Category: Penitential Rites

PRIEST: We gather the year that is past with thankfulness for the many touches of grace and goodness that have been the gifts of God; with sorrow for all that has wounded our world through sin and selfishness, war and injustice; with healing prayer for hurts we have endured or have inflicted. We seek to enter the New Year with hearts purified in the fire of Divine Love and lives focussed on the God who makes all things new!

READER:     For Peace not won, and Justice not achieved;
For poverty still rampant and power still abused
For Climate Change denied or ignored
We ask your mercy, O God of Peace

                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

For forgiveness withheld and wounds inflicted;
For relationships broken and lives abused
We ask your mercy, O God of Pardon

                                        CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

For touches of grace not welcomed and gifts not accepted;
For the Good News not proclaimed and unity not achieved
We ask your mercy, O God of Oneness

                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:     May the God of Pardon bring mercy to our failures,
                       The God of Unity bring fire to our love grown cold,
                       The God of Peace bring healing to our hurting hearts,
                       and renew hope as we journey into this New Year
                       To bring all the world to everlasting life…       

                                              AMEN!

PRIEST: As we draw near the end of this year we gather as a family of families … around the simplicity and poverty, the love and the faith of the Holy Family of Bethlehem and Nazareth.  Theirs was not a trouble-free family life: homeless, fleeing for their lives into exile because of the fears of the powerful, destined to be refugees for years.  Yet we celebrate the wonder of God’s great confidence in us and in our families, entrusting His own Son to a family like ours, for Jesus to grow and develop into the power of love that He became.  In the midst of so many diverse forms of family life among us, let us rededicate ourselves to the task of love, recognising that our failures are forgiven…

READER:      The family is the school of love:
                            that we may replace harshness with forgiveness,
                            criticism with encouragement, deafness with sensitive listening

                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

The family is called to be a healing community:
                               that we may care rather than judge, accept rather than reject,
cherish rather than take for granted

                                        CHRIST HAVE MERCY …

The family is called to be a place of prayer:
                              that Christ may be the centre of our homes, not on the edge,
                              that parents may be the first and best of teachers of their children in the ways of faith,
                              that love may set all free to search and develop, not criticism  to stifle and limit

                                        LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:      May our God who is family, Father, Son and Spirit,
                        bring mercy to our failures, fire to our love grown cold,
                       healing peace to our hurting hearts,
                       and renewed hope to the challenge of love and growth
                      bringing us all to everlasting life…

                                             AMEN!

PRIEST: Today is a wondrous day … a day for untold rejoicing as we gaze upon the awesome mystery of our God in vulnerable human flesh … the All-powerful contained in the powerless frame of a tiny baby.   Looking into the eyes of this child we can only treat every child with immense respect and love, embrace every human person with a divine love. Yet our world is not like that … and too often neither are we. So we repent of all evil, and seeking the way of peace for ourselves and our world: then our joy will be full this day!

READER:      Father,  come and speak Your Word of Forgiveness to every human heart:
                           forgive us when we close our heart to Jesus’ brothers and sisters,
                          when there is no room in our nation for the stranger and refugee;
                          come free us to welcome Your forgiveness

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY…

                         Jesus, come and speak Your Word of Peace         into the violence and war of our world:
                        for every anger that we harbour within,
                        for every injustice that makes some victims,
                        for being so slow to work for the peace proclaimed at Your birth…

                                            CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

                          Holy Spirit, come and speak Your Word of Love to a world that forgets how to accept each other:
                         for every refusal to love, to heal,
                         to give ourselves in compassion and sacrifice…

                                            LORD HAVE MERCY…

PRIEST:       May the Father who has so loved the world
that He has sent His beloved Son embrace you in forgiveness;
                         May the Son and Saviour Jesus who died to reconcile us all
                        touch your heart with pardon and peace;
                       May the Holy Spirit who hovers over this day more brightly than the Star
                      fill your lives with light and healing;
                      and may our God who is with us bring us and all the world to everlasting life…   

                                             AMEN!

PRIEST:          My dear sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus,
We gather today on this last Sunday of Advent Preparation to welcome in this Eucharist the Visitation of God’s Love. Like Elizabeth, we carry humanity’s longings within us…longings for a world of peace,  equality and justice;  like Mary,  we carry the Christ within us,  he who is God’s answer to every human longing, God’s gift of Mercy made Flesh.  Our meeting with the living God this day is rich with promise.  Let us seek to run to meet him with the obedience of love.

