Day 347: Saturday, February 27th 2021:

Preparing for Sunday at Emmaus

We’re All Just Walking Each Other Home Pilgrims • Witnesses • Companions

Join Our Zoom Meeting Tomorrow at 4:45pm

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

Passcode: 1234

Meeting ID: 519 315 8573

One tap mobile +1(669) 900- 6833,,5193158573#

Here are links to our liturgy in WORD and PDF formats:

Our Celebration:

Dan: In the Name of the Three-in-One and One-in-Three. Amen These are challenging times all over the world; sad and painful times. At the end of another intense year, after the excruciating loss of our lovebird Hagemans, our mentor on so many levels, Theresa Udall, and Grandpa and Stellar human being, Hank Matimore, as well as “Pray Their Names” and the dynamic Jack Borman, coupled with economic chaos, evictions, intense hunger as seen in a long line of cars, and scurrying for a vaccine, we come together this evening to celebrate our lives together as pilgrims, witnesses, and companions, all just walking each other home. As Pilgrims... Mary: We are pilgrims on our spiritual journey, the walk through this life that eventually leads us back to the Ground of Being. Sometimes the road is rocky along the way, but as the disciples who walked the road to Emmaus discovered, we find we are never traveling alone.

Song: Pilgrim ~ Steve Earle

I am just a pilgrim on this road, boys

This ain't never been my home

Sometimes the road was rocky long the way, boys

But I was never travelin' alone

We'll meet again on some bright highway

Songs to sing and tales to tell

But I am just a pilgrim on this road, boys

Until I see you fare thee well.

Ain't no need to cry for me, boys

Somewhere down the road you'll understand

'Cause I expect to touch his hand, boys

I’ll put a word in for you if I can

We'll meet again on some bright highway

Songs to sing and tales to tell

But I am just a pilgrim on this road, boys

Until I see you fare thee well.

Reading: John Poole & Beth Jordan ~ For the Traveler ~ John O’Donohue

[J] Every time you leave home,

Another road takes you

Into a world you were never in.

[B] New strangers on other paths await.

New places that have never seen you

Will startle a little at your entry.

Old places that know you well

Will pretend nothing

Changed since your last visit.

[J] When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:

[B] How you unexpectedly attune

To the timbre in some voice,

Opening in conversation

You want to take in

To where your longing

Has pressed hard enough

Inward, on some unsaid dark,

To create a crystal of insight

You could not have known

You needed

To illuminate

Your way.

[B] When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.

[J] A journey can become a sacred thing:

Make sure, before you go,

To take the time

To bless your going forth,

To free your heart of ballast

So that the compass of your soul

Might direct you toward

The territories of spirit

Where you will discover

More of your hidden life,

And the urgencies

That deserve to claim you.

[J] May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.

[B] May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,

And live your time away to its fullest;

Return home more enriched, and free

To balance the gift of days which call you.

As Witnesses...

Mary: We are witnesses to each other's lives–we do not go through life alone, unnoticed. When we share our lives and witness our walking each other home, we're saying: ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.'”

Video: Shall We Dance?

Dan: In this clip from Shall We Dance, Susan Sarandon is talking about her marriage, but unmarried people–widowed, divorced or never married–need witnesses too. Through it all, there are those faithful friends–men and women who have been there as a witness to my pain and my joy, who've cared about everything–the good, the bad, the terrible, the mundane…all of it. All of us need friends who hold us close when we're sad, remind us of forgiveness when we've made mistakes, and celebrate with us when good things come our way.

As Companions...

Gospel Meditation: The Road to Emmaus ~ God in All Things by Anthony De Mello

Mary: For our Gospel reading tonight, let us experience the story of “The Road to Emmaus” as a meditation. To prepare, settle back into your seat, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and exhale slowly relaxing your body, and placing yourself in God's presence. In our minds, we create the following picture, and place ourselves within it.

