31st SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

PRIEST:       With echoes of the Holy Year of Mercy three years ago, we today celebrate God’s great yearning for us, His compassion and acceptance of us – His passionate desire that we should allow him to love us and so to change us … to restore us to our truest selves. We hear how Jesus reaches out to someone everyone else rejects and calls a corrupt, wealthy but outcast man, Zacchaeus, to conversion – coming to know the power of Jesus’ love converted him from his old life of injustice and sin to a new life of generosity and holiness. Let us now allow the mercy of God to change and convert us into the ways of the Kingdom.

READER:                When we hide from the injustice that lurks in our own hearts,
                                     the prejudices hidden in our own minds…

                                                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

When we judge others, condemn them and shun them,
And yet are not honest about our own failures and sins…

                                                                        CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

When we are afraid to let God love us and change us,
when we fail to struggle for honesty and justice in our world…

                                                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:       May the God who comes searching for us speak our name,
                         bring us forgiveness, lead us into justice and heal our hardness,
                         bringing us  all into everlasting life…

                                                                        AMEN!

ALL SOULS’ DAY

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!

 

 

ALL SAINTS DAY

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!

ALL SOULS’ DAY

PRIEST:   Let us pray with faith in the Resurrection, with thankfulness for friends and family who have gone before us, and with hope of that great day when we shall all be united in the eternal love of our God

READER:   For those of our families, parish community and friends who have died in the friendship of Christ, for all in our parish’s 171 year history who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith  … may their memory inspire us to continue our Pilgrimage to God with great love and deep faith…

[Reader]                      Let us pray to the Lord…
[response sung]      JESUS, REMEMBER ME…

For all whose Funerals have been celebrated here at St Nicholas’s this past year,  that they may know eternal life and endless peace before the face of God;  for all who are recently bereaved,  as the pain is still sharp and the darkness still paralysing,  that they may be comforted…

[Reader]                      Let us pray to the Lord…

For those who grieve the loss of the ones they love and experience the emptiness of bereavement … may the Holy Spirit bring them consolation in the dark hours, and the touch of his love in the lonely days, until light begins to dawn…
[Reader]                      Let us pray to the Lord…

For those who have died alone, unloved and unmourned; for all who have perished in the Mediterranean or in our lorry parks in the refugee journey to freedom; for the forgotten ones with no-one to pray for them and yet are so precious in the eyes of our God who never forgets one of his little ones…

[Reader]                      Let us pray to the Lord…

That we may live truly as a people of the Resurrection, passionately in love with life, generously life-giving and valuing and protecting life from the womb to the grave…

[Reader]                      Let us pray to the Lord…

Mary, who mourned your Crucified Son, and shared in the Life of your Risen Jesus, pray for us and all our dead…

                                                                                      HAIL MARY…

We pray in silence for all the departed…

PRIEST:Lord God, well-spring of all life, hear the cry of our hearts for those we mourn, embrace them in the fire of your tender love and raise them into the fullness of Risen Life, through Your Son and our Brother Jesus, alive forever and ever…
                                                                                     AMEN!

30th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

PRIEST: The familiar story in today’s Gospel – the Pharisee and the sinner – reveals God’s way of looking at the sinful one and the religious person. Not at all what we might expect!  Jesus’ words challenge every form of religious pride, as well as our hardness of heart. God urges us today, in this One World Week, to be bearers of reconciling and forgiving love, to throw wide open the doors of God’s mercy. May we allow his word to challenge our easy assumptions about both God and people. Let us commit ourselves afresh as ‘ambassadors of reconciliation’ and peace in our contemporary world.

READER:        For the times and ways that we judge others as inferior to us,
more sinful than us, less worthy than us…

                                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY …

For the pride that boasts of our virtues and ignores our vices
whenever we look down on others
because they do not practice their faith like us…

                                                                   CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

For our unwillingness to welcome God’s compassion
                             and forgiveness into our own lives,
                             for hardness of heart that withholds mercy from another…

                                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:               May the God and Father of all compassion hold us in his love;
                                may our redeeming Brother, Jesus, free us from all sin
                                                   and heal all our wounds;
                                may the Holy Spirit’s fire purify our hearts
                                                   sending us bearers of reconciliation to our world,
                                bringing us to everlasting life…

                                                                  AMEN!

29th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C – WORLD MISSION SUNDAY

PRIEST: Today we celebrate World Mission Sunday – the global mission of the Church to ‘renew the face of the earth’ in the power of the Spirit poured into our heart through baptism and confirmation. Jesus teaches us in the Word of God for today that persevering prayer is the well-spring of the energy for Mission, especially to continue praying when nothing seems to be happening. In the face of the monumental injustices we find in our world, can we trust God even when God seems silent? when God seems uninvolved? But God is far more urgent about bringing justice to the poor, the weak and the vulnerable than ever we are! Justice for our brothers and sisters, healing for our planet – that is the Church’s Global Mission. If Justice is withheld, then don’t blame God! It is we who deprive the world of Justice. Let us repent …

READER:                 When we give up on prayer,
                                      no longer turn to God for Love’s energy for mission
when we lose heart and no longer believe God cares,
                                               Father forgive us…

                                                                     LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we do grow tired of ‘listening to the cries of the poor’,
when we give up the struggle to bring healing to our planet
hope to the marginalised and excluded
Jesus reconcile us…

                                                                     CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When we do not challenge and work for Justice for the poor,
when we do not defend the most vulnerable,
when we do not seek a more just world as urgently as God
                                                Holy Spirit change us…

                                                                     LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:                  May the God Justice forgive our injustice;
                                   May the God of intimacy have mercy on our shallow prayer;
                                   May the God of the Weak fill us with Divine Urgency;
                                   and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                                       AMEN!

