BY: CARRIE MEYER MCGRATH, MDiv, MAS
CALL TO PRAYER
LEADER: Cognizant that the people we serve exist in communities and that we are called by God to protect the good of all, Catholic health care not only strives for the physical healing of the individual but seeks to promote the common good in the places we serve. Let us be attentive to the Word.
READING 1: (2 Corinthians 9:8-12, 15)
Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written:
"He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever."
The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
You are being enriched in every way for all generosity, which through us produces thanksgiving to God, for the administration of this public service is not only supplying the needs of the holy ones but is also overflowing in many acts of thanksgiving to God. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
(Silence)
READING 2: (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 164)
The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains "common," because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future. Just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good.
The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and community dimension of the moral good.
(Silence)
RESPONSE (Adapted from Isaiah 1:17)
LEADER: Let us respond to the Word by recommitting ourselves to the work of God.
(Responsive reading by alternate sides)
In the communities we serve, we will learn to do good.
In the communities we serve, we will seek justice.
In the communities we serve, we will rescue the oppressed.
In the communities we serve, we will defend the orphan.
In the communities we serve, we will plead for the widow.
In the communities we serve, we will strive to build cities of justice and peace.
ALL: Then our light shall rise in the darkness, and the Lord will be our guide. And we will become like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters
never fail.
LEADER: And let us pray as Jesus taught us.
ALL:Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
LEADER: Let us continue our work in peace.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
"Prayer Service," a regular department in Health Progress, may be copied without prior permission.