LITURGY IN FOCUS

CALL TO WORSHIP & CENTERING PRAYERS

Call to worship

Today we are invited to reflect upon and enjoy the generous bounty of blessings given to us by God. Even during this time of pandemic and separation, our faith reminds us that nothing can separate us from our loving God who continually calls us to feast with joy nad to live in the blessed streams of life-giving water given so freely to all. If we can know such blessings that surround our living, we can thankfully give from what we have so that others may be fed and nourished.
  • To the point: The disciples ask Jesus to dismiss the crowds so they can buy food. Jesus tells them simply to “give them food yourselves.” But the disciples cannot satisfy the crowds’ hunger until they give Jesus all they have — a meager five loaves and two fish. Jesus blesses these gifts and returns them to the disciples who then have enough to feed the crowds, even with “fragments left over.” It is not the meager resources we have that count, but what Jesus can do with these resources when we give all we have to him.
  • Connecting the Gospel (Matt 14: 13-21) to the first reading: Come! Come! Come! So compellingly and urgently does God invite us to a feast of rich fare that God provides freely and without cost. Come!
  • Connecting the Gospel to experience: Marketing always is playing on our appetites — Eat this! Buy that! Get more! Marketing offers us the false hope of satisfaction. True satisfaction comes only from our giving what we have to God who returns it to us in abundance.

Centering prayers

The Gospel
(Matthew 14: 13-21)
But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Like the five thousand people you fed,
we run to your holy mountain,
relishing your lush gifts,
filling up our starving souls.
You, the infinitely-more-than-enough,
with the left-over baskets, say to us:
accept your five loaf-selves the way you are,
fix the climate crisis, stop injustice,
and feed the hungry people.
O, with your food we can.
Feed us your grace, Lord.
The First Reading
(Isaiah 55:1-3)
“All you who are thirsty, come to the water!”
O let all who thirst,
let them come to the water.
And let all who have nothing,
let them come to the Lord.
Without money,
without price.
Why should you pay the price
except for the Lord?
Give us to drink, O Lord.

From “Come to the Water“ by John Foley, SJ

The Second Reading
(Romans 8:35, 37-39)
“What will separate us from the love of Christ?”
What can take love away from us?          
Can distance?
No, the heart grows fonder.
Can death?
Not really. God holds them near.
Christ, do not let present things, nor future things,
not height, nor depth, nor any other creature
separate us from your love.
Help us hold that loving grace
deep in our hearts

Copyright © 2020, Anne M. Osdieck

“Reverie au bord de la mer”

(Jacques Offenbach)

A meditative listening and visual invitation to “dream by the edge of the sea” and to know the blessedness of the water to which God invites us. That we may know the gentle, powerful, constant and abundant welcome of God in our lives.

Photos by Karen Elacqua