COMMENTATOR______________________



Commentator

Good morning!

On behalf of the Charis Community, I welcome you to our Sunday Mass. All are truly welcome, and we are excited that you are joining us whether it’s your first time praying with us or if you’ve been with us for a while. The worship aid for Mass is on our website, and we will put the address in the chat for you should you like to pull it up to support your prayer.

We are a Eucharistic people, so we invite you to have bread and wine, in whatever form you have it, with you where you are. Even though we are in many locations, we affirm that we are one table of believers. We trust that the Holy Spirit has never been and will never be restrained by time or space or distance! So we gather as one people, as one Body, rooted in Christ, and rooted in God’s love, together.

When we hear the word “exorcism,” our minds may leap to the 1970s book and movie that made it so famous. How is this relevant to us? In the Gospel today, we experience Jesus healing a man in the synagogue.

In hearing about this experience, we are invited to think of those places of brokenness or disappointment or fear in our lives. We can remember that God doesn’t stay away from these moments of challenge, instead it is n precisely these moments that God longs to draw near to us. Remembering that we are the hands and feet of Christ, we are called to look outward. David Lose of Luther Seminary notes, we “look outward at the brokenness we see in someone in our family or among our friends or at work or in the neighborhood and wonder if God might be choosing to work through us to draw that person to new life. God is still at work casting out the unclean spirits of the world, and God is using us to continue our Lord’s work.”

Let us begin our prayer in song.

A reading from the book of Deuteronomy

Moses spoke to all the people, saying:

"A prophet like me will the LORD, your God,

raise up for you

from among your own kin;

to him you shall listen.

This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb

on the day of the assembly, when you said,

'Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God,

nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.'

And the LORD said to me, 'This was well said.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,

and will put my words into his mouth;

he shall tell them all that I command him.

Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name,

I myself will make him answer for it.

But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name

an oracle that I have not commanded them to speak,

or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.'"

The Word of God. R/. Thanks be to God.

A Reading from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians

Brothers and sisters:

I should like you to be free of anxieties.

An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord,

how he may please the Lord.

But a married man is anxious about the things of the world,

how he may please his wife, and he is divided.

An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord,

so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.

A married woman, on the other hand,

is anxious about the things of the world,

how she may please her husband.

I am telling you this for your own benefit,

not to impose a restraint upon you,

but for the sake of propriety

and adherence to the Lord without distraction.

The Word of God. R/. Thanks be to God.

A reading from the Good News according to Mark.

Then they came to Capernaum,

and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.

The people were astonished at his teaching,

for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;

he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"

Jesus rebuked him and said,

"Quiet! Come out of him!"

The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

All were amazed and asked one another,

"What is this?

A new teaching with authority.

He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him."

His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

The Good News of Our Savior Jesus Christ.

R/. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Commentator:

Loving God, you fill all things with a fullness and hope that we can never comprehend. Thank you for leading us into a time where more of reality is being unveiled for us all to see. We pray that you will take away our natural temptation for cynicism, denial, fear and despair. Help us have the courage to awaken to greater truth, greater humility, and greater care for one another.

Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers for all that is in our hearts this day.

We invite you to unmute your mic and share your personal prayers with our community. We would very much like to pray with you. Our response is Lord, hear our prayer.

Commentator after people are no longer offering individual prayers :

O God, our Creator and our Savior, we thank you that you have revealed yourself to us in Jesus Christ. Help us always to believe in you and to celebrate your presence every day by the love we show to one another. Help us be bold in our discipleship and extravagant in our love. We ask this in the name of our brother Jesus. And let the Church say: Amen.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download