Dan: On that very same day, two of the disciples were on their way to a village called Emmaus (and we place ourselves alongside them as they walk and talk about all that had happened in Jerusalem during the past few days). As they talk, Jesus himself comes and walks beside them, but something prevents them from recognizing Him. So He asks them, "What matters are you discussing as you walk along?" They stop short, their faces downcast, and then one of them, named Cleopas, begins to explain that they had been talking about Jesus of Nazareth, a friend of theirs, whom the Jewish High Priests had taken and had crucified. "Our own hope had been that He was the one that would set us free, but now, those last remnants of hope have evaporated. And not only that, but some women friends of ours have recently been to His tomb and they found there pieces of his clothing, but of Him they could find no sign". As they related this story, they came to the spot on the road where they had to turn off for their homes, and the stranger made as if to go on farther, but they, sensing something about their companion, pressed Him to stay with them and share their supper. As soon as they sat down to the meal, the stranger began to break bread with them, but immediately He passed from their midst and only then did they know it had been the Lord.

Mary: Reflect now upon the scene. The two walkers had given a lot to Jesus: their time, their friendship, their energy, their hopes, their dreams of future prosperity. They were two ordinary people like you or I. They too had hopes and expectations but, just like us, these hopes—at least in their own eyes—had been dashed. Which of us hasn't been disappointed at some times in our lives, with a friendship shattered, a loyalty thrown aside, a job given to someone else, a business going down the drain, failing where we thought we had succeeded, generally feeling let down by God?

During those times we can readily identify with the walkers along the Emmaus road. We can join them as they say 'we had hoped', and we can marvel with them as the reality begins to dawn on them that the stranger on the road is also the stranger who has traversed the hard road with us during the rockiest moments of our existence. That self-same stranger who has stridden many a craggy path Himself. The One who understands suffering and aloneness Himself, who has been to all the most difficult places in His own right, and who holds us in the palm of His hand during our travails.

Dialogue Homily

Dan: The Emmaus story invites us to see Jesus in every place and time in which we live, to see Jesus accompanying us on the road of our lives today. May we recognize Him along the way, in our losses and griefs, in our sorrows and disappointments, in our joys and celebrations, and in the ordinary daily moments when we suddenly realize we are walking on holy ground. May we learn to be companions with others, all just walking each other home.

And so let’s ask ourselves: What if the people I encounter in daily life are all, in their own way, walking me home? Probably very few of them have any conscious awareness of the roles they are playing in my life script. Yet what if they are just playing their part in helping me come home to who I really am? What if they are helping me find out what it means to be whole?

In the same way, what if I’m also walking them home? What if I’m playing a role in their homeward journey? What role might I choose to play for them? And how might I choose to be with them if I consider that, at least for the moment, we are walking our homeward journeys side by side?

Pilgrims, Witnesses, Companions–please share your experience of us all just walking each other home.

Song: Praise God for the body ~ Anne Ortlund

Praise God for the body

Praise God for the Son

Praise God for the life

That binds our hearts in one

Joy is the food we share

Love is our home, brothers and sisters

Praise God for the body

Shalom, Shalom

Guard your circle, brothers and sisters

Clasp your hand in hand

Satan cannot break

The bond in which we stand

Joy is the food we share

Love is our home, brothers and sisters

Praise God for the body

Shalom, Shalom

Shed your extra clothing

Keep your baggage light

Rough will be the battle

Long will be the fight, but

Joy is the food we share

Love is our home, brothers and sisters

Praise God for the body

Shalom, Shalom

Praise God for the body

Praise God for the Son

Praise God for the life

That binds our hearts in one

Joy is the food we share

Love is our home, brothers and sisters

Praise God for the body

Shalom, Shalom

Eucharist Prayer:

Mary: Holy God, you are with us always. You invite us to nurture wise and understanding hearts. Your love, which manifests all things, and is at work in all things, can be touched everywhere. May we embrace every moment of our days as pilgrims, witnesses, and companions with our fellow travelers in love. May we prepare the visible Body of Christ, our Emmaus community, to receive your eternal approach and your loving embrace.

