Tomorrow (April 11th) join us on ZOOM for our Emmaus Celebration created by Kay Lambert and Linda Wildman

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Emmaus Liturgy – April 11, 2021

(Download Word and PDF copies at the end of this Blog)

Opening Song: He’s Alive, Dolly Parton

You Tube https://youtu.be/CFcnTbTMBRs

Welcoming: Welcome everyone, especially anyone new. Linda

Opening Prayer:

Mark 16, 1-11 The Resurrection. Sandy McKeith

After the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to go and anoint the body of Jesus. Very early on Sunday morning, at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (It was a very large stone.) Then they looked up and saw that the stone had already been rolled back. So they entered the tomb, where they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe—and they were alarmed.

“Don't be alarmed,” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here—he has been raised! Look, here is the place where he was placed. Now go and give this message to his disciples, including Peter: ‘He is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see him, just as he told you.’”

So they went out and ran from the tomb, distressed and terrified. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Reflection: He is Risen, Thomas Merton. Jeanine

As we just heard Dolly Parton sing, as in all accounts of the resurrection, the witnesses started out with the unshakable conviction that Christ was dead. The women going to the tomb thought of Jesus as dead and gone.

They had only one thing in mind: to embalm his body. But there was a problem. The tomb was sealed with a stone too heavy for them to move. They did not know how they would find someone who would roll away the stone for them so they could come to his dead body.

Now this is a kind of psychological pattern for the way we too often act in our Christian lives. Though we may still “say” with our lips that Christ is risen, we secretly believe him, in practice, to be dead. And we believe that there is a massive stone blocking the way and keeping us from getting to his dead body. Our Christian religion too often becomes simply the cult of the dead body of Christ compounded with anguish and desperation over the problem of moving the immovable stone that keeps us from reaching him.

This is no joke. This is what actually happens to the Christian religion when it ceases to be a really living faith and becomes a mere legalistic formality. Such Christianity is no longer life in the Risen Christ but a formal cult of the dead Christ considered not as the Light and Savior of the world but as a kind of divine “thing”, an extremely holy object, a theological relic.

First Reading: Matthew 5: 14-16 Jacqueline

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a

lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.”

Marianne Williamson from A Return to Love:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Responsorial: Reading from Rumi. Enid

“There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. Human beings come into this world to do particular work. That work is their purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about. If you remember everything else and forget your true work, then you will have done nothing with your life.”

Second Reading: This is what you shall do. Walt Whitman. John

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Song: Go Make a Difference https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q2vYFN1YNIk

Gospel: 1 Corinthians 12, 4-11. Fran

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Shared Homily:

Kay Lambert: revelation of “We Remember”

Linda Wildman: the rock

Questions for response:

1. What has the Spirit gifted you to share?

2. What stones are holding you back from being your full self?

3. How would you be gifted if you rolled the stone away?

Song: He’s Alive, Dana Couey & Doug Harmon (recording from Emmaus Database, De Colores and Other Songs)

Prayers of Intercession: Whatsoever You Do, Robert Kochis

Joann Whatsoever you do toTo the least of my people

That you do unto me

ALL: Whatsoever you do to To the least of my people

That you do unto me

JimWhen I was hungry you gave me to eat When I was thirsty you gave me to drink

ALL: Whatsoever you do To the least of my people

That you do unto me

JoannWhen I was homeless you opened your door When I was naked you gave me your coat

ALL: Whatsoever you do To the least of my people

That you do unto me

Jim When I was weary you helped me find restWhen I was anxious you helped calm all my fears

ALL: Whatsoever you do To the least of my people

That you do unto me

ALL: Amen

The Eucharistic Prayer:

What intentions do we bring to the table?

Kay: May we love ever more, be amazed evermore, be confounded ever more. May we commit ourselves to love, justice and action. May we set our hearts ablaze, enough to make us whole once again. May we be the loving fire we wish to see in the world.

We are Spirit and Life and the searing word of liberation. From the inside out...from the roots branching upwards.... from the heart, to thought, to word, to action. Through life’s trials and hardships we can arise beautiful and free. Amen. (from Julia Butterfly-Hill)

Linda: May God be with us.

All: And with the whole world.

Kay: Let us lift up our hearts. All: We lift them up to God.

Linda: Let us give thanks to God.

All: It is right to give thanks and praise.

Kay: It is truly right to thank You, O Spirit of God.

You move among us as God’s breath, as natural and rhythmic as our own. We find you in the ten thousand things of creation.

You promise all of us wise and understanding hearts. We know that your wisdom, which sees all things and is at work in all things, can be touched everywhere.

Linda: We remember Jesus, who challenges us to set ourselves free: free from images and ideas and religious practices that bind us into fear and a false sense of separation from the Spirit of all Life.

We, too, are blessed in the power of that same Spirit, to celebrate the transformative energy symbolized in these our gifts of bread and wine.

Kay: We recall that on that last night while he was among those he loved and trusted, our brother Jesus took bread into his hands and gave thanks...He broke the bread saying:

ALL: TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, THIS IS THE BREAD OF LIFE WHICH WILL SUSTAIN YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY.

Linda: Then he took a cup of wine, and blessed his friends with the hope that they would celebrate this cup of life for many generations. He gave the cup to his friends with the words:

ALL: THIS IS THE CUP OF MY LOVE POURED OUT FOR YOU. WHENEVER YOU CELEBRATE, REMEMBER ME.

Kay: In the spirit of this celebration we rejoice and thank you O God for all that we have received; but we do so in painful awareness of all who are excluded from the table of your abundant life. May we never turn anyone away from this table; and, for all of us gathered here this night, we ask for the grace and courage to welcome your vibrant Spirit to move freely in our lives.

Linda: Fill us with your creativity so that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with your desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us, as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose, but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment. .

Invitation to the table:

As Jesus invites, “you are my friends. I no longer speak of you as servants….instead I call you friends.” Come and eat, come and drink. No one is excluded from this table.

Communion Song: We Remember, Marty Haugen

You Tube https://youtu.be/D6_KModMCtg

Closing Blessing: A Journey of the Heart, John O’Donohue. Marci

May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

Closing Song: Put a Little Love in Your Heart

(You Tube https://youtu.be/lEg4mZ1Niw8)

Announcements: Open the floor

Thank you for being here and being a part of our Emmaus Community.