Liturgy Alive Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Living Stones
Introduction
Christians have received God’s saving grace. As good stewards, they must pass it on, through mutual love, their hospitality. If they endure in trials, they are sharing in Christ’s suffering and should rejoice.
The gospel of today speaks of several things – the temple as a place of worship and prayer, not of business, the need for faith, prayer, forgiveness. And we must bear fruit. Let us also drive out of our life what does not belong there, that we can serve God better.
Opening Prayer
Holy God,
we often turn our hearts
into houses of pride and greed
rather than into homes of love and goodness
where you can feel at home.
Destroy the temple of sin in us,
drive out all evil from our hearts
and make us living stones of a community
in which can live and reign
your Son Jesus Christ,
our living Lord for ever and ever.
Intentions
– That the Church may examine itself regularly how it could serve better God and the people of God and let God purify it to make it more faithful to the gospel, we pray:
– That we may cleanse the temple of our hearts by asking forgiveness from the Lord for our wrongs, we pray:
– That like good fruit trees we may bear fruit by not merely avoiding evil but doing deeds of mercy and love, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord God, our Father,
with the bread of life
and the wine of joy of himself
your Son will renew the covenant with us.
Let Jesus give us the will and the love
to be faithful to its demands
the way he was faithful to it,
even if it meant the cross.
For we wish to give you true worship
with and through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Our faithful God,
you have given us in this eucharist
your Son Jesus Christ
to show us what loyal obedience means.
Let your Son be alive in us,
so that our Christian community may be
the temple in which he lives
and where he gathers us together
as his brothers and sisters.
Keep us from all formalism,
that we may worship you with our lives
and bear fruit that lasts.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Blessing
We must worship God in spirit and in truth, so that our lives correspond to what we believe in and that we serve God and people. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