Through our hands, the Spirit prepares a table before us, breaks the bread that tastes of heaven, pours the wine that fills us with life. We share the bread and the wine of this plain meal so that love will be born in our blood, that mercy shall wedge in our flesh, that grace shall be the marrow in our bones, that the Christ within us may be shown in everything we do. For we remember the night Jesus was at the table with his friends, and he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his friends saying:

“This is my body, broken for you”

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

“This cup is the New Covenant, of my lifeblood shed for you, and for all.

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

We unite our thoughts and prayers with all who yearn for new life, those who are living

and enrich our lives with friendship and love, those who have died and continue to sustain us in the cosmic communion of life. In our daily lives, may we be blessed with wisdom and courage, with vision and resolve, forever committed to God's reign of justice, love, and peace, faithful to God’s grace all the days of our lives.

For it is through Him, with Him, in Him

in the Unity of the Holy Spirit

all glory and honor is yours

forever and ever. Amen

Mary: Together, we offer to you O God, the prayer your beloved son and our brother, Jesus, gave us:

Heavenly Father, heavenly Mother,

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 and One in All.

Dan: Please take a moment to set your Zoom to Gallery View

Dan: Kiss of Peace

And now, my loving fellow pilgrims, witnesses and companions, let us now offer one another a blessing of peace.

Mary: Eucharist

Our God, whom the universe cannot contain, is present to us in this bread.

He who redeems us and calls us by name now meets us in this cup.

So, come, take this bread, drink this wine,

In them, God comes to us, so that we may come to God.

Song: Ubi Caritas ~ Kings Return

Victoria: Anointing of the Sick

To prepare for this blessing, I invite each of us to take just a minute...to put your hands on your heart, and think about a moment in time, when you remember a TOUCH...a loving, tender touch, offered to you; a touch that felt absolutely and completely filled with love.

Now take that memory into your heart...feel it there, growing larger and warmer. And now, I invite you to envision our Emmaus community back once again in the church hall at St. Patricks. See all of us gathered there...with God’s Sacred Presence there, in the midst of us.

Now envision those people in our community with special needs of healing being called forward to stand in the center of us all...coming forward is: Irene Bachelder, and others who are receiving, or who will receive chemotherapy. And now envision them surrounded by their health care workers, and those caregivers from their own families or friends.

And now envision yourself moving to encircle all those in the center; feeling that growing warm sense of sacred touch in your heart. I now invite you to lift your hands from your heart and hold your hands, palms outward, slightly above your shoulders...so that your hands are visible in your Zoom image...and hold them there, as these words of healing blessings are offered in the name of our God and us all:

Dan: Holy One,

your healing touch

pours forth from each hand now offered.

Victoria: Gather all these healing blessings to surround each person

like a shawl of warmth, a blanket of care,

a blessing of extravagant oils

to anoint all that beckons your healing touch.

Dan: May each cell, within each person, radiate

Your whole and healing light.

May each person feel treasured... carried... and embraced

by your Sacred Presence.

May each know your extravagant, healing, loving, touch

Satisfying that most needed place within them.

Victoria: May your healing touch

O Holy One

Be within each outstretched hand,

Pouring forth health, healing, and love beyond measure. Amen. Amen.

Closing Song: Oh How Good ~ Wiley Beveridge

Oh how good, how wonderful, is the life that we share

Oh how good, how wonderful, is the love we're bound to share.

Do you remember the first time you came?

Felt the love, felt the pain?

Then the tears that flowed in release.

Has he filled your heart with his peace?

Do you remember the time you thought to leave?

Couldn't face the pain of his love?

Love that heals, that wipes away our tears,

Sets us free from our hurt and our pain.

Father, we’re here to gather as one

We offer all our pain and strife

Fill our hearts with love that knows no bounds

Flow through our lives with your forgiveness

Oh how good, how wonderful, is the life that we share

Oh how good, how wonderful, is the love we're bound to share.

Oh how good, how wonderful.

(See you Tomorrow!)