RELIGION AND ART

  Altar Server Prayer : Father in heaven, your Son Jesus Christ showed his love for you by 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 your word. Open my hand to do your work well. Take from me 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     My dear brothers, you must keep clear of idolatry. I say to you as sensible people: judge for yourselves what I am saying. The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf. Look at the other Israel, the race, where those who e

Father in Heaven, your Son Jesus Christ, showed his love for you by 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 your word. Open my hand to do your work well. Take from my heart 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 forever. Amen. I  do not boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands. Do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me. So though I am not a slave to any man I have made myself the slave

Altar Server Prayer Before Mass:  Father in Heaven, your Son Jesus Christ, showed his love for you by 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 your word. Open my hand to do your work well. Take from my heart 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 forever. Amen.  Mass Readings Now about food sacrificed to idols. 'We all have knowledge'; yes, that is so, but knowledge gives self-importance - it is love that makes the building grow.  A man may imagine he understands something, but still not understand anything in the way that he ought to. But any man who loves God is known by him. Well then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: we know that idols do not really exist in the world and that there is no god b

Altar Server Prayer Before Mass: Oh Jesus, my King and Lord, by the grace of the heavenly Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, guide me as I serve you today at the Altar so I may always worthy of Your presence. If I happen to make an e rror, may it be a lesson so my service will be perfect tomorrow. Jesus, I love you with all my heart.   Amen.   Mass Readings About remaining celibate, I have no directions from the Lord but give my own opinion as one who, by the Lord's mercy, has stayed faithful. Well then, I believe that in these present times of stress this is right: that it is good for a man to stay as he is. If you are tied to a wife, do not look for freedom; if you are free of  a wife, then do no look for one. But if you marry, it is no sin, and it is not a sin for a young girl to get married. They will have their troubles, though, in their married life, and I should like to spare you that.   Brothers, this is what I mean: our time is growing short.  Those who