom of peace rather than the foolishness of war! With sorrow we recognise that we have still to learn how to solve conflict without violence, settle disputes without recourse to war.  Let our remembering be not a glorification of war, but a profound cry from the heart for Peace.

READER:     Lord,  have mercy on our world for the darkness of war,
                          for the inhumanity of destruction,
                          for the pollution of our minds and our earth,

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY …

Jesus,  forgive us for striking our brother and sister
                           with bullet, missile and bomb,
                           for being blind to the human devastation of modern warfare,
and the immorality of Nuclear weapons and the Arms Trade

                                                      CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

Spirit,  heal the wounded hearts and minds
                           that seek power more than humanity,  war more than peace,
destruction more than listening to the cries of the poor and of the earth

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:     May the God of perfect peace touch every heart with mercy,
                       every mind with healing and every conflict with reconciliation,
                       that we may transform darkness to light and war to peace,
                       offering our world the hope of everlasting life…

                                                          AMEN!

Instead of a Gloria today,  let us sing sing a chant as a prayer for all who have been killed in warfare,  and that all the world might be rescued from the death that is war:

                                                         No 813 [x3]

PRIEST:    We gather to proclaim our faith in the Resurrection, which alone gives meaning to today’s Celebration: for we come to be with the ‘Living who have Died’. Our love for those who have ‘gone before us marked with the sign of faith’, is matched by our trust in mercy so freely given by our God. Therefore, we too can have the courage to recognise our own sinfulness.

READER:         Father,  you sent your Son to die  on the Cross and
                              to win forgiveness for us and for all people,
so with confidence we cry…

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY …

Lord Jesus, you are the Lamb of God…
you are the sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world,
so with faith we cry…

                                                      CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

Holy Spirit, you are the love and power
                               that raised Jesus to life on Easter morning;
                               we believe and therefore we know that we will not die but live forever,
                               so with hope we cry…

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:            May the God of all Life embrace us and all the dead with his mercy,
                              may Jesus, the Lamb of Sacrifice, grant us forgiveness,
                              may the Holy Spirit send us to our world as bearers
                                             of Reconciliation and Hope,
                              to bring us and all the faithful departed to everlasting life…

                                                     AMEN!

PRIEST:       We celebrate today the Feast of Holiness – our call and our destiny to be a people of the Spirit,  a people of holiness.  All the Saints,  those known and those unknown,  those raised to the Altars of the Church,  and those whom we have known in our lives and our parish family:  all the saints are given to us to help us on our journey of holiness. Rejoicing as we do in all the ‘ordinary’ people who have loved’, we seek forgiveness and mercy that we may journey to Christ with them…

READER:      Holiness is about being thoroughly human:
                           for the ways we have been inhuman and insensitive to each other…

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY …

                            Holiness is about loving with one’s whole being:
                            for the ways we have avoided the challenge and the pain
of loving too much

                                            CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

                            Holiness is about welcoming the mercy of God in the midst of our weakness:
                            for failing to forgive or be forgiven

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:      May the God of Holiness fill us with His Peace,
                        may the God of Life embrace our every wound with His mercy,
                        may the God of our Humanity set us free
                        to find happiness in holiness;
                        and bring us all with the Saints to everlasting life

                                             AMEN!

PRIEST:  Jesus came to abolish that Law which limits our love. But he brought us a law at once  more human and more demanding: the law of limitless love.  And this Law is always on the side of the poor, the victim, the stranger, the dispossessed.  Today we celebrate the gift of that Law of Christ that does not stifle, but rather gives life; that Law that does not condemn or imprison,  but rather sets free and releases our potential for love.  Let us reflect a moment on the quality of our obedience to His Law of Love, our response to His Gift of Love.

READER:         To love God with our whole being:
                               when we allocate God a small place in our busy lives,
instead of shaping our lives around Him

                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY…

                               To love our neighbour with generosity:
                               when we live selfishly,  turned in on ourselves,
                               resenting the call to care for others

                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY…

                               To love our own self with acceptance and understanding:
                               when we disregard our real needs, and fail to forgive ourselves

                                                    LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:          May the God of limitless Love speak his Mercy to our hearts,
                                    set us free with his forgiveness,
                                          release the freedom of His Love in our lives
                                                   and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                  AMEN!