LENT: Call to Serve

Call to Prayer: Leader: Charity is sharing with the one we love Love makes

us similar, it creates equality, it breaks down walls and eliminates distances. God

did this with us. Indeed, Jesus worked with human hands, thought with a human

mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. [Guadium et Spes, 22] Pope Francis, Lenten Message, Vatican, December 31, 2014 (zenith.org)

ALL: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hymn: You Have Anointed Me

Used with permission license #5393

LENT: Call to Serve (cont) 2

Antiphon ALL: Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to your God. [Joel 2: 13]

Psalm 51 [verses 12, 14, 17. 19] (Alternate sides, please.)

+ A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.

+ Give me back the joy of your salvation and a willing spirit sustain in me.

+ O God, open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise.

+ My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit, a heart contrite and humbled,

O God, you will not spurn. [translation New American Bible, revised edition @ 2010]

ALL: Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to your God. [Joel 2: 13] Reading: This is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the

yoke, setting free the oppressed, sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and

the homeless, clothing the naked when you see them and not turning your back on your own. Then

your light will break forth like the dawn You shall call and God will answer, you shall cry for help

and God will say, Here I am! Isaiah 58: 6-8 [translation New American Bible, revised edition @ 2010]

Leader: are you being quite faithful to what you were directed concerning your manner of

observing Lent? Correspondence of Vincent de Paul, Vol. 1, Coste, #134. To Isabelle Du Fay [Between 1626 and 1635], p. 191

Response: Leader: God invites: Return to me with all your heart

ALL: through fasting, prayer and loving service.

Personal Reflection and Sharing

How am I fasting through my actions for others this Lent?

How is my love evident in my encounters as a Lady of Charity?

Intercessions: Leader: God, you delight in those who turn their hearts to you. We pray:

Response: ALL: Bless us, O God!

+ Turn our hearts to receive your loving-kindness and mercy. (response)

+ Bless our fasting and of your Church; let it lead all to you. (response)

+ Expand our hearts to recognize and serve you in our families, our neighbors and

in those living in poverty. (response) (Please, add your own prayers.)

Prayer: ALL: Prompt our actions with your inspiration, we pray, O God, and further them with

your constant help, that all we do may always begin from you and by you be brought to completion.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and in the unity of the Holy

Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. Collect, Mass Thursday after Ash Wednesday

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Prayer Texts

Matthew 6: 16-18 When you fast

Luke 4: 16-20 The Spirit of God is upon me

prepared for the Ladies of Charity by Sr. Carol Schumer, D.C., March, 2014