Liturgy Alive 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Those Whom God Makes Happy
God Is with the Poor
Greeting (See First Reading)
Blessing on you who recognize your poverty
and therefore put your trust in the Lord;
blessing on you when the Lord is your hope.
May the grace of the Lord be always with you.
R/ And also with you.
Introduction by the Celebrant
Those Whom God Makes Happy
People who have everything they need, or have what they think they need, are not easily open to God, or even to other people. On the other hand, people in difficulties are generally more open to others, receptive to help and love from God and people, and, consequently, also more open to see the needs of others and to help them; for they know from experience what it means to be poor, troubled, sorrowing and dependent on others. Jesus asks of us today to become people willing to feel our needs and to depend on God. Then we will also be open to our neighbor, to receive and to give. We acknowledge our poverty and dependence before Jesus.
God Is with the Poor
People who are clumsy and unfortunate, those who are suffering and persecuted are assured by the Lord: Consider yourselves fortunate, for I am with you! I will never abandon you. I will carry you, for you are aware of your poverty and you trust in me. We ask the Lord to count us among the poor who rely on him and to take us into his kingdom.
Penitential Act
Too often we are too self-satisfied
to make room for God and for people.
We now ask the Lord and one another for forgiveness.
(pause)
Lord Jesus, you became poor for our sake
to make us rich with your forgiveness and life:
Lord, have mercy.
R/ Lord, have mercy.
Jesus Christ, you came to join us in our miseries
to heal us and to bring us joy:
Christ, have mercy.
R/ Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, you make us hungry for enduring love
to fill us with your lasting happiness:
Lord, have mercy.
R/ Lord, have mercy.
Forgive us our weaknesses, Lord,
and make us live for you and for people.
Lead us to everlasting life.
R/ Amen.
Opening Prayer
Let us put our trust in God
and hope everything from him
on account of Jesus, our risen Lord
(pause)
God our Father,
you appeal to us today through your Son
to choose freely and responsibly
the kind of happiness that endures.
Let the gospel of your Son shock us
into recognizing the emptiness and poverty
of material riches and human power
and fill our poverty
with the riches and freedom
of your truth, your love and justice,
which you offer us through Jesus,
your risen Son and our Lord for ever. R/ Amen.
Intercessions (J. Feder, adapted)
Jesus had his own definition of who are happy and who are to be pitied. Let us ask him that we may judge and live not by our standards but by his, and let us say: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.
For the poor, that the Lord may fulfill their expectations; for the satisfied, that the Lord may change their hearts and make them capable of love, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.
For those who are hungry, that the Lord himself may give them the bread of eternal life and inspire us to give them the bread of each day; and for those who are now filled with themselves, that he may arouse their hunger and open them to trust in him, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.
For those who now weep, that the Lord may console them with his love; and for those who now laugh, that he may remind them of the seriousness of life and make them capable of reflection, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.
For those who are hated, insulted, rejected, that the Lord may unite their sufferings to his own; for those who are praised and flattered, that he may wake them up from their self-complacency and reveal to them too the mystery of his cross, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, you wanted to experience the poverty, the hunger, the suffering and the persecution that is the lot of many. Give us a share in the newness of your own risen life, and let our lives proclaim the happiness to which you call us, for you are our Lord for ever. R/ Amen.
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord God, loving Father,
in the poverty of our hearts
you give us your Son Jesus Christ
as our food and drink of life.
May he give us the courage
to place all our trust and hope in him,
that we may follow him, not blindly,
but knowingly and deliberately
on his way of loyalty and poverty,
that we may attain with him
your happiness that lasts for ever. R/ Amen.
Introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer
Let us thank and praise the Father in heaven, for we know that we are in his hands. In him we have life and true happiness.
Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer
With those who hunger for bread,
for love and for happiness,
let us pray to the Father in heaven
in the words taught us by his Son:
R/ Our Father...
Deliver Us
Deliver, us, Lord, from the curse
of placing our trust in ourselves,
our possessions, our plans,
our own schemes for happiness.
Instead, grant us the blessing
of going your insecure ways,
of living with our poverty
and hungering for your love and truth,
as we wait in joyful hope
for the coming in glory
of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ. R/ For the kingdom...
Invitation to Communion
This is our Lord who said:
”Happy are you who are poor;
happy are you who are hungry now,
for you shall be satisfied.”
Happy indeed are we to be invited
to the table of the Lord
to be filled with his life and blessing. R/ Lord, I am not worthy...
Prayer after Communion
Lord our God,
the words spoken to us today
by Jesus your Son
are hard to hear and accept;
they go against our mentality.
Let your Son make us wise
with your own insight and wisdom
and let him give us the courage
to be on the side of the poor and the suffering,
that our human insufficiency
may attract the riches of your grace,
which you offer us
through Jesus Christ our Lord. R/ Amen.
Blessing
Curse or blessing... Choose, said Jeremiah.
Good for you... Alas for you, said Jesus
through the evangelist Luke.
Let us be aware of our own indigence,
that before God, we are after all beggars
who have to open our hands
and to reach out to him
for happiness that can last.
May it not be alas or a curse,
but may God bless you:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.
May the Lord go with you and fill your every need.
R/ Thanks be to God.
