Category: Penitential Rites

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!

PRIEST:  On this World Mission Sunday we celebrate today that we are a People who belong at once to God and to our world. But we are in the world as God’s People, a People of Hope, a People of Mission, disciples who bear the image of the Christ and who challenge every Caesar of our world, including the petty Caesars within our own hearts. We are called to live in the world as a People who reflect God’s love,  God’s values of justice, to build a new social order and a sustainable planet. Our Mission is to construct ‘the Civilisation of Love’ with the Good News of God’s immense love for all people.  Let us pause to reflect on the quality of our response to God’s call.

READER:        Jesus says today, ‘Render to Caesar’ …
                             when we fail to challenge the powerful when they need challenging;
when we fail to get involved building a more just and equal society

                                              LORD HAVE MERCY …

                             Jesus says today,  ‘Render to God’ …
                             when we fail to offer the Good News of His Limitless love
                             to the people among whom we live,  with whom we work

                                              CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

                              Jesus says everyday,  ‘Come follow me…’
                              when we give little priority in our lives
                              to serving the Kingdom of God and the call to Mission,  

                                              LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:       May the God who calls us,  embrace us with mercy;
                         May Jesus who sends us to the world heal and forgive us;
                         May the Holy Spirit empower us to be bearers of reconciling love,
                         and so bring to all the world,  everlasting life…

                                                AMEN!

PRIEST:  We are gathered today for the Eucharist during this Prisons Week…to share this glimpse of the great banquet of God’s love with our sisters and brothers serving time in prison, with their families and those entrusted with the care of prisoners. We also share  this Eucharist with those unjustly imprisoned in our Immigration Detention Centres for no crime except the desire for freedom and safety. It is also CAFOD Harvest Sunday when we are called to be servants of Justice and gather the poor and marginalised of the world to feast at the Banquet of the Earth in equality and dignity. We and they have been invited and called, simply because God loves us so much.  The question remains:  how do we respond?   Do we come joyfully and with expectancy?  Or do we come grudgingly and with little desire to receive?   Do we allow the Eucharist really to change our lives? And who else do we invite to share the Banquet, not only of Faith, but also of Justice?

READER:               For the times we ignore the invitations of God,
                                     the promptings of His Spirit deep within us;
                                     for the ways we silence the voice of God’s call…

                                                            LORD HAVE MERCY…

                                     For the ways we avoid the challenge of the Word of God
                                     to change,  to grow,  to serve and to proclaim…

                                                            CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

                                      For our society that imprisons so many of the poor and disturbed,
for our society that detains for no crime and no time limitation
                                      our asylum sisters and brothers…

                                                             LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:                   May the Father who calls us welcome us to his banquet of forgiveness;
                                      May the Redeemer,  Jesus,  break the bread of mercy for us;
                                      May the Reconciling Spirit breath peace and new hope into our hearts
                                      and bring us to everlasting life…

PRIEST:    Jesus comes into our lives and challenges us to renounce all sin and injustice,  all that oppresses us and our brothers and sisters;  Jesus asks us whether we are willing to build a Church of unity and love, a Church that throws open the door of God’s Mercy to the broken, sinful and chaotic;  whether we are truly prepared to follow Him, go to work in His Vineyard and serve His Kingdom with commitment and dedication. A special part of His Vineyard is the refugees camps of our world, all our asylum and refugee sisters and  brothers. Jesus’ challenge to us is to change the heart of our nations and our world that’s grown course and refuses to welcome these of our family.  It is the challenge He offers us today,  and at every Eucharist.  How do we answer the challenge of His love?

READER:            Let us renounce all sin in our lives and seek His forgiveness,
                                 that we may live in light

                                                             LORD HAVE MERCY …

Let us ask mercy for dividing the Church
                                 with our narrowness of mind and heart,
                                 with conflicts we will not resolve,
                                 with resentments we will not relinquish

                                                             CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

Let us be reconciled
                                 for the times we have not obeyed God’s will for us,
                                 when we have not answered the call to serve

                                                             LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:        May the God of forgiveness be merciful to our past,
                                 reconcile our present,
                                      and free us for a new beginning of faithfulness;
                          and so bring all our world to everlasting life…

                                                              AMEN!

