Category: Penitential Rites

PRIEST: November is the month of remembrance – remembering those who have died in both war and in peace;  remembering those we have loved and are now ‘gone before us marked with the sign of faith.’ But we are an Easter People and Alleluia! is our song – we are children of the Resurrection, children of our God. As we celebrate Baptism today we know we die with Christ in the waters of baptism in order to rise to a new life in Him, now and for all eternity. So we remember with living faith, knowing that the dead are fully alive in the Resurrection in ways we can only glimpse darkly. Today also marks a most important day for our world, our planet, as the United Nations COP 27 Conference gathers in Egypt. This Conference must make binding and effective decisions to arrest Climate Change before it is too late and we condemn our children and grandchildren to inhabiting a dangerous world! In a moment silent prayer, let us remember our beloved dead, and pray for the success of COP 27 and the future of our planet. 

READER:            For our fears that stop us trusting God
for being unwilling to sacrifice ourselves in the service of others …

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we fail to give our world a witness to eternity;
when our lives are little different from those around us…

                                                      CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

Because Jesus has destroyed death and restored life
                                  in the power of his death and resurrection…

                                                      LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:      May the God of the Living embrace us with forgiveness,
                        heal us with tenderness, empower us with mercy,
                        and bring us into everlasting life…

                                                         AMEN!

PRIEST: Today we 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. As he answered the call of Jesus, he came to know the power of Jesus’ love converting him from his old life of injustice and sin to a new life of generosity and holiness. We all stand in need to deeper conversion, welcoming God’s mercy into  our hearts. 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!

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, on this World Mission Sunday, to be humble 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 and so bring something of Gospel Freedom to 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!

PRIEST: Jesus teaches us today about the need to continue praying – especially when nothing seems to be happening. Can we trust God even when God seems silent? when God seems uninvolved? Do we believe that God always listens to us … and with love? Or do we need God to be constantly reassuring us and doing our bidding? But God is far more urgent about bringing justice to the poor, the weak and the vulnerable than ever we are! 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,
                                      when we lose heart and no longer believe God cares,
                                       Father forgive us…

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we do not root our lives in the Truth of God in Scripture,
when our actions and thoughts are guided
                                       by the shallow fashions of the world
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 does
                                       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!

PRIEST:   Today Jesus challenges us as to the nature and demands of being His disciples: whether we prize our relationship with the Lord before all else? Whether we are willing to persevere in the task of loving by shouldering with Him the Cross of humanity’s suffering? Shamefully, the slave trade is a very real part of the 21st century …the second reading today asks us whether we enslave others or set them free? There is no-one who is not our brother, our sister. Let us trust the forgiving love of our God and as we welcome His mercy re-commit ourselves to the Light of Mercy to our world.

READER:            For the ways we do not put our relationship with God first,
                                 for not making time for prayer,
                                 for pushing worship to the sidelines of our lives

                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY…

                                  When we avoid carrying the Cross with Jesus,
                                   when we do not get involved with the suffering of others
                                   because it will demand too much of us

                                                   CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

                                   Because our world enslaves so many people today
for child exploitation, human trafficking, forced labour and servitude;
whenever men, women and children are sexually exploited

                                                   LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:    May our God of love, Father, Son and Spirit
                      embrace us with mercy, touch us with peace,
                      and reconcile us with compassion,
                      that we may build a world where all are free,
                      bringing all Creation to life everlasting …

                                                   AMEN!

PRIEST: Jesus challenges any temptation to complacency:  we do not have an automatic ticket into the Kingdom. Everyday, we need to say ‘YES’ again to entering by the narrow gate of Christ’s radical and universal love. That we come often to Mass, that we pray frequently, that we keep the Catholic rules – none of these of themselves brings us to salvation – the narrow gate is simply to love – to love more and more deeply, more and more widely, more and more courageously! And to open wide our heart to all peoples sharing the universal love of God. In the end nothing else really matters – just opening wide our heart as God does! Let us seek forgiveness for our failures to place love above all else in our lives.

READER:              When we are tempted to do the minimum required,
                                   …settling for the opposite of a life motivated by love!

