Friday October 1  

TWENTY-SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

SIN – IN US

 

Introduction

      The reading from Baruch is not from the hand of Baruch, who was the secretary of Jeremiah. It dates from the time of the Maccabees and is like a penitential celebration deploring the sins that had led to the present calamities and oppression.

      Modern means of communications have brought the world more closely together and shown us more clearly too the presence of sin and evil in the world; more than half of the world is hungry and exploited, the world economy has gone out of hand notwithstanding dole-outs for development aid and whole nations are not free from inside or from outside. And in our own little worlds there is repeated selfishness, pride at the expense of others, suspicion… While condemning the sins of society, let us not lose our personal sense of sin in the process; let us not forget our solidarity of sin and at the same time live better our solidarity with love and life on account of Christ. Sin is a rejection of Christ and his message.

 

Opening Prayer

Lord our God, merciful Father,
it is easy for us to condemn wars, civil strife,
corruption, exploitation, slavery of any kind.
But we ask you, Lord God, though very timidly,
to open our eyes to the evil in us.
Make us see, Lord, that we are doing
on a small scale, in our own little worlds,
the evil for which we blame the big world.
Make us see that we too are sinners in need of forgiveness
brought us by Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Reading 1: Bar 1:15-22

During the Babylonian captivity, the exiles prayed:
“Justice is with the Lord, our God;
and we today are flushed with shame,
we men of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem,
that we, with our kings and rulers
and priests and prophets, and with our ancestors,
have sinned in the Lord’s sight and disobeyed him.
We have neither heeded the voice of the Lord, our God,
nor followed the precepts which the Lord set before us.
From the time the Lord led our ancestors out of the land of Egypt
until the present day,
we have been disobedient to the Lord, our God,
and only too ready to disregard his voice.
And the evils and the curse that the Lord enjoined upon Moses, his servant,
at the time he led our ancestors forth from the land of Egypt
to give us the land flowing with milk and honey,
cling to us even today.
For we did not heed the voice of the Lord, our God,
in all the words of the prophets whom he sent us,
but each one of us went off
after the devices of his own wicked heart,
served other gods,
and did evil in the sight of the Lord, our God.”

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 79:1b-2, 3-5, 8, 9

(9) For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple,
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
They have given the corpses of your servants
as food to the birds of heaven,
the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the earth.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
They have poured out their blood like water
round about Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury them.
We have become the reproach of our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
O LORD, how long? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
R. For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.

 

Alleluia: Ps 95:8

Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel: Lk 10:13-16

Jesus said to them,
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented,
sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon
at the judgment than for you.
And as for you, Capernaum, ‘Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the netherworld.’
Whoever listens to you listens to me.
Whoever rejects you rejects me.
And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

 

Intercessions

–   That the world of today may not lose its sense of sin and “legalize” things that are wrong, we pray:

–   That all those hardened in sin may be touched by the Spirit of the Lord to repent and change their ways, we pray:

–   That the many who bear a heavy burden of sin and guilt and those who suffer from the sins of others may keep trusting in God’s liberating and forgiving goodness, we pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts

Lord our God, merciful Father,
in these signs of bread and wine
your Son comes among us with his cross
to put an end to all pride of sin
and to be the starting point of our new existence.
In him you showed us the new person.
Give us his strength to repent and to be converted,
to rise above our petty selfishness
and like him, to love and serve
without counting the cost.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord.

 

Prayer after Communion

Lord our God, merciful Father,
you respect and educate our freedom.
You do not give us guarantees against failure
but you call us to choose and decide.
God, forgive us and help us
when in our clumsy, awkward efforts
to see your Son’s freedom become real and alive,
we take risks and make mistakes.
We want to remain faithful to you
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Blessing

We regret it, and in our best moments we don’t really want it, but sin always returns. May God have mercy on us and help us. May God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary

 

Leaving Jesus in the Church!

The month of October is dubbed as the missionary month. The month opens with the Feast of St. Teresa of Liseaux, the patron saint of the Missions. Later this month, the Church will celebrate the Mission Sunday, reminding us of our vocation to be Missionaries and to be in solidarity with the missionaries around the world. Month of October is also the Month of the Rosary. The Church invites us to grow closer to the Mysteries of the life of Jesus through meditating the mysteries of the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Blessed Mother. The life of St. Teresa of Child Jesus introduces to us the Little Way – the way of being a child before God and invites us to grow up in a father-child relationship.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is saddened at being rejected, he presents Strong words against towns where he had preached extensively – Chorazin, Bethsaida and especially Capernaum. Chorazin was near the Sea of Galilee, close to Capernaum. Bethsaida was the home of some of Jesus’ disciples. Capernaum was the centre from which Jesus did much of his missionary work.

Jesus is saddened and feels frustrated – begins to feel that all his efforts over the years to convince his listeners to repent and turn back to the ways of God has gone futile. The people who witnessed and were recipients of all his miracles, people who listened to his teachings, but refused to accept him. This frustration prompts him to refer to the pagan territories who had no chances of listening to the Word of God. “If the work I had done here, were done elsewhere, the results would have been better!”

We are entering into the Mission Month. It is also a time we gratefully remember the great missionary activities undertaken by numerous missionaries across the world. But during their mission endeavours, many of them have encountered the same frustration. In spite of all the good efforts and hard toil for the Gospel, frustrations creep in when they realise that their preaching has fallen in deaf ears. This rejection of the Word of God is not necessarily by the non-Christians. We, Christians fail to respond to the voice of Christ and how frustrating that rejection could be for the Lord?

While explaining the passage, Pope Francis had said, “We risk living out our Christianity as “a social habit”, in a purely formal manner, … And when Mass is over, we leave Jesus in the Church; He does not come with us when we return home, does not come into the education of our children, into our school, into our neighbourhood. When we do this, we cast Jesus out from our hearts: We are Christians, but we live as pagans.”