Weekday Prayers: Prayers for Weekday Masses ...

Donal Harrington's Weekday Prayers: Prayer for Weekday Masses and Prayer Services provides gospel-based prayers for all the weekdays of the year: Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, Ordinary Time, Feasts and selected Saints' days.

For each weekday there is:

• an introduction to the Mass, based on the gospel, inviting the gathering into a moment of quiet prayer
• two prayer of the faithful, inspired by the gospel of the day.

The book is about more than just providing prayers. The idea is to enrich appreciation of the gospel. This is done by ”˜translating' some of the meaning and message of the day's gospel into the form of prayer. In the process the riches of the texts are being explored and articulated.

The book will be of use for weekday Mass. It is not always possible to give the same kind of time to preparing for weekday Mass as for Sunday. So these resources will help the celebrant to enter into the gospel of the day and to open it up for the assembly in the form of prayer.

But there is more to the book's usefulness. With less priests, there are less weekday Masses and more prayer services led by parishioners. The book's resources will help in the preparation of those services. It will help make them gospel-based and gospel-inspired. It will help those who are gathered to pray with the gospel of the day. It will help them grow into a heartfelt understanding of the gospel.