Theme: “Our Mother, Our Father…”
Lee: Our theme today honors our parents; our fathers and mothers on this Father’s Day. We honor all wise elders who nurtured our faith. We honor our Creator God of past, present and future; our Father and Mother in whom we live and move and have our being. Holy Mystery our Source, our Sustainer and Receiver of all life and creation.
Welcome and Gathering
Katy: Welcome to our Zoom liturgy at Mary Mother of Jesus, an inclusive Catholic Community where all are welcome.
-We celebrate this liturgy especially in memory of Bob MacMillan who transitioned into God’s Love on June 24,2019.
-We invite you to pray the liturgy and respond where it says “All.”
-All participants will be muted during the liturgy except for the presiders and readers. Our readers today are Judy and Kevin Connelly, and Kirsten Miller. Pat MacMillan is our IT.
-Please have bread and wine/juice nearby as we pray our Eucharistic prayer.
-If anyone has visitors they would like to introduce to our community, please do so now. Raise your hand, unmute to do so. (red mic to white)
Gathering Song: Psalm 139
Sung by Kathryn Christian
I'll not be afraid
You are with me always
I will trust in you
Through this night
I feel your Spirit rise
Deep within me calling
To let go and find new light
For you have formed me
In my mother's womb
My days are safely secured
If I take the wings
of the morning to the sea
There you will follow me
O God you have searched me
And you have known me
When I fall and when I arise
You search out my path
And you guide me knowing
Every word upon my heart
For you have formed me
In my mother's womb
My days are safely secured
If I take the wings
of the morning to the sea
There you will follow me
You are with me always
I will trust in you
Through this night
I feel your Spirit rise
Deep within me calling
To let go and find new light
For you have formed me
In my mother's womb
My days are safely secured
If I take the wings
of the morning to the sea
There you will follow me
O God you have searched me
And you have known me
When I fall and when I arise
You search out my path
And you guide me knowing
Every word upon my heart
For you have formed me
In my mother's womb
My days are safely secured
If I take the wings
of the morning to the sea
There you will follow me
Opening Prayer
Lee: Father God we give you thanks for all life, all of creation and your human family. Mother God we give you thanks for providing nurturing and supportive adults, friends and community throughout our life. We give thanks for joy and sorrow, peaceful and challenging times and circumstances. We know they are given to us so that we may grow into the Compassion and Kindness of Jesus Christ. Our friends and family accompany us as we walk to Emmaus with Jesus our wise Elder Brother on our Way home to be embraced by Unconditional Love. All: Amen
Communal Reconciliation Rite
Katy: We pause now to remember the times we have “missed the mark.” Recall one missed opportunity, one broken or damaged relationship. Now imagine this person or situation in the light of healing love as we ask for forgiveness and healing.
(Pause briefly. Then Extend arm over community)
All: I love you, Please forgive me, I am sorry, I thank you.
Liturgy of the Word
(Kevin) First Reading: Only a Dad by Edgar Albert Guest
Only a dad, with a tired face, coming home from the daily race, bringing little of gold or fame, To show how well he has played the game, But glad in his heart that his own rejoice, To see him come, and to hear his voice.
Only a dad, with a brood of four, One of ten million men or more. Plodding along in the daily strife, Bearing the whips and the scorns of life, with never a whimper of pain or hate, For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, merely one of the surging crowd, toiling, striving from day to day, facing whatever may come his way, silent, whenever the harsh condemn, and bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad, but he gives his all, To smooth the way for his children small, doing, with courage stern and grim, the deeds that his father did for him. This is the line that for him I pen, Only a dad, but the best of men.
All: To honor all our ancestors, our fathers and mothers, we say AMEN.
(Kevin) Responsorial: Psalm 119, verses 121-128
Response; All: May I radiate your Compassion of peace and the truth.
Breathe on me, O breath of Inspiration, in the silence of my tranquil heart, infill me with your wisdom. O that I might radiate the compassion and peace, the truth and beauty of the Beloved!
All: May I radiate your compassion of peace and the truth.
Direct my steps, Oh Holy One, that I may humbly walk with you. The witness of your Life is my model; therefore, my soul yearns for You. The unfolding of your Way gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. All: May I radiate your Compassion of peace and the truth.
