Prayers of the faithful - St Luke the Evangelist - 18 October 2019

As we celebrate St Luke the Evangelist today, we present our prayers to our loving God:

1. We pray for all of our Church leaders who lead us and guide us in the faith.  May they help us grow in wisdom and charity.  

2. As St Luke was a physician, we pray for all physicians and medical professional.  May their hard work and talents by a service of love and mercy to our community. 

3. For all missionaries, for all who spread the word of God throughout the world. 

4. For all students, may the Lord lead them and guide them in their studies and their activities throughout this school year.  

5. For the sick and shut-ins and for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed, we pray to the Lord.  

6. For those prayers we hold in our hearts today.  

You called St Luke to be a missionary of your Gospel.  Help us all recognize our missionary calling.  We present these prayers to you through your son Jesus Christ, our Lord forever and ever.  AMEN.  

17 October 2019 - reflection on St Ignatius of Antioch

      When we think of the saints in the early Church, we will find that most of them were martyrs, since this was a time of great persecution in the Church.  If fact, for a long time in our Church’s history, one had to be a martyr in order to be a saint.  St Ignatius of Antioch became a bishop in the middle of the first century.  Tradition has it that Ignatius was a good friend of John the Evangelist.  Ignatius was very loved by his flock, but he spent a great deal of time defending the faith from a lot attacks and heresies.  Under the Roman emperor Trajan, he was condemned to death for failing to denounce his faith.  On his journey to Rome, while traveling through Greece and Turkey, he wrote pastoral letters to his faithful to encourage them.  Those letters survive today, treasures that speak out to us from the early Church. He is quoted as saying: “It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but to actually be one. Yes, if I prove to be one, then I can have the name.” Another quote of his along the same lines says this: “It is right, therefore, that we not just be called Christians, but that we actually be Christians.” St Ignatius of Antioch - pray for us.  

Prayers of the Faithful - Extraordinary Missionary Month - October 2019

Penitential rite:

Lord Jesus - you call us to be missionary in spirit. 

Christ Jesus - you call us to bring your Good News to the world. 

Lord Jesus - you are patient and loving. 

PRIEST: God, our shepherd, our diligent and patient Father who cares for his children, hears the prayers that we make on behalf of the church and the world as we commemorate Extraordinary Missionary Month.

1. For our Holy Father Pope Francis and all the bishops and Church leaders of the world, that they will proclaim Christ’s Gospel with compassion and without fear in today’s world.

2. For the Universal Church, that the lives of her members may be a blessing to the world and help bring others to the true joy of our faith.  

3. For our seminarians., that our seminaries may become pastors after the Heart of Christ, fully dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel to all.  May they reach out especially to the poor and the vulnerable.  

4. For all missionaries who minister in difficult situations, may they never lose heart and may they always be a sign of hope for those whom they minister. 

5. For healing for the sick and the shut-in, and for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed.  

PRIEST: God of love, you sent your Son among us to be the way the truth and the life. Hear our prayers that we may follow more closely in his way of justice, truth and compassion.  We ask them through Christ our Lord.  AMEN.  

Prayers of the faithful - Feast of John XXIII - 11 October 2019

PRIEST:  Let us unite our prayers with the prayers of John XXIII as we honor him in our mass today and as we present our prayers to God.  

For our Church and our Church leaders, may they lead all the people in peace, compassion, and justice, we pray to the Lord.  

For all the faithful, that we may be witnesses of the faith in the modern world and may we dialogue with the world in the spirit of John XXIII. 

For great communication and dialogue amongst the religions of the world.  For an end to war, violence and terrorism. 

For a conversion of hearts.  May we put aside our pride and stubbornness of heart and work toward healing and reconciliation in our relationships.  

For healing of the sick and for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed.  

PRIEST:  God of mercy and compassion, may we proclaim the Gospel with our words and our actions.  We present our prayers through your son Jesus Christ, our Lord forever and ever.  AMEN.  

Prayers for the Mass - St John XXIII - 11 October 2019

COLLECT
Almighty, ever living God, who chose Blessed John 23rd to preside over your whole people and benefit them by word and example, keep safe, we pray, by his intercession, the shepherds of your Church, along with the flocks entrusted to their care, and direct them in the way of eternal salvation.  Through your Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.  AMEN. 

PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS
Accept this sacrifice from your people, we pray, O Lord, and make what is offered for your glory in honor of Blessed John 23rd, a means to our eternal salvation.  Through Christ our Lord.  AMEN.  

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION 
May the Sacrament we have received O Lord our God stir up in us that fire of charity with which Blessed John 23rd burned ardently as he gave himself unceasingly for your Church.  Through Christ our Lord.  AMEN.  

Bulletin reflection - St Jude Catholic Church - Pearl Mississippi - Sunday 13 October 2019

      As we hear in our readings today of the healing of two different lepers, we can reflect upon the way we are called to reach out to the most lost and abandoned in our discipleship in Christ.  During Extraordinary Missionary Month this month of October, Pope Francis has asked us to learn from the missionary saints and martyrs of our Church. Daniel Combini, whose feast day was celebrated last week, is a great missionary saint who is felt the calling to bring the Gospel to the poor and the vulnerable.  Comboni really captured my imagination when I was out in the jungles of Ecuador as a missionary with the religious congregation that he founded: the Comboni Missionaries.  He was born into a poor family of farmers in Italy in 1831.  He is the only one of 8 children of his parents who made it past the early years of childhood.  He was ordained a priest in the year 1854, the same year the Immaculate Conception was declared as dogma in our Church. He always dreamed of being a missionary to Africa.  He went on his first trip to Africa to the Sudan, when he and his companions journeyed for 4 months on camel from Egypt just to get to their mission site.  Many of his missionary companions died along the way, but Daniel survived the journey.  He was affected deeply by the severe poverty and hardship of the African people that he encountered on that journey and during his missionary service in Africa. Daniel eventually became the first bishop of the Sudan in Africa.  He died at the young age of 50 from all of the hardships he went through as a missionary, but his love for God lives on in all priests, brothers, and nuns of the Comboni missionaries who work all over the world. I remember some of the Comboni priests telling me how in 1964 all of the Comboni missionaries were expelled from the south of Sudan when an anti-Christian government took power in the country.  Thousands of missionaries returned to Rome, many of whom had been in the Sudan most of their adult lives serving the Lord in the missions there. Like the faith of the leper in the Gospel today, Daniel Comboni and so many of our missionaries had such a strong faith that never gave up through all their hardships and struggles.  Many of them so willingly gave up their lives for their love of their faith and in service to the calling they received from God. We give thanks for the ways our missionaries have enriched our lives, for the way they still speak to us today.  All of us have a calling we receive to God.  And we are all called to be missionaries wherever we are in life.

18 October 2019 - homily for the Memorial of St Luke the Evangelist - Luke 10:1-9

     Who was St Luke?  Tradition has it that he has a Gentile background, that he did not grow up as a Jew, and that he was a physician.  He also probably accompanied St Paul on some of his missionary journeys. Luke came from Antioch in Syria. In the Early Church, Antioch emerged as an important center of Christianity. Not much after the time of St Luke, the influential theologian and Church leader Ignatius of Antioch was the Bishop there.  The city of Antioch was also an important center of culture and learning.  Most biblical scholars believe that the intended audience for the Gospel of Luke was Gentile.  

      When Jesus sends out his disciples for their missionary journey, I think of the journeys we take and how we prepare for them.  When I go on a hike, I am so careful as to what I take.  Everyone little item - down to a paper clip or safety pin - has to have a purpose.  I always take the minimal amount of things, because I don’t want anything weighing me down. That is the approach Jesus takes when sending out his disciples on mission.  So much can weigh us down, even when we don’t realize it.  On our journey, we are weighed down by our anger, our hurt feelings, our lack of forgiveness, our lack of courage and patience and fortitude, our inability to live by the morals and virtues of our faith. And all of that weighs us down on our journey, whether we realize it or not.  

    Pope Francis calls us to learn from the missionary saints and martyrs during the Extraordinary Missionary Month that he has declared.  Luke, the apostles, and the fathers and mothers of the Early Church have so much to teach us.  The hardships Luke and this contemporaries went through in order to practice their faith and to bring Christ’s Good News to others is hard for us to imagine today.  St Luke, we unite our prayers to your prayers today as we celebrate your feast day.  St Luke - pray for us.