In order to worthily sanctify the Sixth Sunday of Easter,
Aleteia proposes this celebration of the Word of God at home.
In collaboration with Magnificat magazine
Instructions:
- This celebration requires the presence of at least two people.
- If you’re alone, you can simply read this celebration, united in your heart and spirit with the Church.You can also watch the Mass on television.
- Choose the most convenient time, from Saturday evening (the vigil of Sunday) to Sunday evening.
- This celebration is particularly suitable for use with family. In order to respect quarantine measures, you should refrain from inviting others from outside your household. If anyone in your house is ill, make sure they remain in isolation to ensure that all safety guidelines are strictly followed.
- Set up the needed number of chairs in front of a prayer corner, respecting an appropriate distance of at least a yard between each.
- Take the time to renew a little the prayer corner’s decorations: images, candles, real or artificial flowers, drawings by your children, garlands, etc.
- A simple cross or crucifix must always be visible in the background.
- Designate a person to lead the prayer.
- The leader will also direct the preparation of the celebration, during which he or she will mark the length of the periods of silence.
- Designate readers for the readings.
- During the preparation of the celebration: you can prepare petitions for the Prayers of the Faithful or Universal Prayer (in case that is not possible, a standard list of petitions is provided here for use during the course of the celebration). You may also prepare suitable hymns.
SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Celebration of the Word
“Whoever has my commandments and observes them
is the one who loves me.”
The leader of the celebration reads:
Brothers and sisters,
in his first letter,
Saint John asks us to love Jesus
not only in spirit and in word,
but still in deed and in truth.
What does it mean to “love in deed and truth?”
It means to love Jesus
as he wants to be loved,
not the way we want to love him.
Precisely in today’s Gospel,
Jesus himself gives us the criterion
by which he judges whether we really love him:
“Whoever has my commandments and observes them,”
he says, “is the one who loves me.”
What commandments are these?
There is one that we know well: the new commandment,
“my commandment,” says Jesus in his last discourse.
His commandment is this:
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
But so that we can claim to love him without being liars,
Jesus asks us to keep his commandments, in plural…
Did Jesus leave us another new commandment?
Again, in his first letter,
Saint John enlightens us about Jesus’ second commandment;
a commandment which, in reality, is Jesus’ first commandment.
This first new commandment is to believe in HIM
as the Son of God and our Savior.
Brothers and sisters, in these days when our love of Jesus
is denied communion with his real presence,
Let us listen as he tells us in his Gospel
how can we be certain
of proving our love for him.
After three minutes of silence, all rise and make the Sign of the Cross, saying:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The leader continues:
To prepare ourselves to receive God’s Word
and in order for it to heal us,
we recognize ourselves as sinners.
The penitential rite follows. For example:
Have mercy on us, O Lord.
For we have sinned against you.
Show us, O Lord, your mercy.
And grant us your salvation.
May Almighty God have mercy on us;
forgive us our sins,
And bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
The following is said or sung:
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
The Gloria is then said or sung:
Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise you, we bless you,
we adore you, we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory.
Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world,
receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on us.
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.
Glória in excélsis Deo
et in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntátis.
Laudámus te, benedícimus te,
adoramus te, glorificámus te,
gratias agimus tibi propter magnam glóriam tuam,
Dómine Deus, Rex cæléstis, Deus Pater omnípotens.
Dómine Fili Unigénite, Jesu Christe,
Dómine Deus, Agnus Dei, Fílius Patris,
qui tollis peccáta mundi, miserére nobis;
qui tollis peccáta mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad déxteram Patris, miserére nobis.
Quóniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dóminus,
tu solus Altíssimus, Jesu Christe,
cum Sancto + Spíritu : in glória Dei Patris.
Amen.
PRAYER
The leader says the opening prayer:
Grant, almighty God,
that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy,
which we keep in honor of the risen Lord,
and that what we relive in remembrance
we may always hold to in what we do. Amen.
All sit down.
FIRST READING (Acts 8:5-8, 14-17)
A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Christ to them.
With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip
when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing.
For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice,
came out of many possessed people,
and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured.
There was great joy in that city.
Now when the apostles in Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God,
they sent them Peter and John,
who went down and prayed for them,
that they might receive the Holy Spirit,
for it had not yet fallen upon any of them;
they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then they laid hands on them
and they received the Holy Spirit.
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
PSALM(66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20)
R/ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Shout joyfully to God, all the earth,
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
Say to God, “How tremendous are your deeds!”R/
“Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you,
sing praise to your name!”
Come and see the works of God,
his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.R/
He has changed the sea into dry land;
through the river they passed on foot;
therefore let us rejoice in him.
He rules by his might forever. R/
Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare
what he has done for me.
Blessed be God who refused me not
my prayer or his kindness! R/
SECOND READING (1 Peter 3:15-18)
Beloved:
Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
but do it with gentleness and reverence,
keeping your conscience clear,
so that, when you are maligned,
those who defame your good conduct in Christ
may themselves be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good,
if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered for sins once,
the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous,
that he might lead you to God.
Put to death in the flesh,
he was brought to life in the Spirit.
