Category: Penitential Rites

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 yet more reason to rejoice as we thank God for the gift of the mothers who have given us life and love.  Let us ask forgiveness for so many refusals to recognise the depth of God’s love for us,  sometimes our mother’s love for us…

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 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:    Jesus comes among us, to offer the Water of New Life to all the peoples of the world.  He calls us to drink deeply of His Spirit and come to a new beginning. It is fitting that today we welcome especially our elected Catechumens to receive the gift of Faith expressed in handing on the Creed of the Church to them, as they prepare for Easter Sacraments. As with the Samaritan woman of today’s Gospel, so with us – he knows us through and through! Being the Face of the Father’s mercy’ He reaches out to the most excluded and scorned! Let us all with honesty recognise when we judge and so exclude others from our hearts, bring our need for repentance and forgiveness to Him, and then drink of His mercy and His Spirit.

READER:   When we take God’s presence and love for us so much for granted,
                         neglect to pray, to drink from His well…

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY

When we neglect the mission of Christ locally or globally,
when we do not give the water of the Holy Spirit
                        to those around us thirsting for meaning and healing in their lives…

                                                      CHRIST HAVE MERCY

When we do not want to know God’s will for us,
                        do not want our plans disturbed by another’s need…

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:     May the all-loving Father draw us to himself,
                       May His Redeeming Son, our brother Jesus, give us to drink
of His mercy,
                      May the Holy Spirit be water of Life to forgive, cleanse and heal us,
                                        and may we all come to everlasting life…

                                                        AMEN!

PRIEST: We have hardly begun our Lenten journey,  yet we are given a glimpse of the glory to come:  the glory Abraham beheld at the moment of covenant;  Jesus clothed in the glory of God on the mountain of the Transfiguration.  That vision will give him the courage to embrace the Cross that he sees lying ahead of him;  that vision will enable the apostles to hold on in the dark days of Calvary.  In our darkest moments God gives us enough light to guide our steps and encourage our faltering hearts.  But do we trust him?

READER:          ‘As he prayed,  his face was changed…’
                               For the times we have said no to prayer,
                               or have resisted the call to deeper prayer
and instead settled for superficial words…

                                                       LORD HAVE MERCY

‘Master,  it is wonderful for us to be here:  let us build three tents…’
                               For wanting to stay in the place of our comfort,
                               avoiding the disturbing Gospel

                                                       CHRIST HAVE MERCY

‘This is my Son,  the Chosen One.  Listen to him.’
For not centring our lives upon Jesus our Redeemer,
for not listening to His Word in Scripture
and in the stillness of our hearts…

                                                       LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:         May the God of all Glory transfigure our every failure
                                          by the gift of his mercy;
                           may the Transfigured Christ embrace the sins of our
                                         woundedness and liberate us for Glory;
                           may the Spirit of God’s presence ever abide with us
                                         to empower us to reconcile with love;
                           and bring our world to the Glory of everlasting life

                                                        AMEN!

PRIEST:      We have begun our journey of these 40 days of Lent – like Jesus we enter into the desert to face the demons of our own hearts – demons of selfishness and of comfort,  demons of greed and exploitation.  Whatever our demons are,  Lent is a time to confront and defeat them in the power of Jesus’ love. Jesus seeks to set us free from everything that imprisons our hearts and limits our love. So let us enter upon the sacred and life-giving task and so grow in the freedom of the children of God…

READER:        Jesus is tempted to be popular with the crowd  rather than faithful to His Father:
                             when we conform to others wisdom and prejudices
rather than live by the challenging values of the Gospel

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY

Jesus is tempted to use His power for his own gain, rather than to enrich others with life:
                            when we use our power to diminish others or
                            to satisfy our own desires,  rather than to serve others

                                                          CHRIST HAVE MERCY

Jesus is tempted to take the quick and easy road to success,
                                       rather than the hard road through calvary to love’s victory:
                            when we opt for our own comfort,  when we do not want
                            to be disturbed or to disturb

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:     May the God who calls us to the desert of his love embrace us with mercy;
                       may the Redeemer who walks our path of temptation so forgive us
                      as to heal our sin;
                      may the Spirit change our hearts and give us the joy of repentance;
                      and bring us and the world to everlasting life

                                                          AMEN!

PRIEST:     Jesus sees with a clear eye to the core of every human person;  he speaks a life-giving word from a pure heart of love;  his life bears God’s fruitfulness from the tree of the Cross.  Today His Word really challenges each of us who are His disciples:  as we near Lent and the beginning of this time of Renewal, we need to recognise how blind we can be to our own failures, while so prone to judge harshly the failures of others; we need to look at the soundness of our tree – whether we are truly rooted in Christ and so one heart with him, bearing the same fruit as him…

READER:     For all the hidden ways we judge each other,
see the faults of others without being honest about our own

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

For words that wound rather than heal,  deceive rather than enlighten,   tear down rather than build up

                                         CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

For the ways our heart is not a heart of prayer,  a heart of love, and so we do not bear the fruit that brings people to know our Beloved Christ

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:     May the God who sees to the heart challenge our hypocrisy and forgive our weakness;
                       may the Saviour transform us by the mercy of the Tree of His Cross;
                      may the Spirit be the light of love to heal us into the fruitfulness of God
                     and bring us all into everlasting life…

                                            AMEN!

PRIEST: Today we hear how David refuses to give way to vengeance on King Saul; St Paul tells us to become more and more like Jesus, the heavenly man; and Jesus himself confronts us with the foolishness of God! He challenges us to love our enemies,  to return blessing for a curse.  He urges us to share the very compassion of God with a generous and giving heart. It is foolish talk,  unrealistic idealism for the world …  Is it the same for us?  Or have we the courage to live the foolish generosity of God here and now?