28th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

PRIEST:     Jesus touches with His love the outcasts of His day … the ten lepers. Only one returned to give thanks:, and he was not even a member of the People of God!  We are provoked to ask a number of questions: who do I make into an outcast, putting them beyond my love? Do I reach out to those the world despises? Do I live with a grateful heart, do I live the Eucharist, the ‘sacrifice of thanksgiving?

READER:             When I exclude anyone from my love,
                                 making them my outcast,
                                 Father forgive me…

                                                     LORD HAVE MERCY

For accepting the prejudices of my society
against whole groups of my fellow citizens,
                                 for not struggling to unmask and eradicate these prejudices,
Jesus reconcile me…

                                                     CHRIST HAVE MERCY

For the lack of gratitude in my life, for forgetting to thank God,
or to thank those who show me their love and compassion,
                                 Holy Spirit change me…

                                                     LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:         May God the Creator of all fill our hearts with love
                                     for all that He has made;
                           May Jesus our Brother reconcile us with all against whom
                                     we have closed our hearts;
                           May the Holy Spirit sing with thankfulness for God’s mercy
                                     deep within our being;
                           and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                    AMEN!

27th Sunday of the Year C

PRIEST:    Today, God’s Word speaks to us about stirring up the faith that the Spirit gives us, so that we may offer more dedicated service to the Kingdom of God. Pope Francis has  called us to be a more humble Church. Today the Gospel reminds us that we are but humble servants of God’s Kingdom,  not its possessors. We are also challenged to fan into a flame the Spirit that is never timid! Let us now celebrate our faith in the Lord’s compassion and forgiveness for all our weakness.

READER:       When our faith is weak, and crumbles before the challenge of tragedy,
                            thank you for understanding and forgiving us

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we allow the flame of the Spirit to grow dim in our hearts,
your reconciling touch stirs Your Fire of love once more
                            and we can witness again to you

                                                          CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When we weary of the call to generous service,
                            and seek the shallow comfort of selfishness,
your mercy strengthens us once more
                            to find our joy in being your servants

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:     Father, we rejoice in your mercy which is endless;
                       Jesus, we thank you for redeeming us by your Blood on the Cross;
                       Holy Spirit, we praise you that you are reconciling love
                                   poured into our hearts
                       bringing us to everlasting life…

                                                        AMEN!

26th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

PRIEST:      Our world is divided between rich and poor, have’s and have-not’s, the Dives’ and Lazarus’s of today … and the gap is getting wider by the month! But Jesus has a different vision of the world – where the poor are the important ones, and the rich beg from them. He called this vision the Kingdom. It is our mission to transform the world into the Kingdom, and so we are challenged to express God’s option for the Poor. Let us reflect upon how far away we are from the values of Jesus who chose the world of the poor…

READER:                  For the ways we are possessive of what we have,
                                       and too often refuse to share with those who have so little…

                                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY

                                       For the ways our need for security makes us blind and insensitive
                                       to so much desperate need around us and in our world…

                                                                 CHRIST HAVE MERCY

                                       For a world that denies most of our brothers and sisters
                                       the right to food, to shelter, to work, to health…

                                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:          May God the Father and Mother of all life forgive us;
                            May Jesus the Universal Brother open our hearts
                                             to heal of the world of poverty;
                            May the Holy Spirit renew the face of the Earth,
                                             beginning with our own lives
                            and lead all the earth to everlasting life…

                                                              AMEN!

25th SUNDAY YEAR C

PRIEST:     The Word of God for us today challenges us about who it is we really serve! Where are our priorities – the ambition for money, easy life-style, and power? Or the building of a world shared equally by all?  Greed is not the preserve of the rich… we can all allow greed for more to distort our lives.  At a time when there is so much war and killing, so much poverty and injustice, we ask ourselves how many of our resources – time, prayer, money – do we put to the Mission of the Gospel and the building of peace and justice. So let us reflect on how we respond to Christ’s call to greater honesty and integrity in all our dealings; Christ’s call to a simpler life-style and a life of that offers the world an alternative, and better Way…

READER:     When we put more energy into money and property
                          than we do for people and relationships

                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we compromise our Gospel values of justice and charity
                           for the sake of our own gain and ambitions

                                                   CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When we live with little regard for the poorest of our communities;
                            when we accept laws and policies that oppress
the already downtrodden

                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:        May the God of Justice purify our hearts;
                          may Jesus come to us in the poverty of His forgiveness;
                          may the Holy Spirit inspire us to choose with God
                          the Mission to serve the poorest,
                          and so bring us to everlasting life…

                                                     AMEN!