Sunday February 13, 2022

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Those Whom God Makes Happy

God Is with the Poor

Greeting (See First Reading)

Blessing on you who recognize your poverty
and therefore put your trust in the Lord;
blessing on you when the Lord is your hope.
May the grace of the Lord be always with you.
R/ And also with you.

 

Introduction by the Celebrant

1. Those Whom God Makes Happy

People who have everything they need, or have what they think they need, are not easily open to God, or even to other people. On the other hand, people in difficulties are generally more open to others, receptive to help and love from God and people, and, consequently, also more open to see the needs of others and to help them; for they know from experience what it means to be poor, troubled, sorrowing and dependent on others. Jesus asks of us today to become people willing to feel our needs and to depend on God. Then we will also be open to our neighbor, to receive and to give. We acknowledge our poverty and dependence before Jesus.

 

2. God Is with the Poor

People who are clumsy and unfortunate, those who are suffering and persecuted are assured by the Lord: Consider yourselves fortunate, for I am with you! I will never abandon you. I will carry you, for you are aware of your poverty and you trust in me. We ask the Lord to count us among the poor who rely on him and to take us into his kingdom.

 

Penitential Act

Too often we are too self-satisfied
to make room for God and for people.
We now ask the Lord and one another for forgiveness.
                        (pause)
Lord Jesus, you became poor for our sake
to make us rich with your forgiveness and life:
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
Jesus Christ, you came to join us in our miseries
to heal us and to bring us joy:
Christ, have mercy. R/ Christ, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, you make us hungry for enduring love
to fill us with your lasting happiness:
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.

Forgive us our weaknesses, Lord,
and make us live for you and for people.
Lead us to everlasting life. R/ Amen.

 

Opening Prayer

Let us put our trust in God
and hope everything from him
on account of Jesus, our risen Lord
                        (pause)
God our Father,
you appeal to us today through your Son
to choose freely and responsibly
the kind of happiness that endures.
Let the gospel of your Son shock us
into recognizing the emptiness and poverty
of material riches and human power
and fill our poverty
with the riches and freedom
of your truth, your love and justice,
which you offer us through Jesus,
your risen Son and our Lord for ever. R/ Amen.

 

First Reading (Jer 17:5-8): A Curse or a Blessing: Your Choice!

Through the prophet, God asks his people to choose between two ways: human ways or God’s way. Only God’s way leads to happiness.

Reading 1: Jer 17:5-8

Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

(40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked,
nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
but delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

 

Second Reading: If Christ Is Not Risen, Our Faith Is Worthless

Christ rose from the dead. His resurrection is the pledge that our sins are forgiven, that life is worthwhile, that we will rise with him.

Reading 2: 1 Cor 15:12, 16-20

Brothers and sisters:
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

 

Alleluia: Lk 6:23ab

Alleluia, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad;
your reward will be great in heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel: Good for You… Alas for You…

Call yourself fortunate, says Luke, if you are poor and rejected, for then you are still open to God. The self-satisfied are the ones to be pitied, for they are not open to God’s future.

Gospel: Lk 6:17, 20-26

Jesus came down with the twelve
and stood on a stretch of level ground
with a great crowd of his disciples
and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false
prophets in this way.”

 

Intercessions (J. Feder, adapted)

Jesus had his own definition of who are happy and who are to be pitied. Let us ask him that we may judge and live not by our standards but by his, and let us say: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.

–          For the poor, that the Lord may fulfill their expectations; for the satisfied, that the Lord may change their hearts and make them capable of love, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.

–          For those who are hungry, that the Lord himself may give them the bread of eternal life and inspire us to give them the bread of each day; and for those who are now filled with themselves, that he may arouse their hunger and open them to trust in him, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.

–          For those who now weep, that the Lord may console them with his love; and for those who now laugh, that he may remind them of the seriousness of life and make them capable of reflection, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.

–          For those who are hated, insulted, rejected, that the Lord may unite their sufferings to his own; for those who are praised and flattered, that he may wake them up from their self-complacency and reveal to them too the mystery of his cross, let us pray: R/ Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, you wanted to experience the poverty, the hunger, the suffering and the persecution that is the lot of many. Give us a share in the newness of your own risen life, and let our lives proclaim the happiness to which you call us, for you are our Lord for ever. R/ Amen.

 

Prayer over the Gifts

Lord God, loving Father,
in the poverty of our hearts
you give us your Son Jesus Christ
as our food and drink of life.
May he give us the courage
to place all our trust and hope in him,
that we may follow him, not blindly,
but knowingly and deliberately
on his way of loyalty and poverty,
that we may attain with him
your happiness that lasts for ever. R/ Amen.

 

Introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer

Let us thank and praise the Father in heaven, for we know that we are in his hands. In him we have life and true happiness.

 

Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer

With those who hunger for bread,
for love and for happiness,
let us pray to the Father in heaven
in the words taught us by his Son: R/ Our Father…

 

Deliver Us

Deliver, us, Lord, from the curse
of placing our trust in ourselves,
our possessions, our plans,
our own schemes for happiness.
Instead, grant us the blessing
of going your insecure ways,
of living with our poverty
and hungering for your love and truth,
as we wait in joyful hope
for the coming in glory
of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ. R/ For the kingdom…

 

Invitation to Communion

This is our Lord who said:
”Happy are you who are poor;
happy are you who are hungry now,
for you shall be satisfied.”
Happy indeed are we to be invited
to the table of the Lord
to be filled with his life and blessing. R/ Lord, I am not worthy…

 

Prayer after Communion

Lord our God,
the words spoken to us today
by Jesus your Son
are hard to hear and accept;
they go against our mentality.
Let your Son make us wise
with your own insight and wisdom
and let him give us the courage
to be on the side of the poor and the suffering,
that our human insufficiency
may attract the riches of your grace,
which you offer us
through Jesus Christ our Lord. R/ Amen.

 

Blessing

Curse or blessing… Choose, said Jeremiah.
Good for you… Alas for you, said Jesus
through the evangelist Luke.
Let us be aware of our own indigence,
that before God, we are after all beggars
who have to open our hands
and to reach out to him
for happiness that can last.
May it not be alas or a curse,
but may God bless you:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.

 

May the Lord go with you

and fill your every need.

R/ Thanks be to God.

 

Commentary

Becoming Beatitudes

Read:

Jeremiah declares the cause of blessedness: absolute trust in God. For Paul, the resurrection of Christ is the justification of our hope. Jesus pronounces the Beatitudes of his Kingdom.

 Reflect:

Unfortunately, many well-meaning Christians are obsessed with the Ten Commandments, like the rich young man of Mk 10:17-22. They are stuck with a God who is a fearsome judge who keeps an account of their dos and don’ts. If only we could migrate to the beauty of the Beatitudes! This is not to reject the Commandments. Whereas the Commandments are all about ‘doing,’ the Beatitudes are all about our ‘being.’ The doing should spring from our being, and not vice versa! This can only happen if we listen to the wisdom Jeremiah shares today: “Blessed is the man who puts his trust in the Lord and whose confidence is in him!” When we are rooted in the being of Christ by becoming the Beatitudes, “the year of drought is no problem and [we] can always bear fruit”—the dos and don’ts of the Commandments do not have to be forced; they flow from our being.

Pray:

Make a short prayer out of each Beatitude.

Act:

Choose one of the Beatitudes to grow into, for this month. (Thus, choose for every month, hereafter.)

 

Reflection taken from Bible Diary 2022;

written by Fr.Paulson Velyannoor, CMF