PRIEST: Today we hear the Lord’s call to each one of us to work in His vineyard … the world. He challenges us to build up His Kingdom upon the earth.  Even if we respond only at the eleventh hour, He rewards us with a most generous love that fulfils the yearnings of our heart and completes our joy.  Those going at the eleventh hour as we hear in today’s Gospel, represent those who are normally excluded and marginalised, but whom God calls and wants to be co-workers in the mission of the Church. Will we leave behind our sense of earlier rejection and recognise God’s urgent calling and answer with the gift of ourselves with renewed confidence?  Surely it is our deepest joy to share our faith and to proclaim His Gospel to our own people, our own city. Are we faithful to His calling,  do we work for His Kingdom everyday?

READER:              For narrowness of heart and meanness of the spirit
that does not welcome others who might be different from ourselves,
                                   that is not willing to share the work of Christ with one another

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY …

For not answering God’s call to share the Good News,
for allowing past rejections to stop us responding to God’s urgent call
for our lack of enthusiasm in working in God’s Vineyard

                                                          CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

When our ways are not God’s ways,
                                    our thoughts are not God’s thoughts;
when we fail to challenge our society to change according to the Gospel

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:              May the God who calls us,
                                       forgive us every failure to serve,
                                             send us once more into His Vineyard,
                                                   heal us by His mercy of the wounds of past rejection
                                 and bring us to everlasting life

                                                             AMEN!

PRIEST:    On this Home Mission Sunday, Jesus challenges us to  be a community of endless forgiveness, ever opening the gates of mercy to all peoples. For His Gospel is news of limitless forgiveness. Broken, hurting and embittered people need to know a community that will go the extra mile to understand and forgive, before they will discover a God they need never fear. Does our forgiveness of each other and ourselves speak the love of Christ to others? Do we open the gates of mercy to another?

READER:     When we deprive another of freedom by withholding forgiveness;
                           when we are held captive by an unbending and unforgiving heart

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY …

When we are slow to forgive those who have hurt us,
slow to forgive ourselves our weakness and failure,
when our parish fails to be a place of reconciliation
and therefore fails to be a place of evangelisation

                                                 CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

Because your mercy is endless,  your love is healing,
your Gospel is Good News of New Beginnings for everyone

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:         May the God of Forgiveness embrace us in mercy,
                           and send us to our nation as bearers of reconciliation,
                                           healing and hope,
                           offering to all the Good News of everlasting life

                                               AMEN!

PRIEST:    Today, the Word of God presents us with the vision of a community centred upon the Christ who is alive among us … a community that takes seriously the call to holiness:   and takes equally seriously the fact that each of us are responsible in some measure for each other’s growth and development.  We are given to one another to encourage each other on the path of holiness and Christian maturity. We are part of one another’s gradual conversion to Christ. Today this involves what Pope Francis calls our ‘eco-conversion’, conversion to communion with our common Home the Planet Earth. Let us reflect on whether we accept such responsibility to help and challenge one another to hear the cry of the Earth, the Cry of the Poor – and to act!

READER:     For the ways we stunt one another’s growth
by our resentments and unforgiveness,
                          by our lack of caring and concern,
                          by keeping ourselves to ourselves

                                                LORD HAVE MERCY … 

For every refusal to love our neighbour as our self,
for being selective about who our neighbour might be;
for our neglect of our responsibility for the earth,
                          for our environment and for the poor of our ‘common home’

                                                CHRIST HAVE MERCY … 

For refusing others when they seek to help us, guide us,
encourage us or correct us

                                                LORD HAVE MERCY … 

PRIEST:        May the God of all love and compassion accept us as we are,
                                    forgive us our every failure
                                          and lead us forward by His Spirit
                                                  to growth and holiness,
                            bringing us to everlasting life…

                                                    AMEN!

PRIEST:    Last Sunday we heard Peter’s great act of faith in Jesus as the Christ of God:  today we hear how weak his and our faith can be, how shallow his vision and understanding of Jesus.  Peter cannot cope with a Messiah who would suffer, a Saviour who is a humble servant. As we begin our celebration of Faith in this Eucharist let us recognise how weak we are, how difficult we find the radical love of God and how much we need the strength that comes with God’s mercy.

READER:        For enthusiasms that quickly disappear;
                              for commitments easily broken;
                              for good intentions not acted upon

                                                              LORD HAVE MERCY…

For the shallowness of our understanding of the Gospel,
                              for our resistance to its radical demands of love

            CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

For everyday refusals to carry the small crosses of love;
                               for not bearing the burdens of others;
                               for the ambitions and greed that damage ourselves and others

                                                               LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:            May God fill us with his mercy that we may think his thoughts;
                              may Jesus who carries the cross of our sin set us free for love;
                              may the Spirit who reconciles and heals
                                                send us out to be bearers of forgiveness
                              and bring all the world to everlasting life

                                                                 AMEN!