and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ and with my brothers and sisters let this acknowledge our sins and so forth here ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries you were sent to heal the contrite apart lord have mercy lord have mercy you came to called sinners christ have mercy christ have mercy you are seated at the right hand of the father to intercede for us lord have mercy lord have mercy may almighty god have mercy on us forgive us our sins and bring us to everlasting life and man let us pray by his intercession that we may so join our hearts to you in love as to carry always and everywhere be for all people the image of your only be gotten son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god for ever and ever amen a reading from the book of genesis abraham and the men who had visited him by the terrible and mamre sent out from there and looked down toward sodom abraham was walking with them to see them on their way the lord reflected shall i hide from abraham what i am about to do now that he is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to find blessing in him indeed i have singled him out that he may direct his children that his household after him to keep the way of the lord by doing what is right and just so that the lord may carry into effect for abraham the promises he made about it then the lord said the outcry against sodom and gomorrah is so great and their sin is so grave that i must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me i mean to find out while the two men walked on further towards sodom the lord remained standing before abraham then abraham drew nearer to him and said will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty suppose there are fifty innocent people in the city would you wipe out the place rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it far be it from me to do such a thing to make the innocent time with the guilty so that the innocent and guilty would be treated alike should not the judge of all the world act with justice the lord replied if i find fifty innocent people in the city of sodom i will spare the whole place for their say abraham spoke up again see how i am presuming to speak to my lord though i am but dust and ashes but if there are five less than fifty innocent people will you destroy the whole city because of those five he answered then abraham said let not my lord grow impatient if i go on what if only thirty are found there he replied i will forbear doing it if i can find but thirty there still abraham went on since i have thus dared to speak to my lord what if there are no more than twenty he entered i will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty but he still persisted please let not my lord grow angry if i speak up this last time but if there are at least ten there he replied for the sake of those ten i will not destroy the lord to part of this soon as he had finished speaking with abraham and abraham returned home the word of the lord the lord is kind and merciful the lord  bless the lord oh my soul and all my being bless his holy name last the lord of my soul and forget not all his benefits the lord is kind and merciful pardons all your iniquities and heals all your ills he read deems your life from destruction he crowns you with kindness and compassion the lord is kind and merciful merciful and gracious is the lord slow to anger and abounding in kindness he will not always china nor does he keep his wrath forever the lord is kind said merciful not according to our sins to see deal with u nor does he required us according to our crimes for us the heavens are high above the earth so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him the lord you are his kind of merciful the lord be with you a reading from the holy gospel according to matthew when jesus saw the crowd around him he gave orders to cross to the other sure ascribes approach and said to him i will follow you wherever you go lord let me go st and bury my father but jesus answered him follow me and let the dead bury their dead the gospel of the lord some good number of years ago in a parish i was serving in up in the counties and in the upper part of the diocese i became familiar with a young girl a young woman who was trying to discern for herself a vocation what is it that she would ultimately do in life and she seemed to have been drawn to religious life and so she searched and investigated religious communities and two or three times made an attempt to enter that religious community as a as an inquirer as a posh dylan and each time after a period of residence with the community she found herself coming home because she was torn about it she was torn is this really what the lord wants of me and our in our parish there was a very wise sister and the young woman was lamenting you know she said i'm not sure what the lord is calling me to shall i be a sister shall i be a wife and a mother i'm  i don't know how to make the commitment and sister said to the young woman that she had to listen carefully to god who was a very selfish god that if you give yourself to the  lord he wants all of you i hope was a good piece of advice to the young woman it's something certainly that i never forgot hearing as i was involved in that conversation we have to be careful when we ask the lord what is it that you want from me because the answer is often times overwhelming i want all of you i want your whole heart and your whole mind and your whole soul and your whole being i want it all this morning as gospel should sound a little familiar to you yesterday we read it at mass from luke's perspective in fact look had a longer list of encounters between jesus and the disciples but the message in today's gospel is really the same that when we consider all the jesus has done for us with a spirit of adventure we have to be able to give our lives over to him completely and without hesitation and it's not an easy thing to do but when we find that we find a treasure let us pray my brothers and sisters as we offer our prayers to our compassion it father for all in the church that they will show us as believers the way to the father as we journey in faith let us pray to the lord that government leaders will pursue peace and justice for their people us pray to the lord that the effects of our association with god will help to strengthen us as we seek to do his will let us pray to the lord for all of us who gather here today that we will discern and follow god's purpose in life let us pray to the lord and for our sister in christ lucia and for all those who have died will rest peacefully with the communion of the saints in heaven let us pray to the lord a loving father you know what is in our hearts and so we ask that you  through christ our lord amen the lord be with you and with your spirit lift up your hearts set them up to the lord let us give thanks to the lord our god it is right and just is truly right and just our duty and spirit and born of the virgin fulfilling your will and gaining for you will holy people he stretched out his hands as he endured his passion so as to break the bonds of death and manifest the resurrection and so with the angels and all the saints we declare your glory as with one voice we a claim we so that they may become for us the body and blood of our lord jesus christ at the time he was betrayed the bread of life and the chalice of salvation giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and ministered to you humbly we pray that partaking of the body and blood of christ we may be gathered into one by the holy spirit remember lord your church spread throughout the world and bring her to the fullness of charity together with francis our pope timothy our car his brother bishops and all the clergy remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and all who have died in your mercy welcomed them into the light of your deliver us lord we pray for him every evil graciously grant peace in our days but by the help of your mercy we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress as we await the blessing of hope and the coming of and