READER:    Jesus says: ‘Love your enemies’ …
                          when we hold onto grudges,
                          past hurts,  and meaningless animosities

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY

Jesus says: ‘Give to everyone who asks you’ …
                         for meanness of heart and pocket,  for lack of generosity
with our time, our energy and our caring

                                            CHRIST HAVE MERCY

Jesus says: ‘Be compassionate – do not judge’ …
                         when we ignore or make ourselves blind to the suffering of others,
                         because it will cost too much;
                         for being judgemental rather than forgiving and understanding

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST:     May the compassionate Father embrace us;
                       may Jesus who died for love of his enemies and ours forgive us;
                      may the Spirit given so generously empower us to be
                     servants of reconciliation and peace;
                     and bring all the world to everlasting life…

                                              AMEN!

PRIEST: Jesus is the Prophet of the Poor – the Voice of the Voiceless. We hear this morning Luke’s version of the Beatitudes – the Blessings of the Kingdom. But if the Poor are blessed, if the world is to change to raise up the poor, then  the world of the rich must radically change! Jesus’ Kingdom turns the world’s order of things upside down!  Are we going to be ‘turning the world upside down’? Are we going to stand with Jesus where he is … among the poor, powerless and voiceless? What a challenge to the Church – what a challenge to you and me!

READER: When we trust in our own power and possessions

rather than trust in the foolish wisdom of Jesus

SUNG RESPONSE

For resisting the challenge to be truly identified with Jesus

who identifies with the struggles of the Poor

SUNG RESPONSE

When the words of our Church speak of Option for the Poor

but our own life-style and the way we use our energy as a parish

belie the fine words 

SUNG RESPONSE

PRIEST: May the God who saved the poor of Israel bring us mercy;

May Jesus born into the poverty of Bethlehem and Galilee

          share with us liberating compassion and strong justice;

May the Holy Spirit who renews the face of the earth 

        by turning the world upside down, renew us forgiveness

and bring all the world to everlasting life…

AMEN!

PRIEST: We celebrate today that Jesus calls and makes disciples:  people who will follow him anywhere,  do whatever he tells them,  share the work with him. Disciples are not some elitist group in the Church – they are you and me. And when he calls,  it involves leaving something behind so that we can give ourselves to mission,  to action. What is our answer to the call of Christ?  What do we need to leave behind? 

READER: For protecting ourselves against the challenging call of Christ,
for reckoning that it is always someone else who is called, and not me

                            LORD HAVE MERCY

For being afraid of holiness,  for being afraid of the God who is Holy,  for counting ourselves as unworthy of his work…

                            LORD HAVE MERCY

For wanting to ‘do our own thing’ and being unwilling
to work with others for the sake of the Gospel:
for not considering the work and the love of Christ
important enough to change our lives…

                            LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST: May the God of Holiness purify our hearts with his mercy;
                    may the Redeemer who calls, summon us to work for
                    the world’s healing and reconciliation;
                    may the Spirit empower us with compassion
                    that sets us free to liberate others
                    and bring us all to everlasting life…

                            AMEN!

PRIEST: We celebrate the Prophet of a Love that knows no limits! He challenges us in today’s Gospel to love the stranger, those different from us, teaching us compassion and generosity of heart: Gospel values so necessary for our own age.  Are our parishes, our homes and our communities truly places of welcome where the ‘stranger’ can become the ‘friend’, where the ‘excluded’ can ‘belong’ – communities where the Gospel will be seen in action?

READER: When our hearts and communities are filled
with more hostility than hospitality…

SUNG RESPONSE

When our welcome is superficial and cold, when we refuse
to share or build a justice that will set another free…

   SUNG RESPONSE

When we are afraid to listen with compassion,
or accept another without judgement;
When our love is offered only to our own…

       SUNG RESPONSE

PRIEST: May the God of Limitless Love pardon us that we may learn how to forgive; May Jesus the Prophet forgive and challenge every narrowness of mind and heart; May the Spirit enfold us in mercy and enflame us with Divine Love; and so bring us to everlasting life…

  AMEN!

PRIEST: We celebrate today the dramatic beginning of Jesus’ ministry … ‘with the power of the Spirit in him’ he returns to his home synagogue,  to proclaim the New Age that his life and ministry, his death and resurrection bring to the world – a New Age of equality and justice,  of freedom and partnership.  We are the Body of Christ,  bearers and makers of this New Age in our own land and our own century.  As we begin our Eucharist,  let us ask ourselves whether or not this text is indeed being fulfilled in our lives and our Church today even as we listen…

READER: ‘Sent to bring Good News to the Poor’ …
are we Good News to the poor of our Inner City,
of our nation, or our world?

                                   LORD HAVE MERCY

‘Sent to bring new sight to the blind’ …
are we quick to see other’s blindness and heard hearts,
                        and slow to be honest about our own?

                                   CHRIST HAVE MERCY

‘Sent to give liberty to captives’ …
                         do we avoid those held captive in their woundedness;
                         do we care about how prisoners are treated,
or their families cope?

                                   LORD HAVE MERCY

PRIEST: May the God who has chosen to dwell among the poor
                           have pity on the poverty of our love;
                   May the Redeemer who raises the downtrodden
                           set us free with forgiveness;
                  May the Spirit who sends us with Power to heal our world,
                           anoint us with life-giving mercy;
                  and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                    AMEN!