Celebrant: With full trust and faith, we bring our needs before the Lord.

Deacon/Lector:

That the pastors of the Church will stir into flame the many and varied gifts which the Spirit gives to the laity, and always encourage them, we pray to the Lord...

That there may be an end to the violence of crime, war, abortion and oppression, we pray to the Lord…

That God's people may take an active, informed, and responsible role as citizens of our great nation, we pray to the Lord...

That those who no longer practice the faith, especially among our own families, may not harden their hearts but rather hear the Lord calling them back, we pray to the Lord...

For those participating in today’s national Life Chain, that their message against abortion and for the protection of unborn children may touch many minds and hearts, we pray to the Lord…

That the sick may be comforted and healed, and in turn serve the needs of others, we pray to the Lord...

That all who have died may be received into everlasting life and joy, we pray to the Lord...

Celebrant:

Father, 
You call us to hope for salvation
And for all other good things.
Hear our prayers,
And strengthen our desire to serve You always.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

More children, more love

"When number nineteen came, the family gives him love. He got so much love from the family. When you have a large family, the children are getting all kinds of love from all their brothers and sisters. There’s nothing more joyful than a baby. For every little mouth that God sends, He sends the little bit that is needed. I had faith in God that if He sent me a child, He was going to feed that child. I lived better than some families with two or three kids. My kids started doing things! It’s not how many kids you have; it’s your faith in God." – Mrs. Lucille Dippolito, mother of 20.

Hb 1:2-3; 2:2-4
2 Tm 1:6-8, 13-14
Lk 17:5-10

Watch a video with homily hints

The prophet Habakkuk expresses what many believers say in the face of the culture of death: “How long, O Lord? I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene.”  

The Lord says to us what he said to Habakkuk. “The vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint.” 

We have even more reason than Habakkuk to have hope, because the foundational event of the fulfillment of the vision has occurred – the death and resurrection of Christ. We live now in the “in between” time, when the kingdom of Christ has been inaugurated on earth, but not yet brought to its full manifestation. The power of sin and death – revealed in evils such as abortion – has been destroyed at its roots. Yet we still struggle, in and through Christ, to bring about a Culture of Life. 

The passage from Habakkuk concludes with the familiar line “The just man shall live by faith.” It is that faith that the apostles, in the Gospel passage, ask the Lord to increase. To “live by faith” is not only to have our lives guided by faith. It means that through faith we have life in the first place. Our faith rescues us from the grip of death, from the kingdom of death, from the covenant with death that is brought about by sin. As Paul declares, “he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). That’s why he can write to Timothy in today’s second reading that “The Spirit God has given us is no cowardly spirit.”  

In other words, as we live in the world and fight for what is right, we do not look at the world’s evils and the culture of death and wonder how we are ever going to overcome them. Rather, we look at them and renew our conviction that they have been overcome in Christ. We stand before these evils in a stance of victory and say, “You no longer have any place here! Your kingdom has been overcome! Therefore we will work with courage to change this world and to apply the victory of life that has already been won!”