4th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

 

 The greatest of these is love.

 

 

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

Save us, Lord our God, and gather us together from the nations, that we may proclaim your holy name and glory in your praise.

PENITENTIAL RITE

Love is the sum total of human and Christian life. In today’s second reading St Paul grows poetic in describing the excellence and permanence of love. Love is the answer to all the problems of life. Where there is love problems can be solved and where there is no love problems will certainly crop up. The Eucharist is the sacrament of love. It both generates love and shares it. Are our lives marked by love? (Pause.)

I confess...

Glory to God in the highest,/and peace to his people on earth./Lord God, heavenly King,/almighty God and Father,/we worship you,/we give you thanks,/we praise you for your glory./Lord Jesus Christ,/only Son of the Father,/Lord God, Lamb of God,/you take away the sin of the world:/have mercy on us;/you are seated at the right hand of the Father,/receive our prayer./For you alone are the Holy One,/you alone are the Lord,/you alone are the Most High,/Jesus Christ,/with the Holy Spirit,/in the glory of God the Father./Amen.

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray. Lord our God, help us to love you with all our hearts and to love all men as you love them. We ask this…

FIRST READING

(Along with a difficult vocation Jeremiah is given assurance of divine protection.)

A reading from the book of Jeremiah

(1: 4-5, 17-19)

The word of the Lord came to me saying. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. But you, gird up your loins; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

This is the Word of the Lord

PSALM (70)

Response: My lips will tell of your help.

In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your justice rescue me, free me: pay heed to me and save me. R.

Be a rock where I can take refuge, a mighty stronghold to save me; for you are my rock, my stronghold. Free me from the hand of the wicked. R.

It is you, O Lord, who are my hope, my trust O Lord, since my youth. On you I have leaned from my birth, from my mother’s womb you have been my help.

R.

My lips will tell of your justice and day by day of your help. O God, you have taught me from my youth and I proclaim your wonders still. R.

SECOND READING

(The sum and substance of Christian life is love.)

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians

(12:31-13:1-13)

Earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

This is the Word of the Lord

ACCLAMATION (Jn 1:12-14)

Alleluia, alleluia! The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; to all who received him he gave power to become children of God. Alleluia!

GOSPEL

(Jesus meets with derision and violent anger of his townspeople.)

A reading from the holy Gospel according to St Luke (4:21-30)

Jesus began to say to all in the synagogue, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, "Is not this Joseph’s son? "And he said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country’." And he said, "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away.

This is the Gospel of the Lord

I believe...

PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL

Cel: Dear brothers and sisters, God is love and God loves us and expects that we lead a life of love. We experience a lot of difficulties to love well. Let us ask our Father to grant us the necessary help to love well and selflessly. Our response: Holy Spirit, enlighten and empower us to love.

1. Let us pray for the ministers of the word: that difficulties and opposition may not dishearten them. R.

2. That the Good News bring light to the confused and comfort to the sorrowful, we pray to the Lord. R.

3. We pray for every human family that they may be nurseries of genuine love.

R.

4. Let us pray for youth that they may find in the Bible light and guidance, especially in the area of human relationships. R.

(Pause to pray for other intentions.)

Cel: Lord, we thank you for creating us in your image. Help us to accept it and live it in love. We ask this…

PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS

Lord, be pleased with the gifts we bring to your altar, and make them the sacrament of our salvation. We ask this…

Preface (P 33)

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.

All things are of your making, all times and seasons obey your laws, but you chose to create man in your own image, setting him over the whole world in all its wonder. You made man the steward of creation, to praise you day by day for the marvels of your wisdom and power, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We praise you, Lord, with all the angels in their song of joy.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

Let your face shine on your servant, and save me by your love. Lord, keep me from shame, for I have called to you.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord, you invigorate us with this help to our salvation. By this eucharist give the true faith, continued growth throughout the world. We ask this…

LITURGY AND LIFE

More than any other filmmaker Ingmar Bergman has brilliantly characterized contemporary man’s search for love. Through a Glass Darkly, a title he took from St Paul’s hymn to love (1 Cor 13) he explores the relationship between a father, his daughter, son, son-in-law and God. The film ends on a hopeful note. Though the daughter is taken away to an insane asylum, her suffering has provided the opportunity for the father, who has been cold and distant, to relate to his seventeen-year old son who has been searching for an identity. The following is the dialogue between the son, Minus, and his father, David at the end of the film after the son has asked for a sign of God, some sign of hope in an apparently meaningless world.

David: It’s written: God is love.

Minus: For me that’s just words and nonsense.

David: Wait a moment and don’t interrupt. I only want to give you an indication of where my hopes lie.

Minus: Of course it’s a special sort of love you’re referring to.

David: Every sort of love, Minus. The highest and the lowest, the poorest and the richest, the most ridiculous and the most sublime. The obsessive and the banal. All sorts of love.

Minus: (Silent) Longing for love.

David: Longing and denial. Disbelieving and being consoled.

Minus: So love is the proof?

David: We can’t know whether love proves God’s existence or whether love is itself God. After all, it doesn’t make very much difference.

Minus: For you God and love are one and the same phenomenon.

David: If I let my emptiness, my dirty hopelessness, rest in that thought, yes.

Minus: Tell me, Daddy.

David: Suddenly the emptiness turns into wealth, and hopelessness into life. It’s like a pardon, Minus. From sentence of death.

* * *

Love is the supreme reality in human life. The world revolves around it. In Christianity love has a more privileged place. Christian scripture calls God Love. Love is benevolence, actively wishing and working for the good of the other. It is self-less love.

Created in the image of God of love and made children of God in baptism, we have to strive to love as God loves. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at baptism and at confirmation empowers us to love. However, for us it is a constant struggle between selfless and selfish love. The more we surrender ourselves to the Spirit of love, the more we are able to love selflessly and the more meaning we discover in life, life becomes more beautiful and worth-living.

Rene Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am." It can be said more truthfully and meaningfully: "I love, therefore I am." To be, to be human, we must give and receive love as gift. Without giving and receiving love we shrivel and whither while we bloom and blossom in giving and receiving true love.

February 2004 

CALENDAR 

Psalter week 4

2/Mon (W) PRESENTATION OF THE LORD Mal 3:1-4 or Heb 2:14-18;

Ps 23; Lk 2:22-40 or 22-32.

3/Tue (G/R/W) St Blaise bp & m or St Ansgar bp 2 Sam 18:9-10,14b,24-25a 30 – 19:3; Ps 85; Mk 5:21-43

4/Wed (R) ST JOHN DE BRITTO, pt & m 1 Cor 9:19-23; Ps 66; Jn 12:20-32

5/Thu (R) St Agatha vir & m 1 Kgs 2:1-4,10-12; 1 Chr 29; Mk 6:7-13

6/Fri (R) St Gonsalo Garcia, m 2 Cor 6:4-10; Ps 31; Jn 12:24-26

7/Sat (G/W) or Mass of our Lady 1 Kgs 3:4-13; Ps 118; Mk 6:30-34

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