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
All rise.
GOSPEL(John 14:15-21)
Alleluia. Alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord,
and my Father will love him and we will come to him.
Alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,
because it neither sees nor knows him.
But you know him, because he remains with you,
and will be in you.
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me,
but you will see me, because I live and you will live.
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father
and you are in me and I in you.
Whoever has my commandments and observes them
is the one who loves me.
And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
At the end of the Gospel, all sing or say again the joy of the Resurrection:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
All are seated, and the leader repeats slowly,
as if it were a far-off echo:
“Whoever has my commandments and observes them
is the one who loves me.”
All observe three minutes of silence for silent personal meditation.
PROFESSION OF FAITH
All then stand to profess the faith of the Church
saying the Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.
UNIVERSAL PRAYER
All remain standing for the prayers of the faithful, as prepared ahead of time. The following intercessions may be used instead, separating the intentions with an intervening moment of silence.
The leader of the prayer says:
Let us give thanks to God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
All say the refrain:
R/ Blessed are you!
- For the Church, which lives in the movement of the Holy Spirit, that she may transmit that life through the grace of the sacraments;R/
- For bishops, priests and deacons, that they may give reason for the hope that dwells in them;R/
- For catechumens awaiting baptism, that their desire for a new life may constantly grow;R/
- For the sick, the suffering, and the unemployed, that the Lord will comfort them. Let us pray to the Lord. R/
- For all the faithful, that they may keep the commandments of their Savior;R/
- For those caring for the sick, that they may provide loving care and comfort; R/
- For the those who have left us, that they may follow the path to eternity with you. R/
The people present may add, in turn, their own intentions. At the end of each of them, all repeat the refrain together:
R/ Blessed are you!
The leader introduces the Lord’s Prayer:
United in the Spirit and in the communion of the Church,
we dare to pray as the Lord Jesus himself
taught us:
All say or sing the Our Father:
Our Father…
Continuing immediately with:
For the kingdom…
Then the leader invites those present to share a sign of peace:
We have just joined our voices
with that of the Lord Jesus to pray to the Father.
We are sons and daughters in the Son.
In the love that unites us with one another,
renewed by the word of God,
we can exchange a gesture of peace,
a sign of the communion
we receive from the Lord.
All then exchange a greeting of peace from a distance: for example, by bowing deeply towards each other in turn; or, as a family, by blowing each other a kiss. Then all sit down.
SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
The leader says:
When we cannot receive sacramental communion for lack of a Mass, Pope Francis urges us to practice spiritual communion, also called “communion of desire.”
The Council of Trent reminds us that this “consists in an ardent desire to feed on the Heavenly Bread, with a living faith that acts through charity and that makes us participants in the fruits and graces of the Sacrament.” The value of our spiritual communion depends therefore on our faith in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a source of life, love and unity, and our desire to receive Communion in spite of our inability to do so.
With that in mind, I now invite you to bow your head, to close your eyes and recollect yourselves.
Silence
Deep in our hearts,
may a burning desire arise within us to unite ourselves with Jesus,
in sacramental communion,
and then to bring His love to life into our lives,
loving others as He loved us.
All remain in silence for 5 minutes for a
heart-to-heart conversation with Jesus Christ.
You may optionally stand and say or sing a beautiful Alleluia once more:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
All remain standing, turning to face the Cross of Christ. With hands joined in prayer, the prayer leader, in the name of all, says the prayer of blessing:
FINAL BLESSING
May God, who by the Resurrection of his Only Begotten Son
was pleased to confer on us
the gift of redemption and of adoption,
give us gladness by his blessing. Amen.
May he, by whose redeeming work
we have received the gift of everlasting freedom,
make us heirs to an eternal inheritance.Amen.
And may we, who have already risen with Christ
in Baptism through faith,
by living in a right manner on this earth,
be united with him in the homeland of heaven. Amen.
All together, each with hands joined in prayer:
And may the blessing of almighty God,
come down on us and remain with us for ever. Amen.
All make the Sign of the Cross.
Then parents may trace the Sign of the Cross on their children’s foreheads.
To conclude the celebration, the participants may sing the Regina Caeli,
or some other joyful, well-known Marian hymn.
Regína caéli, lætáre, Allelúia!
Quia quem meruísti portáre, Allelúia!
Resurréxit, sicut dixit, Allelúia!
Ora pro nóbis Déum, Allelúia!
O Queen of heaven rejoice! Alleluia!
For He whom thou didst merit to bear, Alleluia!
Hath arisen as he said, Alleluia!
Pray for us to God, Alleluia!
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To continue to sanctify the Lord’s Resurrection, Aleteia will propose occasional guides for celebrations of the Word at home. This way, in your home, you can continue to keep Sunday holy, despite the circumstances, for the glory of God and the salvation of the world.
To continue to sanctify this day, it would be good to reconnect with the venerable tradition of Vespers by celebrating as a family, towards the end of the afternoon, the office of the Liturgy
of the Hours. Alternatively, you can pray today’s Evening Prayer, which can be found here.
You can also find other resources for free on the Magnificat website.
And today we celebrate...