TOUCHED AND RESTORED TO COMMUNION
INTRODUCTORY RITES
Gather as a family/ community; create an environment appropriate for prayer (dress appropriately - switch off your phones...).
We are conscious that Christ is present not only in the Blessed Sacrament but also in the Scriptures and in our hearts. Even when we are on our own, we remain part of the Body of Christ.
Place lighted candles, a crucifix, and the Bible on a covered table. These remind us of the sacredness of our time of prayer and could help us feel connected with our local worshipping communities.
You may sing or play an appropriate hymn. For instance:
The Sign of the Cross
Greeting and Introductory Words
L: The Lord invites us to the table of his Word: let us bless him for his goodness.
A: Blessed be God forever.
L: The liturgy reminds us that the Lord touches our broken lives and restores us to wholeness. He touched us in baptism and made us members of the Christian community. He touches us in the Eucharist and nourishes us. He touches us in the sacrament of Reconciliation and restores us to communion.
Do we let him touch us? And do we touch one another with healing care?
Penitential Rite
L: For the times we have not allowed the Lord to touch us and have not reached out to others, we ask the Lord to pardon us.
Pause
L: Lord Jesus, you were moved with pity and touched the leper:
Lord, have mercy.
A: Lord, have mercy.
L: Lord Jesus, you restored the leper to communion with people:
Christ, have mercy.
A: Christ, have mercy.
L: Lord Jesus, you healed the people who kept coming to you:
Lord, have mercy.
A: Lord, have mercy.
L: May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins,
and bring us to everlasting life.
A: Amen.
Gloria
Opening Prayer
L: We come before you, O God,
confident in Christ’s victory
over sickness and death.
Heal us from sin, which divides us,
and from prejudice, which isolates us.
Bring us to wholeness of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
A: Amen.
THE LITURGY OF THE WORD
Readings
The readings are those assigned for the day in the Lectionary.
Preferably use a Bible/ Lectionary for reading.
Reading 1 Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
Psalm Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11
Response I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.
Reading 2 1 Corinthians 10:31—11:1
Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia.
A great prophet has arisen in our midst,
God has visited his people.
Gospel Mark 1:40-45
Reflection on the Readings
Use one of the following ways to reflect on the readings.
Lectio Divina
Imagine you are with Jesus when the leper approaches him and kneels before him. Then, Jesus touches him. What are your thoughts and feelings: at the closeness of the leper to you, when Jesus touches the leper, when the leper is “made clean”?
Sunday Snippets
YYears ago, when the speaker of the US House of Representatives Sam Rayburn heard that he had terminal cancer, he shocked everyone by announcing that he was going back to his small town in Bonham, Texas. Everyone told him: “The finest facilities are in Washington, why go back to that little town?” Rayburn said: “Because in Bonham, they know if you’re sick and they care…”
All of us need community; all of us need the care and love that comes from community. And yet today, we face an increasing isolation from one another.
Today’s readings describe one reason for isolation (leprosy) and Jesus’ response.
The first reading gives us the signs of leprosy; an arbitrary spectrum of signs but it was a case of being safe rather than sorry. A person, declared leprous, had to announce his/her uncleanness and live in isolation.
In the gospel, a leper approaches Jesus with a heart-rending and faith-filled plea: “If you will, you can make me clean.”
Jesus, filled with deep compassion, does something very significant: he touches the leper. He, thus, makes himself ritually unclean, but expresses solidarity with the man and affirms him as a human person. The man is immediately healed.
The physical healing alone does not solve the man’s problem. He has to be reintegrated into community through an official endorsement of his healing. So, Jesus sends him to the priest who will examine him and then pronounce him fit to re-enter society. For Jesus, lepers – and sinners – are not outcasts but persons to be loved and to be restored to community and communion.
Jesus’ compassion challenges us to touch the modern “leper”. Whom do I shun and ostracise? The Lord challenges me to touch and affirm them, and to restore them to communion with myself and in society.
And what about the leper who is me? I need not shun my own disabilities, hidden or otherwise. What are the unclean aspects of my life that need the touch of the Lord?
We ask the Lord Jesus to touch us: “If you will, you can make me clean.” May you and I hear the words of Jesus: “I will. Be clean!” May we experience communion with ourselves and within our families and communities.
Questions to Ponder
Reflect on some (or all) of the following questions:
Reading 1: How is the modern “leper” and how do I treat such people? What must I do to “touch” them?
Reading 2: Paul writes: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” In which of my day’s activities is it easy for me to remember God? Which are difficult? Can I gradually remember God in all my actions and “do everything for the glory of God”?
Gospel: Am I moved with pity in any of the “unclean” situations we are experiencing in our world: climate crises? racial injustice? human trafficking? What can I do to aid in the cleansing?
The Creed
Prayer of the Faithful
L: To God our Father, who wants everyone to be happy and who does not reject anyone, we pray: Lord, hear our prayer.
R: For the Church: that we may reach out to all whom our society excludes or marginalizes, we pray…
R: For our human family: that God may awaken within us a spirit of fraternity and help us to cooperate with all peoples, races, and faith traditions in combating disease, poverty, and injustice, we pray…
R: For all who feel socially isolated, the ridiculed, laughed at, or bullied: that their people and communities recognize their dignity as persons and treat them with respect, we pray…
R: For all who are ill: that God may touch the sick and return them to wholeness, we pray…
R: For greater stewardship of earth’s resources: that God may help us understand the value of all living things and the wisdom to protect them for future generations, we pray…
R: For ourselves: that we may present ourselves before Christ and confidently surrender to his touch all that is sinful, selfish, or alienating in our life, we pray…
L: Lord our God, give us the grace to accept one another just as we are, without condemning or judging, without looking down on anyone, without trying to create one another in our own image. May build up one another in your image. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
A: Amen.
SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
The Lord’s Prayer
Spiritual Communion
A: Jesus, I know and believe in your real presence in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is you I desire to love and receive above all things. As I am unable to receive your sacramental presence now, come and be with me in heart and soul. Let my entire self be united with you as I welcome you again and know your loving embrace. Amen.
Post Spiritual Communion Reflection
Lord, the physical disease of leprosy
is under control now,
but there are many “lepers” in the world.
There is probably no country in the world
without its marginalized people.
There are several bases for discrimination:
gender, race, religion, culture, language, sexual orientation…
We proclaim loftily that all citizens are cherished equally,
but no word or law can change people.
We fill our pavements
with a mass of misfits, rejects and outcasts;
we ostracize and marginalize so many.
Lord, you stretched out his hand and touched the leper.
Your touch was contagious;
the leper was cured.
May we realize that the greatest contagion is love,
and learn from you to touch people with love and care.
CONCLUDING RITE
Concluding Prayer
L: God our Father,
your Son Jesus Christ
shared the lot of outcasts
and bore the sufferings of all.
May we lift up the despised
with words of welcome
and deeds of encouragement.
Through Christ our Lord.
A: Amen.
Blessing
L: The Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and lead us to everlasting life.
A: Amen.
L: Go in the peace of Christ.
A: Thanks be to God.
Conclude with a hymn. For instance:
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