thinking theology

Archive for July, 2014

Eucharistic Prayer, Creation Season

Presider: Holy Mystery, you touch all people with a sense of your abiding presence. You dwell within the human heart at peace; you teach compassion by sending messengers of justice and understanding. Joining in the song of the universe we proclaim your glory:

Sanctus

(A time to feel the Divine presence)

Presider: Gracious God, for all people you offer human examples of love and peace. We received Jesus as our teacher and friend, the one who would show us how to open our souls to you. In his great compassion, he healed the sick and saw in each person dignity and potential. For us, he became Love incarnate in human form. For us, he became your promise of life everlasting and love beyond all exhaustion or limit.

When Jesus knew that his time of trial approached, he gathered his friends and family together. Anointed as sacrifice and blessing by a woman disciple, Jesus reached out to those who loved him. He took bread, gave thanks to you, broke it and gave it to his friends, saying, “Take and eat: this is my body which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.” After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave you thanks, and said “Drink this all of you,” as a sign of his life, given as the covenant of love and forgiveness for everyone. He said, “Whenever you drink it, remember me.”

(A time to remember Jesus)

Memorial Acclamation

Presider: Love in creation and love in relationship, may these gifts from the earth become insight into the holiness that is your breath in the world. Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, in relationship with all that lives and has given life, we lift our songs of praise.
All: Amen. Amen. Alleluia, amen.

Eucharistic Prayer, Children

Presider: May God be among us.
All: God’s Spirit is with us now.

Presider: Let us lift our hearts.
All: May the world be filled with joy.

Presider: Let us rejoice in God’s gift of Jesus.
All: We rejoice and give thanks.

Presider: Loving God, we give you thanks. In the beginning, you made the world with all the creatures of land and sea and air. You taught us stories that would help us to be steady and faithful – like the ground we walk on. You bless us with imagination, freedom and spirit – like the wind that sings through the trees. You call us to look up and see the moon, the stars and the sun so that we may recognize your beauty in creation.

You give us life and the knowledge of good and evil but sometimes we turn away from you and from each other and care more for ourselves. Sometimes we forget the Bible stories of courage and forget to walk lightly on the earth. Sometimes we forget how the waters of baptism give us hope and new life.

In Jesus, you gave us a person and a story that would help us to remember your love and how to be your people. And so we sing!

All: Gloria! Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria! Gloria! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Presider: Maker of all, blessed are you for sending us a true and faithful light, Jesus our brother and friend. On the night before he died, he gathered together with his friends. During supper, he took bread and wine and gave thanks to God. He shared the bread with his friends and said: “Take this and eat it in remembrance of me.” Then he took the cup of wine and blessed it. This cup reminds us that we are Jesus’ family, part of the eternal life of God’s promises given for everyone who needs him.
Blessed God, we do this in remembrance of Jesus’ life on earth, of the love he has for us all, and in faith that we too will share in his resurrection. With hope, we look for him in the world and pray to see his face in heaven. Send your Holy Spirit upon this bread and wine so that we may know that Jesus is here with us.

With all the creatures and with everything in your world, renew us in the power of your love so that peace and justice may be revealed.

All: Gloria! Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria! Gloria! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Eucharistic Prayer, Pentecost

Presider: May  God’s life enfold our lives.
All: May the Spirit quicken our imagination.

Presider: Let us rejoice.
All: May our hearts be compassionate and strong.

Presider: Let us give thanks to God.
All: May the work of our hands be turned to healing.

Presider: Mother and Father God, we give you thanks for the gift of your Beloved, who has become for us a sign of healing and new life. Out of the Divine Self, you formed all that we are, and more that is beyond our senses. You named it Good. When we open ourselves, we are surrounded by the holiness of the creation and by your presence within us and beyond us. With the song of all creation, we raise our voices in vibrant hope,

Sanctus

(A time for quiet)

Presider: Gracious God, as a sign to us of your ever-abiding love, you called the Christ into being in Jesus. He learned and grew in Wisdom and the Spirit. He responded to you and you called him “Beloved.” He laughed and danced with the wedding guests; he healed the sick and rebuked the powerful. He stood in solidarity with the poor, the outcast, the victims of his society. He wept and he feared and he raged at injustice. In all things, he shared our lives and experienced the fullness of your Presence.

With a full heart, with insight and compassion, a woman anointed him as prophet and in recognition of his imminent death. He received her blessing and instructed us to remember her whenever the good news is told.

At supper with his friends, Jesus blessed and broke bread, offering it to them as a sign of labour and of unity. He looked at them and said, “This, my body.” Then he took a cup of wine, a sign of life and family, and said to them, “This, my blood. When you do this, do it remembering me.”

All: In Christ we are one body, one blood, one family. May this become the truth for us.

(A time for quiet)

Presider: Remembering that Jesus became the Christ for us, may the Spirit of wind and fire sweep through these gifts and through us, opening us to new vision, filling our mouths with a new language and freeing us to hear your Word again. May we connect ourselves to the Jesus of history – who was known in the past, who is revealed in our present and who awaits us in the future. May we find revealed to us the Christ of all times who greets us at every crossroads and loves us into resurrection.
All: Amen, amen, amen.

Eucharist Prayer, Advent

Presider: May the Holy One come and abide with you.
All: And also with you.

Presider: Lift up your hearts for a new day approaches.
All: We rejoice in the One who comes.

Presider: Let us give thanks for the gift of hope in Jesus.
All: In joy and gratitude we praise the Holy One.

Sanctus
(a time for quiet as we feel the abiding presence of God)

Presider: In the beginning, the Spirit of God brooded over the earth, blessing all things with the indwelling of goodness and possibility. In time, humanity was called into existence, made in the image of the Maker, but not yet complete or fulfilled. With all creation, we struggled to develop, to learn and to grow. Many are the mistakes made and the errors in our history, but still the Holy One sets signs of hope within human life.

Through prophets and saints, poets and artists, social activists, philosophers and sages in every age, you O God call us to the paths of wisdom and compassion In Jesus, your Beloved, you showed us how to live and how to love. You entrusted Mary with care for him. For us, she modelled the path of obedience and courage. Jesus loved the poor and the disenfranchised. He challenged the rich and powerful to use their assets for the good of others. In each person, he saw the spark of the Maker and the goodness at the heart of every living thing.

As the powers of domination closed around him, Jesus gathered his friends and followers. A woman anointed him as king and prophet, sacrifice and blessing. He said that whenever his story is told, her act is to be remembered. At supper, Jesus took the bread, and said, “This, my body.” In his body, we are one family, one mission, united to him through life and through death. Then he took a cup of wine and he said, “This, my blood.”

As we share in the one cup, we remember that we are one in mission, one in sacrifice, and one in hope. Let us remember the gift of Jesus and his life that flows through our lives.

(a time for quiet)

Memorial Acclamation

Presider: Gracious God, send your Holy Spirit to hover over us now as in the beginning. May this sacrament remind us of your goodness within us and draw us more closely to each other and to the mission of your Beloved. Lift our hearts in hope and stir our imaginations to realize the vision of new birth, the fulfillment of the yearning of the earth. Through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, all time and possibility are yours in unity with the Maker and the Spirit.
All: Amen.

(The service continues as is the custom of the community.)

Blessing: Presider: May your hearts be lifted in longing through the power of the Indwelling Spirit. May the passion of Jesus draw you to love others and to love yourselves. May the beauty and love of our Maker, fill you with joyful trust in the unfolding of love and peace. Amen.