My mouth pours forth praise continually, for I am ever grateful for your Promises, You come to me and are gracious to me, as You are to all who open our heart’s door.
All: May I radiate your compassion of peace and the truth.
Guide my steps according to your Wisdom, and show me how to lovingly co-create with You. Let me not be lured by the world’s values, that I may walk the path of wholeness.
All: May I radiate your compassion of peace and the truth.
(Adaptation by Nan Merrill, Praying the Psalms; An Invitation to Wholeness)
(Judy)Second Reading: taken from To Love Kindness: The Heart of Compassion, Bernard Haring, C.SS.R, pg. 9
Everyone is meant to become a masterpiece of God’s love and, at the same time, co-artist in the wonderful work of forming others in God’s authentic image. Each person can develop some dimension of art--of creativity. And, whatever our individual skills or limits in the human arts, we can all become experts in the supreme art (author’s emphasis) of being loving and lovable people: of becoming saints and helping each other in this most glorious work of art. We have the divine promises. The world needs us to be beautiful, whole, and holy people. The inspired word of Fr. Bernard Haring and we respond: All: Amen.
(Kirsten) Gospel: Matthew 10:26-33
“Jesus teaches, “Don’t let people intimidate you. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, and nothing is hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in darkness, speak in the light. What you hear in private, proclaim from the housetops.
Don’t fear those who can deprive the body of life but can’t destroy the soul. Rather, fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.
Are not the sparrows sold for pennies? Yet not a single sparrow falls to the ground without your Abba God’s knowledge. As for you, every hair on your head has been counted. So, don’t be afraid of anything---you are worth more than an entire flock of sparrows.
Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before Abba God in heaven. Whoever disowns me before others. I will disown before Abba God in heaven. The inspired word of Matthew and we say: All: Amen.
Homily Starter: Katy Zatsick ARCWP
Today our liturgy celebrates Father’s and Mother’s Day. These words from the Gospel touched my heart, “As for you, every hair of your head has been counted. So, don’t be afraid of anything—you are worth more than an entire flock of sparrows.”
And now we are living and being challenged with the pandemic of Covid 19 with 100,000+ deceased and will be confronted with a new world as Covid moves into history. Covid is upheaving culture, economy, communities, country and the world. We are also being confronted with systemic racism and the brutal lynching of George Floyd. Where does a faith come from that holds me in the belief “…I am worth more than a flock of sparrows” to my heavenly Father/Mother?
My grandparents were from Eastern Europe and arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900’s My father Joseph was born in 1911, a younger brother of 11 children. Polish was the language spoken at home and at school. English was learned as a second language for both of my parents. In my father’s home, traditional pre-Vatican II Polish Roman Catholicism was lived and brought into our family when my mother and dad married. I was born in 1943, baptized, sent to Catholic elementary school, with Latin mass every day in the gym. May and October our whole family gathered for the rosary each night after dinner.
I came of age at Vatican II and all those “old Catholic ways”-confessions, novenas were stopped or put away. I experienced being a woman in a new church, reforming itself and taking our faith lives into a new understanding of who we are as the People of God. Readers, Eucharistic ministers, justice and peace activists It was heady and I thought “my dad’s faith is old-fashioned and of lesser value” I judged his faith and how he lived it as less-than.
The art you see at the beginning of our liturgy is a piece I completed after my dad’s death in 1987. I attended a weekly morning, before sunrise, meditation time. A small ecumenical group of us in the dark, a candle lit, with a leader who read their choice of a short scripture, poem etc. Then we sat in silence. I was very upset with the reader’s choice that morning, “What has this reading to do with faith?”
I sat in the dark silence; an image arose. The daily prayer book is the one Daddy prayed from every day as he sat at our dining table. The edges are brown because being a janitor he worked with his hands. The hills represent those of Punxsutawney Pa where he was born, a son of a coal miner. The rosary is Dad’s, which he carried everywhere. My mother didn’t drive, so as she shopped, Dad would say the rosary as he waited. The light is the Light who is God holding this Beloved son.
“My father’s soul is a golden vessel and his prayers flowed from him a rich, golden moving stream an acceptable offering to his heavenly Father and Mother.”
