Messianic Banquet

Reader 1     To prepare us to meet the Lord, today's liturgy offers us the image of the messianic banquet, a theme which runs through the entire Bible from the Prophets to Revelation. It is the banquet to which the King invites beggars and tramps, since those originally invited refused to come. It is the wedding feast of the Lamb, for which the Church arrays herself. It is the feast of tomorrow, which Christ prefigured by multiplying bread (Gospel) and of which he gives us a foretaste in the Eucharist.
Preparing for the Banquet by Reconciliation

Hymn             Lord Have Mercy (John Michael Talbot)

Leader:     We are today on a journey that invites us first to reconciliation - to deepen our relationship with God, and with each other in Jesus Christ.

PRAYER
My Lord and my God, help me to see how and where I go wrong and offend you. Grant me the strength to do your will so that I may be with you one day in your eternal kingdom of peace and joy. May I never fail to cry out to you in humility and adoration. Lord, fill me with your grace so that I may be ready to receive you with joy. Amen.
CALL TO REPENTANCE:
The call to repentance is from a God of faithfulness and mercy.

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger for ever because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us, he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old. (Micah 7:18-20)
PRAYER FOR MERCY:
Let us pray with confidence for the mercy of God:

For our impatience with others on our journey of life, Lord have mercy.

For our intolerance of the differences of others, Lord have mercy,

For our neglect of God in prayer, Lord have mercy.

For blindness to the needs of the poor, Lord have mercy.

For unwillingness to try to forgive, Lord have mercy.

For greed in our use of wealth, sexuality and comforts, Lord have mercy.

For forgetting to say the helpful word or do the helpful deed, Lord have mercy.

For being closed to the love of God, Lord have mercy.

May the Lord who forgives us our sins, heal our worries and anxieties, and bring us closer each day into his love.
RITUAL:
You are invited to write your name on a piece of paper, and place it into the basket. Our name sums up who we are, the good hopes of our lives, the sins, faults and failings.

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CELEBRATING THE MESSIANIC BANQUET
Images of the Banquet

THE WORD
FIRST READING Isaiah 25
But here on this mountain, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies will throw a feast for all the people of the world, a feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines, a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts, And here on this mountain, GOD will banish the pall of doom hanging overall peoples, the shadow of doom darkening all nations. Yes, he'll banish death forever. And GOD will wipe the tears from every face. He'll remove every sign of disgrace from his people, wherever they are. Yes, GOD says so! Also at that time, people will say, "Look at what's happened! This is our God! We waited for him and he showed up and saved us! This GOD, the one we waited for! Let's celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation. GOD's hand rests on this mountain!"

SECOND READING Matthew 15; 29-37

After Jesus returned, he walked along Lake Galilee and then climbed a mountain and took his place, ready to receive visitors. They came, tons of them, bringing along the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute—all sorts of people in need—and more or less threw them down at Jesus' feet to see what he would do with them. He healed them. When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them.

But Jesus wasn't finished with them. He called his disciples and said, "I hurt for these people. For three days now they've been with me, and now they have nothing to eat. I can't send them away without a meal—they'd probably collapse on the road." His disciples said, "But where in this deserted place are you going to dig up enough food for a meal?" Jesus asked, "How much bread do you have?" "Seven loaves," they said, "plus a few fish." At that, Jesus directed the people to sit down. He took the seven loaves and the fish. After giving thanks, he divided it up and gave it to the people. Everyone ate. They had all they wanted. It took seven large baskets to collect the leftovers.

Response: Hymn - The Lord Is My Shepherd (John Michael Talbot)

Petitions:
Let us pray to Christ, the Good Shepherd, whose coming we await with joy:
R/Come Lord and lead us to life.

You seek us in our hunger and our thirst, in our suffering and our pain: R/

You feed the starving: R/

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the bread and wine of life: R/

Lord Jesus Christ, you wipe away every tear at your heavenly table: R/

Lamb of God, Shepherd of God's people, you come to gather into your Kingdom all your flock. Heal us, feed us, call us to follow you and to encourage one another in your ways. Amen.

A EUCHARISTIC PRAYER OF LIGHT

1 God, we praise you and bless you because you do not hide from us, but reveal yourself in this wonderful banquet of bread and wine.

2 For being a God of Light and sharing your brilliance with us, we give you thanks. You created us in your image, you made us walk in light. But we sinned. We often preferred to walk in darkness. We thank you, God that we cannot hide from you, that you seek us out and find us even in the darkness.

3 So we join all creation, that basks in your love, in proclaiming your glory as we say: Holy, holy, holy Lord ...

We thank you, for appointing your Son as a covenant to the people, a beacon to all people. He has come to open the eyes of the blind, and bring into His Light all who dwell in darkness.

4 Your Light penetrated our darkness and has shown us the way from selfishness to love, from isolation to community, from death to life. We thank you, that Jesus is our Light and we thank you for his life and example.

5 We thank you, God, for the wonderful way Jesus strengthens us by nourishing us. On the night before he died, Jesus gathered his friends together at a banquet. He reminded them where they came from and what they were to be. He strengthened them for their mission through a messianic meal.

L While at that supper, Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave it to his followers after saying a blessing over it.

PAUSE to pray a blessing on the bread.

Then Jesus invited his followers: Take this and eat, all of you. This is a sign of my body, broken for you.

PAUSE to consume the gift of bread.

Then Jesus said another blessing over a cup of wine:

PAUSE to pray a blessing over the wine.

Then Jesus again invited his followers: Drink from this cup, all of you. May this be the sign of my new covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Do it in memory of me.

PAUSE to consume the gift of wine.

6 Faithfully, we remember Jesus’ life among us, a life of compassion, caring and love. We remember in Jesus’ suffering and death the cost of being a servant for one another. And so together we proclaim our paschal faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

7 Send us, the Spirit Jesus promised us: the Spirit that gives direction to our weary feet and light to our path. Help us discover the places where you dwell. Open our eyes to your presence in us, our brothers, our sisters, and our world.

L Finally, we pray that prayer you taught us ... Our Father...

A CLOSING HYMN should be chosen.