                                                        LORD HAVE MERCY…

For every exclusiveness of heart
                                    that excludes others from our concern or our community;
                                    that thinks we alone are special…

                                                        CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When we treat prayer and worship like a divine insurance policy,
                                    seeking a false sense of security,
                                   dulling our openness to faith, love, radical change …

                                                          LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:        May the God of Universal Love,
                                     forgive all narrowness of heart among us;
                          May Jesus, brother to all peoples and races,
                                     break down the barriers that divide;
                          May the Spirit of Divine Love open the narrow gate
                                     of ever-expanding love in our hearts;
                          and bring all the earth’s people into everlasting life

 AMEN!

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; we share the banquet that challenges us to feed the world with justice and love. 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

                                        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
                        may the Spirit draw us into the Unity that reconciles;
                       and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                         AMEN!

PRIEST: Today we gather with Mary and those first disciples, some 120 in number,  as they prayed and waited in the Upper Room of their fears soon to be turned to hopes.  We also like them have heard Jesus pray that  we may all be one; we have heard Him entrust his mission to us;  we like them know our own weakness and anxiety;  and like them we too cry out for the empowering Spirit to come.  Let us invite the Spirit who forgives and heals our many divisions to enter the dark shadows of our negativity and sin…

READER:           When we are afraid to allow the energy of the Spirit
                                to burn freely in our lives;
when we are afraid of the Spirit’s mighty wind
                                blowing through our lives and our communities;

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we hurt the Spirit’s unity by our shallow love
and petty selfishness;
                                for every intolerance and dishonesty…

                                         CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When we seek the Spirit’s consolation and healing,
but not Spirit’s energy for challenging mission;
                                when we ask for the Spirit’s gifts,
                                but not that we might become gift to another…

                                         LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:    May the God whose breath is love  – give us new life;
                      may the Saviour whose touch is healing  – grant us mercy;
                      may the Spirit whose presence within is fire – burn us with love’s pain;
                     and bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                  AMEN!

PRIEST:  There are many ways of meeting the Risen Christ:  one of the most life-giving encounters is to touch the world in mission.  Today,  we hear how Jesus re-affirms the apostles in their mission, after their experience of failure around the Calvary event.  Strengthened and healed,  we then hear how they find new courage in obeying God’s voice rather than human voices in bearing witness to Jesus. He challenges us with his repeated question to Peter:  ‘do you love me…?’  Do we love him enough to give ourselves to his world and its needs in the mission of the Resurrection?

READER:         When we put obedience to human voices before obedience to God;
                               when we want human acceptance and respect
                                more than Gospel integrity…

                                              LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we do not accept one another’s failures;
                               when we do not give each other a second chance;
                               when we do not affirm each other in our ministries

                                              CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When our love for the Lord is not enough to give us new priorities;
                               not strong enough to change the way
                               we use our time and energy to serve his world

                                              LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:       May the Lord of mercy bring us to new beginnings;
                        may our Redeeming Jesus heal our every failure;
                        may the Spirit of divine love empower us to be moments
                        of Resurrection for our world
                        so that God might bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                AMEN!

PRIEST:  There are many ways of meeting the Risen Christ:  one of the most life-giving encounters is to touch the world in mission.  Today,  we hear how Jesus re-affirms the apostles in their mission, after their experience of failure around the Calvary event.  Strengthened and healed,  we then hear how they find new courage in obeying God’s voice rather than human voices in bearing witness to Jesus. He challenges us with his repeated question to Peter:  ‘do you love me…?’  Do we love him enough to give ourselves to his world and its needs in the mission of the Resurrection?

READER:         When we put obedience to human voices before obedience to God;
                              when we want human acceptance and respect
                              more than Gospel integrity…

                                                LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we do not accept one another’s failures;
                             when we do not give each other a second chance;
                             when we do not affirm each other in our ministries

                                                CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

When our love for the Lord is not enough to give us new priorities;
                             not strong enough to change the way
                             we use our time and energy to serve his world

                                                LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:        May the Lord of mercy bring us to new beginnings;
                          may our Redeeming Jesus heal our every failure;
                          may the Spirit of divine love empower us to be moments
                         of Resurrection for our world
                         so that God might bring us all to everlasting life…

                                                  AMEN!