[proceed to wreath, singing the ‘Magnificat’]

Let us pray…
O God of our History, from all eternity You have spoken forth Your Word of Love that gives Life. Your Word created the heavens and earth…Your Word made man and woman in Your own image and likeness…Your Word called forth a People 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,  indeed You our God have visited your people!  Bless this Advent Wreath of Light and Expectancy and bless our parish community with the faith and love of Mary so that the Word may be free to become Flesh in our flesh, so that the Day of His Kingdom may come…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, journeyed forgetting herself
                         in order to serve Elizabeth and all God’s People:
                         for the times we refuse to hope and to serve,

                                          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 world,
                     so that the Saviour may come again and bring us life everlasting

                                          AMEN!

Let us share once more Mary’s Song of Rejoicing and Exultation  [‘Magnificat’]

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 we are called to work joyfully for the Great Day of the Lord,  when all creation will ring with the Glory of God; rejoicing that we hear the call to conversion, and wish to respond, rejoicing in the endless mercy of the Father that Jesus brings.

Let us now sing with joy as we witness the Light of Christ growing in our midst…

[ 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 with one another in the household of faith and with all the 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 all the darkness that is in our lives, and in our world:
a darkness that deprives our earth of your joy; we ask your mercy

                                               LORD HAVE MERCY …

Lord, for the darkness of violence and war,
for the darkness of hunger and poverty,
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 among us bearing the light of healing and reconciliation;
with confidence we ask your mercy

                                               LORD HAVE MERCY …

PRIEST:          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 Light,
                          that we may live for ever and ever…

                                                AMEN!

PRIEST: My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ Jesus,
We gather this morning, at the beginning of our second week of Advent Preparation and Prayer. We come together to listen to God’s Holy Word on this Bible Sunday, so that we may allow His Word to be made Flesh in our lives. That 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. May we recognise the Bible as our first and greatest ‘prayer book’.

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 Wreath, 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 for failing 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 make 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!

          We sing once more our Advent Song of Joyful Hope…

RICHARD:  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 … learning to yearn with hope for the final coming of the Kingdom upon the earth.

Let us now sing 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 make us mindful that Jesus came among us
                           to die on a Cross, & 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…

RICHARD:     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!

Let us now sing once more ‘Come Lord Jesus…’  as we prepare to listen to God’s Word

PRIEST:   As the Church’s Year draws to a close, we celebrate Jesus Christ, King of all Creation. We celebrate He 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 Brother who suffered and died on the Cross to make this Dream a reality. On this great Feast, which is also National Youth Sunday, we ask ourselves the question:  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 King to our wounded world? Do we serve each other and the broken of our world in the name of our King? Do we serve our own kingdom rather than God’s Kingdom?

READER:    When we have thought only of our own needs and desires,
                         when we have given into our selfishness
                         and not become servants to those among whom we live…

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY…

When we have not offered the time, the energy and the gifts
                         God has given us to build up the Body of Christ in our parish,
                         and to transform our world into
                         His Kingdom of Justice, Love and Peace…

                                                 CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

Because Christ our King comes to the world in all its poverty and brokenness,
                       to speak the Word of Forgiveness, Mercy and Healing
                       that brings about His Kingdom…

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY…

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 Creation to everlasting life…

                                                 AMEN!

Priest: Today we celebrate the generosity of God in giving us everything when he gave us Jesus … and the story of the poor Widow who has little but gives everything challenges us about the degree of generosity and sacrifice in our own giving. Through Baptism we are utterly identified with Christ and in the Eucharist we are gradually transformed into His self-giving, sacrificial love. Let us all reflect a moment on just how much we give, or don’t give of ourselves in love of God and service of His Kingdom:

READER:      Jesus, you ask us to trust you so completely
that we give everything into your safe-keeping …
                             for our unwillingness to  trust you –

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY…

Jesus, you ask of us a generous response to the call to serve your Kingdom …
                             for the times when we will not sacrifice our own pleasure or plans for you –

                                                 CHRIST HAVE MERCY…

Jesus, you ask us to have the courage to share
whatever we have, great or small, with our brothers and sisters …
                              for not having the courage to share generously –

                                                 LORD HAVE MERCY…

Priest:        May the God who has so generously poured out all his love into our hearts
                      be abundant with his mercy,
                      endless with his forgiveness,
                      and powerful with his renewal of our hearts;
                      and so bring us to full and 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 are challenged to reflect upon the nature of holiness in our contemporary world. Let us seek forgiveness and mercy that we may journey to Christ with all the saints…

READER:      Holiness is about being thoroughly human:
                           for the ways we have been inhuman and insensitive to each other
for the ways we have not cared for justice, cared for our world,…

                                                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;
for not changing our life-styles to bring healing
                          to our ‘Common Home’, the planet we share

                                                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!