Day 1152: Let's celebrate Mothers Day Today with Nancy and Victoria at 3:45pm

Emmaus Celebration for Sunday, Mothers Day May 14, 2023

Join us in Person at Knox Presbyterian/Thanksgiving Churches (with whom we share)

1650 W. Third St.

Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Or join us on ZOOM with this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573

Passcode: 1234

Or use the Meeting ID after you open ZOOM: 519 315 8573

Passcode: 1234

Or call in by phone: One tap mobile

+16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose)

+16694449171,,5193158573# US

The Liturgy in WORD and PDF formats for downloading

Nancy: Welcomes and Introduces of our theme

(Nancy will welcome all and provide brief introduction of our theme for tonight’s liturgy)

And now let us begin our liturgy. (Victoria rings singing bowl three times)

Opening Song: Sing to the Mountains

Refrain:

Sing to the mountains, sing to the sea.

Raise your voices, lift your hearts.

This is the day the Lord has made.

Let all the earth rejoice.

1 I will give thanks to you, my Lord.

You have answered my plea.

You have saved my soul from death.

You are my strength and my song. [Refrain]

2 Holy, holy, holy Lord,

heaven and earth are full of your glory. [Refrain]

3 This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us be glad and rejoice.

He has turned all death to life.

Sing of the glory of God. [Refrain]

Mary FitzGerald: Opening Prayer: A Mother’s Day Blessing (from the Sister’s of

Notre Dame de Namur)

All-loving God, we give you thanks and praise for mothers young and old.

We pray for young mothers, who give life and count toes and tend to our every need; May they be blessed with patience and tenderness to care for their families and themselves with great joy.

We pray for our own mothers who have nurtured and cared for us; May they continue to guide us in strong and gentle ways.

We remember mothers who are separated from their children because of war, poverty, or conflict; May they feel the loving embrace of our God who wipes every tear away.

We pray for women who are not mothers but still love and shape us with motherly care and compassion.

We remember mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who are no longer with us but who live forever in our memory and nourish us with their love.

Amen.

Amen.

Video of Amanda Gorman reading our First Reading: An Ode We Owe

‘An Ode We Owe’

How can I ask you to do good, When we’ve barely withstood Our greatest threats yet:

The depths of death, despair and disparity, Atrocities across cities, towns & countries, Lives lost, climactic costs.

Exhausted, angered, we are endangered,

Not because of our numbers,

But because of our numbness. We’re strangers

To one another’s perils and pain,

Unaware that the welfare of the public

And the planet share a name–

–Equality

Doesn’t mean being the exact same, But enacting a vast aim:

The good of the world to its highest capability. The wise believe that our people without power Leaves our planet without possibility. Therefore, though poverty is a poor existence, Complicity is a poorer excuse.

We must go the distance,

Though this battle is hard and huge,

Though this fight we did not choose,

For preserving the earth isn’t a battle too large To win, but a blessing too large to lose. This is the most pressing truth:

That Our people have only one planet to call home And our planet has only one people to call its own.

We can either divide and be conquered by the few,

Or we can decide to conquer the future,

And say that today a new dawn we wrote, Say that as long as we have humanity, We will forever have hope.

Together, we won’t just be the generation

That tries but the generation that triumphs;

Let us see a legacy

Where tomorrow is not driven By the human condition, But by our human conviction.

And while hope alone can’t save us now,

With it we can brave the now,

Because our hardest change hinges On our darkest challenges.

Thus may our crisis be our cry, our crossroad, The oldest ode we owe each other. We chime it, for the climate, For our communities.

We shall respect and protect

Every part of this planet,

Hand it to every heart on this earth,

Until no one’s worth is rendered

By the race, gender, class, or identity

They were born. This morn let it be sworn

That we are one one human kin, Grounded not just by the griefs We bear, but by the good we begin.

To anyone out there:

I only ask that you care before it’s too late,

That you live aware and awake, That you lead with love in hours of hate. I challenge you to heed this call, I dare you to shape our fate.

Above all, I dare you to do good. So that the world might be great.

Pat O’Connor: Responsorial Psalm: Prayer for All Things Rising

For all things rising out of the hiddenness of shadows out of the weight of despair out of the brokenness of pain out of the constrictions of compliance out of the rigidity of stereotypes out of the prison of prejudice;

for all things rising into life, into hope into healing, into power into freedom, into justice; we pray, O God, for all things rising.

(“Prayer for All Things Rising” © Jan L. Richardson, Sacred Journeys: A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer)

Victoria: (Victoria will offer a brief invitation to everyone as to how each can listen to the reading of tonight’s Gospel…then Ed will begin the reading.)

Ed FitzGerald: Gospel Reading: Luke 13.10-17

10Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13When he laid his hands on her, immediately she straightened herself up and began praising God.

14But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Shared Homily: (Victoria will offer a brief homily starter followed by questions:)

•Who are the bent over women you see in our time and culture?

• How do you think Mother Earth is doing today? Do you see similarities between Mother Earth and the bent over woman?

Nancy : What is it that we bring to the table tonight:

And, so dearest Holy One, we gather up these prayers offered to you, those said, and those left unsaid in those deep places of our hearts, and place them now in your heart, which is deeper still in all of our hearts. And we now offer these gifts of bread and wine. Amen.

(The gifts of bread and wine will be brought forward to the table

Eucharistic Prayer:

Victoria: Holy One, we gather together and come to you tonight worn down by so many months of physical isolation from our community and our loved ones, by the deeper awareness of the systemic racial, financial and societal inequities in our governing structures; by political strife and polarization, and by the loss of so many dear members of our Emmaus community. Hold us close to your heart, O God, that we might find strength and courage to persevere in love and hope.

