CHRIST'S SERVANTS

Altar Server Prayer Before Mass: Father in Heaven, you Son Jesus Christ, showed his love for you y serving his brothers and sisters in need. I now ask you to give me your help as I serve you and your people. Open my mouth to praise you in word and song. Open my ears to hear you word. Open my hand to do your work well. Take from my all evil and distracting thoughts. Help me to know what I should do, and do it well. Help me to serve reverently at your holy altar, and so give you praise and glory, now and for ever. Amen. Mass Readings

People must think of us as Christ's servants, stewards entrusted with the mysteries of God. 'What is expected of stewards is that each one should be found worthy of his trust. Not that it makes the slightest difference to me whether you, or indeed any human tribunal find me worthy or not. I will not even pass judgement on myself. True, my conscience does not reproach me at all, but that does not prove that I am acquitted: the Lord alone is my judge. There must be no passing of premature judgement. Leave that until the Lord comes; he will light up all that is hidden in the dark and reveal the secret intentions of men's hearts. The will be the time for each one to have whatever praise he deserves from God.

Responsorial Psalm

One Way Through Jesus: Jesus Talks about Fasting, the Bridegroom and New Wineskins (A Reflection on Mark 2:18-22)

The Pharisees and the scribes said to Jesus, 'John's disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees too, but yours go on eating and drinking.' Jesus replied, 'Surely you cannot make the bridegroom's attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast.'

He also told them this parable, 'No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; if he does, not only will he have torn the new one, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.

'And nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost. No, new wine must be put into fresh skins. And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. "The old is good" he says.'

Father in Heaven you know all that is hidden in the dark, you the secret intentions of men's heart. Give me a pure heart. Holy Spirit I come to you. Make me willing to listen and obey Christ's teaching.

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TRUST GOD, TRUST IN ME

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THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN

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WHO ARE YOU?

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