I was humbled, shamed, judged and found lacking in my “Vatican II” perspective on spiritual life. I will never ever judge anyone’s spiritual journey. I can only beg that my own prayers are acceptable to our Father and Mother, Holy Mystery. Now in the time of Covid, its continuing danger and aftermath my father’s deep Roman Catholic faith holds me and teaches me to trust in God each new day. Faith that each of us is worth more than a “flock of sparrows” to our heavenly Mother/Father. This art hangs on my bedroom wall. It is the last thing I see at night and the first art I see when I awake.
Humanity is at a collective human evolutionary choice point, are we ONE? America faces a cultural identity evolutionary choice; how can we ensure that all Americans are equal in all aspects of our lives? What gift/s did your father or mother, wise friend, Elder, or another give you that you count on for your decision-making during this new time of Covid, and its aftermath? What faith gifts enable your growing understanding of the institutional and systemic racism in the USA? And the work ahead to delete racism from all of our American communities and institutions. What faith gifts will get us to a new culture with compassion and mercy? Where will our courage and strength, wisdom and resilience come from? For hope? How will I/we respond to the evolutionary choices to start anew with future hopes for our family, country, the world and God’s creation?
Please raise your hand if you would like to share and unmute yourself (red mic to white.)
Communal Statement of Faith
All: We believe in You, Loving Mother and Father of your evolving Creation. Love creating Past, Present, Future throughout the universes, in whom we live and move and have our being.
We follow our wise elder brother, Jesus Christ whose acts of healing and reconciliation express Your Compassionate Love. We believe in Your Spirit of Wisdom within and moving through us,
Your Presence evolving here and now as we live justly, love tenderly and walk with integrity
learned from our wise elders. Amen.
Prayers of and for the Community
Lee: We now remember all those who are suffering especially from Covid and systemic and institutional racism. Our response is: All: “Jesus we trust in you. Your Love sustains us.”
Judy: For all those suffering from Covid and all families who have lost a member due to the pandemic. All: “Jesus we trust in you. Your Love sustains us.”
Kevin: For all those suffering the loss of family members due to systemic, institutional racism and police use of deadly force. All: “Jesus we trust in you. Your Love sustains us.”
Kirsten: That the Federal and State governments will provide PPE and all safety measures needed to protect medical staff, patients, and all workers in essential industries. All: “Jesus we trust in you. Your Love sustains us.”
Lee: For what else should we pray?
Lee: Loving Mother and Father Holy Mystery we know you listen to our prayers. Amen
Preparation Of The Gifts
Katy: Blessed are You, O Loving Mother, through Your divine providence we have this bread, our MMOJ community of mothers, fathers and wise elders of faith, to become for us the Bread of Life.
All: Blessed are You Holy Mother forever.
Lee: Blessed are You, O Loving Father, through Your divine providence we have this wine of honor for our earthly mothers, fathers and wise elders to offer, it will become our spiritual drink.
All: Blessed are You Holy Father forever.
Lee: Nurturing One, we are united in this sacrament by the love of Jesus in communion with all who proclaim the liberating power of your Spirit Sophia, rising through our childhood, adulthood, and in our senior years, always evolving in our midst calling us to build the unity of Oneness in a compassionate world. All: Amen.
Eucharistic Prayer
Katy: Your Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, is rising up in all who work for humanity’s healing and well-being especially now during this Covid pandemic and systemic racism. With thankful hearts, in the company of all holy women and men, your liberating Spirit rises up within us, works through us and we sing:
All: Holy, Holy, Holy (adapted from Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker)
We are Holy, Holy, Holy…3x , You are Holy, Holy, Holy, I am Holy, Holy, Holy, We are Holy, Holy, Holy
Lee: O Heart of Love, Your Spirit moved through Mary of Magdala and the Easter women as they stood by the broken body of Jesus and encountered the Risen One. Your Spirit moved through your disciples as they followed your Way after you ascended to be with the Holy One. Your Spirit moves through us as we serve the broken body of Christ rising up in our world today.
Katy: Please extend Your hands in blessing.
Katy and Lee: Pour out Your Spirit Sophia anew upon this bread and wine and upon us as we become more deeply the Christ Presence in our world.
All: On the night before he died, Jesus came to table with his family and the women and men he loved. Jesus took bread blessed and broke it, saying, “Take, eat, this is my body. Do this in memory of me.” (pause)
All: After supper, Jesus poured a cup of wine and shared it with his friends, saying,
“This is the cup of the covenant of my love. As often as You drink of it, remember me.”
