Liturgy Alive Thursday, December 17, 2015

print
Thursday, December 17, 2015

Introduction

The liturgical readings of today call our attention to Christ in his human reality: human like us in everything – except for sin, clarifies St Paul – a descendant of sinners, who, as Church Fathers stress, are even singled out in Matthew’s family tree of Christ, a man born of a woman, a baby in a crib, a child growing up to manhood, a man walking the roads of Palestine, who could weep and be angry, had friends, had a sense of humor, attended marriage feasts. Indeed, he was fully human, God in human form.

Opening Prayer

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son came among us as one of us,
a human being among other people,
simple, accessible,
yet your human face
and the measure of what a human person is.
Lord, make us discover ourselves in his mirror:
that we are born to be free,
to be unselfish, available, committed.
Free us from our selfishness,
our cowardice and attitudes of conformism,
that we may become a bit
what you want us to be, like your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Liturgy of the Word

 

General Intercessions

–   For the Jewish people, who gave us Jesus our Savior, that God may bless them and give them peace, we pray:

–   For people who have erred, that they may not give up on themselves but keep seeking reconciliation with God and neighbor, we pray:

–   For all of us, that we may keep growing in humanity in the likeness of Christ, we pray:

Prayer over the Gifts

God our Father,
your Son Jesus Christ, our Savior,
gives himself to us
in the simplicity of a piece of bread
and a cup of wine.
May we learn from him
to give ourselves in all simplicity.
Do not allow us to be resigned
to evil and misfortunes in the world,
but challenge us to be responsible with Jesus
for our brothers and sisters
and with him to exist for others,
today and every day, for ever.

Prayer after Communion

Loving Father,
because Jesus, our Lord and Savior,
became one of us long ago,
we can believe that he is still one of us today,
sharing our destiny, going all the way with us.
Accept us then in your Son as we are:
stumbling and fumbling and plodding,
yet full of good will and hoping
in a future of justice and reconciliation,
for Christ is our Lord for ever.

Blessing

A theme dear to the Church Fathers is that Christ became one of us as a human person to make us children of God and to show us in himself what it means to be a son or daughter of God. May God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

share :