Our Sunday Supplication

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Holy Mass is at the very core of our worship as a Catholic community. Nothing can ever be substituted for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in this exceptional time of difficulty for our communities, our nation, and the whole world, this order of prayer can be offered by individuals and families and engages us in our Sunday celebration of the Word of God. We can pray this prayer in our homes—the “domestic churches” which help build up the Body of Christ on earth—and thus be connected to the entire Church at prayer.

During this time of prayer, we include the opportunity to make a Spiritual Communion. Making a Spiritual Communion is a worthy practice, recommended by innumerable saints throughout the ages, which unites our whole selves to God and his Church.

Order of Prayer

Taken from the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours

Introduction

Leader: God, ✠ come to my assistance.
Response: Lord, make haste to help me.

Leader: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
Response: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Hymn

Where charity and love prevail,
There God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
By love are we thus bound.

With grateful joy and holy fear
God’s charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
Now love God in return.

Forgive we now each other’s faults
As we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
In Christian holiness.

Let strife among us be unknown,
Let all contention cease;
Be God’s the glory that we seek,
Be ours God’s holy peace.

Let us recall that in our midst
Dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of his body joined,
We are in Christ made one.

No race nor creed can love exclude
If honored be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
Whose Father is the same.

Act of Contrition

Leader: Let us acknowledge our sins, and seek the Lord’s pardon and peace.

Together: I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

Leader: Almighty ever-living God,
increase our faith, hope and charity,
and make us love what you command,
so that we may merit what you promise.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Together: Amen.

The Sunday Readings

A reading from the Book of Exodus (Exodus 22:20–26)

Thus says the LORD: "You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.

"If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate."

The Word of the Lord.
―Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm (Psalms 18:2–3, 3–4, 47, 51)

Reader: I love you, Lord, my strength.
Together: I love you, Lord, my strength.

Reader: I love you, O LORD, my strength,
O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.
Together: I love you, Lord, my strength.

Reader: My God, my rock of refuge,
my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!
Praised be the LORD, I exclaim,
and I am safe from my enemies.
Together: I love you, Lord, my strength.

Reader: The LORD lives and blessed be my rock!
Extolled be God my savior.
You who gave great victories to your king
and showed kindness to your anointed.
Together: I love you, Lord, my strength.

Reader: Worship the LORD, in holy attire;
tremble before him, all the earth;
say among the nations: The LORD is king,
he governs the peoples with equity.
Together: I love you, Lord, my strength.

A Reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:5c–10)

Brothers and sisters: You know what sort of people we were among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.

The word of the Lord.
―Thanks be to God.

Gospel Verse (John 14:23)

Reader: Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord,
Together: and my Father will love him and we will come to him.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Matthew 22:34–40)

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

The Gospel of the Lord.
―Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

For Reflection:

1. In both the First Reading and the Gospel, it is clear that love of God and love of neighbor are not two separate things, but are intimately related. Why is it that we need to do both, not just one or the other? How do we express our love for God? How do we express our love for neighbor?
2. If we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, then we will also love all that God loves. In the First Reading, God makes it clear that he has a special love for the most vulnerable, i.e. the foreigner, the widows and orphans, and the poor. Who are the vulnerable people that you come into contact with and how might God be calling you to love them?
3. What is something you can do this week as an act of love for God? What is something you can do this week as an act of love for your neighbor?

Response to the Word

Leader: We give thanks to you, O God, as we call upon your name.
Response: We give thanks to you, O God, as we call upon your name.

Leader: We cry aloud how marvelous you are,
Response: as we call upon your name.

Leader: Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
Response: We give thanks to you, O God, as we call upon your name.

Prayer of the Faithful

Leader: Let us give thanks to our Savior who came into this world as God’s presence among us. Let us call upon him:
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

Leader: Lord Jesus, you are the rising Sun, the firstfruits of the future resurrection, grant that we may not sit in the shadow of death but walk in the light of life.
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

Leader: Show us your goodness, present in every creature, that we may contemplate your glory everywhere.
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

Leader: Do not allow us to be overcome by evil today, but grant that we may overcome evil through the power of good.
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

Leader: You were baptized in the Jordan and anointed by the Holy Spirit, grant that we may this day give thanks to your Holy Spirit.
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

Leader: In your mercy, continue to sanctify all who are afflicted from the present pandemic, and draw us all closer to you, and to one another, in this time of suffering.
Response: Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

The Lord's Prayer

Leader: Let us pray together as Jesus taught us:
Together: Our Father, who art in heaven …

Spiritual Communion

Leader: You have given us bread from heaven, alleluia, alleluia.
Response: Containing in itself all delight, alleluia, alleluia.
Together: My Jesus,
I believe that you are present
in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
I love you above all things,
and I desire to receive you into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive you sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace you as if you were already there
and unite myself wholly to you.
Never permit me to be separated from you,
my Lord and my God!
Amen.

Canticle of Praise

Canticle of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79)
Together: ✠ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

Conclusion

Leader: ✠ May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.
Together: Amen.