Lee and All: Let us proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ has died in all those who have passed away from the Coronavirus and from police brutality.
Christ is rising in all those working for the well-being of humanity; searching for a vaccine, treatments and dismantling institutional racism.
Christ comes each day in our ministry, prayers and actions for a renewed world with justice and equality for all.
Katy and All: Embracing Presence, we remember all the companions who have gone before us: Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mary of Magdala, and all holy women and men who are rising up in loving service to heal our world. We remember and honor our ancestors who came to these shores to start a new life. For it is through living as Jesus lived, and loving as he loved, that we awaken to Your Spirit empowering us to work for justice and equality for all citizens in our country and for the life of your planet Earth. AMEN.
The Prayer of Jesus
Lee: Let us pray as Jesus taught us. “Our Father and Mother…”
Sign of Peace
Lee: Jesus said to his disciples, “My peace I leave You. My peace I give You.”
(Let us place our hands in front of us, palms up, as we sing, “Peace if flowing like a river…” you may change “captives” to “peoples”)
Peace is flowing like a river, flowing out of you and me. Flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free. Love is flowing like a river, flowing out of you and me. Flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free. Healing's flowing like a river, flowing out of you and me. Flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free. Alleluia
Communion
Katy: Please join in praying the Litany for the Breaking of the Bread All:
Holy One, You call us to speak truth to power; we will do so.
Holy One, You call us to live the Gospel of healing and justice; we will do so.
Holy One, You call us to be Your presence in the world; we will do so.
Lee: All are worthy to receive from Love’s feast. This is the bread of life and the cup of blessing. Blessed are we who are called to Christ’s table. All: We are the Body and Blood of Christ for the world.
Pease receive/share Eucharist now.
Announcements
Concluding Rite
Lee: The Holy One is within You. As you go forth to continue your ministry for justice and equality, and peace for all life and earth itself, may Sophia inform your decisions to choose Love toward all whom you meet. All: And also within You.
Katy: Please extend Your hands as we pray our final blessing.
All: May the Great Birther who created you in wholeness, comfort you when you call! May the Name of Love be your protection and rise up in your heart as a tower of strength! May all you have given in gratitude with open hands be returned to you a hundredfold! Let us shout for joy as Love triumphs over fear. Amen (Nan Merrill, from Psalm 20)
Closing Song:
God Beyond All Names – Bernadette Farrell
God, beyond our dreams, you have stirred in us a memory,
You have placed your powerful Spirit in the hearts of humankind.
You have placed your powerful Spirit in the hearts of humankind.
Refrain: All around us, we have known you;
All creation lives to hold you,
In our living and our dying
We are bringing You to birth.
God, beyond all names, you have made us in your image,
We are like you, we reflect you, we are woman, we are man. R
We are like you, we reflect you, we are woman, we are man. R
God, beyond all words, all creation tells your story,
You have shaken with our laughter, you have trembled with our tears. R
You have shaken with our laughter, you have trembled with our tears. R
God, beyond all time, you are laboring within us;
We are moving, we are changing, in your Spirit ever new. R
We are moving, we are changing, in your Spirit ever new. R
God of tender care, you have cradled us in goodness,
You have mothered us in wholeness, you have loved us into birth. R
You have mothered us in wholeness, you have loved us into birth. R
Joseph Zatsick
April 25, 1911-November 27, 1987
Thank you for gathering with us to worship as our MMOJ community.
We hope to see you again. Be safe, Be well.
May our Holy Mother and Holy Father bless you and your family.
Christ acts like a loving mother. To induce us to follow him, Christ gives us himself
as an example and promises us a reward in his kin-dom.
St Anthony of Padua
If you would like to add your intercession to our MMOJ Community Prayers book,
Please send an email to katyrcwp@tampabay.rr.com
Or give Katy a call at 813 938 5750.
If you would like to invite another person to attend our liturgy please refer them to
www.marymotherofJesus.org where the day’s liturgy is found. Zoom instructions are also included there.
Please support our community, send your check to:
Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community
% St Andrews UCC, 6908 Beneva Rd., Sarasota, FL 34328
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