Saturday August 5, 2017
Introduction
When the Jews celebrated the jubilee year every fiftieth year, slaves were supposed to be set free, land alienated through debts, to be returned to its original owner. The idea was to allow for a radically new beginning, with respect for human rights and dignity. It was an attempt to bring about a more equitable distribution of goods within the people of God. The Christian Holy Year takes its inspiration from the Jewish Jubilee Year. For us, then, should the jubilee year not mean to create more justice within the Church, with a new start to be made, new chances offered to start from scratch? Is this not the image of the Christian life? A clean slate to start with, new reconciliation?
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, merciful Father,
you always give new chances
to the people you love.
Again and again, you want to make
a new beginning with us.
God, how good you are to us.
Yes Lord, we want to try again
to live at peace with you and each other
and to offer to each and everyone
our willingness to accept all,
to forget the mistakes of the past,
and to become new
in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Reading 1: LV 25:1, 8-17
The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
"Seven weeks of years shall you count–seven times seven years–
so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.
Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound;
on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo
throughout your land.
This fiftieth year you shall make sacred
by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.
It shall be a jubilee for you,
when every one of you shall return to his own property,
every one to his own family estate.
In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee,
you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth
or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines.
Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you,
you may not eat of its produce,
except as taken directly from the field.
"In this year of jubilee, then,
every one of you shall return to his own property.
Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor
or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly.
On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee
shall you purchase the land from your neighbor;
and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops,
shall he sell it to you.
When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more;
when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less.
For it is really the number of crops that he sells you.
Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God.
I, the LORD, am your God."
Responsorial Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 7-8
R. (4) O God, let all the nations praise you!
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
The earth has yielded its fruits;
God, our God, has blessed us.
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
Alleluia MT 5:10
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: MT 14:1-12
Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus
and said to his servants, "This man is John the Baptist.
He has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him."
Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison
on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
for John had said to him,
"It is not lawful for you to have her."
Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people,
for they regarded him as a prophet.
But at a birthday celebration for Herod,
the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests
and delighted Herod so much
that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for.
Prompted by her mother, she said,
"Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist."
The king was distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests who were present,
he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison.
His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl,
who took it to her mother.
His disciples came and took away the corpse
and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.
Intercessions
– For all ministers of the Word and for all Christians, that they may have the courage to carry out their prophetic task of proclaiming to a skeptical world the undistorted Gospel of Christ, we pray:
– For the prophets in our midst sent by God to revive us up from our complacency, that we may not muzzle them but heed their call for conversion, we pray:
– For the people without voice or deprived of their rights, that the Lord may give us a voice to speak out for them we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord our God,
we bring this bread and wine before you
that Jesus, the prophet of your Good News,
may be alive among us.
Open us to his stirring words,
that call us away from our fears
and self-made havens of security.
Make us your people.
Make it come fully true in us,
that you have set us free
by the body and blood of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Lord our God,
in this Eucharistic celebration,
you have contested in us
our mediocrity, our complacency
by the word and example of your Son.
Do not allow us to stifle
his cry for authentic living
for you and for those you have entrusted to us.
Keep speaking to us
in the events and people of our time,
your ever-new word of freedom and hope
for which Jesus laid down his life.
Let him be our Lord for ever.
Blessing
We should be grateful when people make us face the truth about ourselves, also and especially when it is painful. It is a splendid occasion to change for the better. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
