Liturgy Alive Weekday in Ordinary Time
Monday, 17th Week in Ordinary Time
THE SMALLEST OF ALL SEEDS
Opening Prayer
Curb our impatience Lord,
when we try to impose
your truth and justice and peace
in a Church and a world
not yet disposed to welcome them.
In our powerlessness and discouragement
may we learn to accept
that all true growth comes from you.
We can only plant the tiny seed
and it is you who can make it bloom into a mighty tree
that can give shelter to all who accept your word.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Litrugy of the Word
Introduction to the First Reading:
God's love made his people as close to God as a loincloth is close to the human body. Jeremiah's symbolic action tells the people that by embracing the idolatry of Babylonia, they have given up God's tenderness and become like rotten.
Gospel Introduction:
A tiny seed becomes a tree. At the beginning, when one hears it and accepts it, the Word of God is only a tiny seed, and when it is contested and contradicted, as it was in the early Church and is often again today, it looks insignificant, negligible. What is it, in comparison with the powerful media? But it is meant to grow and to become little by little a kingdom of love and justice that overcomes all contradiction and hatred.
General Intercessions
– That the tiny seed still alive in the hearts of many who abandon the Church may not be extinguished but grow again into a bright light to guide them to God and people, we pray:
– That missionaries may keep sowing the seed of the Lord's joyful Good News in our often indifferent and hostile world, we pray:
– That the seed of sharing and unity may keep growing in our Christian communities, until they become one heart and one mind in the Lord who gathers them at his table, let us pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Almighty and patient Father,
we bring before you the fruits
grown from tiny seeds of wheat
and the small shoots of the vine.
By the power of your Spirit,
they will become Jesus, your Son among us.
Let the seed of his life and message
bear fruit among us, your people
and make us the body of Christ to the world.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
God our Father,
with a generous hand you have sown among us
the seed of all that is good and true,
your Son, Jesus Christ.
However insignificant and disappointing
our faith and love may seem now,
give us the hope and the courage
that he can unite us in a community
where justice, truth, and freedom will prevail
until the crop is ripe for reaping.
Grant us this through Christ, our Lord.
Blessing
All growth is slow, so slow that it is almost invisible. All that grows needs time. That is the way the Word of God in which we believe has to grow among us and to become a kingdom where people respond to God's fidelity and work out God's plans. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