Nancy: On the night before he died, Jesus was at table with his friends. He took bread, gave thanks to you, broke it, and gave it to his friends saying,

All: “This is my body, broken for you.

Victoria: As supper was ending, Jesus took the cup of wine. Again he gave thanks to you, gave it to his friends and said,

All: “This cup is the new covenant of my lifeblood shed for you and for all.

And as often as you do this, You do this in memory of me.”

Nancy: Now gathered at your table, we offer to you our gifts of bread and wine, and ourselves, as living offerings of your love. Pour out your Spirit upon all these gifts, and all of us, that we may be Your Living Body, Your Lifeblood.

Breathe your Spirit over the whole earth and make us all your new creation.

Acclamation:

(spoken not sung)

We remember how you loved us all your life.

And we still celebrate for you are with us here.

And we believe that we will see you. When you come, when you come again! We remember! We celebrate! We Believe!

Victoria: In the fullness of time bring us with all your saints from every tribe and language, from every people and nation to feast at the banquet prepared from the foundation of the world.

Nancy and Victoria: ( Both holding up the bread and wine)

For it is through him, with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, O Gracious God, now and forever. Amen

Nancy: Now together, as one community, we offer to you O God, our prayer, in the name of your beloved son and our brother, Jesus:

Our Mother, Our Father Holy and blessed is your true name.

We pray for your reign of peace to come. We pray that your good will be done.

Let heaven and earth become one. Give us this day the bread we need.

Give it to those who have none.

Let forgiveness flow like a river between us, from each one to each one.

Lead us to holy innocence beyond the evil of our days.

Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.

For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy: Forever your name is All in One.

Offering Our Gift of Peace:

Victoria: Now standing where you are, let us offer to one another a sign of our peace and love.

Nancy: Invitation to Communion:

Everyone is welcome to this table.

Our God, whom the universe cannot contain is present to us in this bread. Our God, who redeems us and calls us by name, now meets us in this cup. So, come, Beloved Friends, and take this bread, Drink this wine, In them, God comes to us, so that we may come to God.

You are invited now to partake in our communion, together.

Communion Song: Be Not Afraid

You shall cross the barren desert,

but you shall not die of thirst.

You shall wander far in safety

though you do not know the way.

You shall speak your words in foreign lands

and all will understand.

You shall see the face of God and live.

Be not afraid.

I go before you always.

Come, follow me, and I will give you rest.

If you pass through raging waters in the sea,

you shall not drown.

If you walk amid the burning flames,

you shall not be harmed.

If you stand before the pow'r of hell

and death is at your side,

know that I am with you through it all.

Be not afraid.

I go before you always.

Come, follow me, and I will give you rest.

Blessed are your poor,

for the kingdom shall be theirs.

Blest are you that weep and mourn,

for one day you shall laugh.

And if wicked tongues insult and hate you

all because of me,

blessed, blessed are you!

Be not afraid.

I go before you always.

Come, follow me, and I will give you rest.

Jacqueline: Post Communion Meditation

Imagining (by Deborah Rodney)

What if God isnʼt a noun to be empowered and worshiped but a verb of creation powered by love?

What if every single tree drawn in primary school is a sacred work of art worthy of joyful notice?

What if our lives are built on a web of kindness, a net, which holds everything living.

What if the rocks are alive singing strength and courage;

vibrating from our feet right up to our heart?

What if we loved ourselves as deeply as the mountain who, caressed by water, surrenders herself into sand?

What if our most loved, intra-national pastime is a game of entertainment where we all win?

What if no one aspired

to be a millionaire and money no longer had power but was simply a means of tender-ness.

What if transforming our world by imagining it can actually make it happen?

(And then Nancy will offer Our Closing Blessing)

Nancy: Closing Blessing: Prayer for Conscience and Courage (by Joan Chittister)

Prayer for Conscience and Courage

Loving God, lead us beyond ourselves to care and protect, to nourish and shape, to challenge and energize both the life and the world You have given us.

God of light and God of darkness,

God of conscience and God of courage

lead us through this time of spiritual confusion and public uncertainty.

Lead us beyond fear, apathy and defensiveness to new hope in You and to hearts full of faith.

Give us the conscience it takes to comprehend what we’re facing, to see what we’re looking at and to say what we see so that others, hearing us, may also brave the pressure that comes with being out of public step.

Give us the courage we need to confront those things that compromise our consciences or threaten our integrity.

Give us, most of all, the courage to follow those before us who challenged wrong and changed it, whatever the cost to themselves.

And the good people of this beloved Emmaus Community say:

Amen! Amen!

Closing Song: Sing a New Song

Sing a new song unto the Lord;

let your song be sung from mountains high.

Sing a new song unto the Lord,

singing alleluia.

Shout with gladness, dance for joy.

O come before the Lord.

And play for him on glad tambourines,

and let your trumpet sound.

Sing a new song unto the Lord;

let your song be sung from mountains high.

Sing a new song unto the Lord,

singing alleluia.

Rise, O children, from your sleep;

your Saviour now has come.

He has turned your sorrow to joy,

and filled your soul with song.

Sing a new song unto the Lord;

let your song be sung from mountains high.

Sing a new song unto the Lord,

singing alleluia.

Glad my soul for I have seen

the glory of the Lord.

The trumpet sounds; the dead shall be raised.

I know my Saviour lives.