Day 712: Saturday, February 26, 2022

Let's get ready for tomorrow's celebration!

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Emmaus Liturgy February 27, 2022

Cultivating Listening

Steve: Welcome - Welcome the community and any new comers.

Steve: Introduction: At our last meeting, the Emmaus Liturgy Committee decided to set a general theme for the year, Listening. Various titles were suggested and hopefully will be more defined in the future. The idea is to attempt to incorporate this theme into our liturgies throughout 2022. And so we attempt that today.

This week we begin the Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, a time for turning inward, inner reflection, and discernment. We also have a sense to look forward to what is coming. We decided that “Cultivating Listening” is a good place to begin. Cultivating conjures up images of tilling the soil, getting down in the dirt with our hands, smelling the moist, dank remnants of decomposing leaves and duff, and being surprised by an occasional earthworm as we sift the soil through our fingers. This can be a pleasant adventure but a messy one.

In light of Luis’s comments regarding silence during our liturgies, and the Quaker Core

Belief #3, where their community comes together in silence. They sometimes refer to this as “waiting worship.” “Waiting to hear—listen for—the still, small voice within, and listening for that of God—the still, small voice—speaking to us,” we would like to start today’s liturgy with no bell and 5 minutes of silence.

Steve: 5 minutes of Silence So, close you eyes and listen for—the still, small voice within. I will end the silence with an “Amen.”

Opening Prayer: Thich Nhat Hanh - Compassionate Listening - Video https://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/thich-nhat-hanh-on-compassionate-listeningvideo

Tom: FIRST READING:

Blessing the Dust

This is the moment we ask for the blessing that lives within the ancient ashes, that makes its home inside the soil of the sacred earth.

So let us be marked not for sorrow and let us be marked not for shame. Let us be marked not for false humility or for thinking we are less than we are but for claiming what God can do within the dust, within the dirt, within the stuff of which the world is made, and the stars that blaze in our bones and the galaxies that spiral inside the smudge we bear.

Jan Richardson

All: Thanks be to our Creator.

Steve: RESPONSORIAL VERSE:

Steve: Just as Your disciple John the Beloved placed his ear against Your chest at the Passover meal and heard the heartbeat of God, we too listen for Your heartbeat in all of Your Creation.

All: May we Hear the Heartbeat of God!

Steve: In the gentle breeze that passes our way and in the majestic Redwoods that stands so tall.

All: May we Hear the Heartbeat of God!

Steve: In both the crashing waves of the mighty ocean and the quiet sounds of a babbling brook.

All: May we Hear the Heartbeat of God!

Steve: And when we quiet our minds, and go inside; into that silent, meditative place.

All: May we Hear the Heartbeat of God! Amen.

Pat: THE SECOND READING: God of Open Hands

You care for the needs of every living thing, open my hands to imitate yours , Open my ears to listen with my heart.

Where there are needs to be met, open my hands and open my listening heart. When I don’t think I can open my hands and I have given my all let me think of you God of open hands.

Open my hands and my listening heart to your love And help me to listen to God within me.

Help me to not fill my moments with noise and distraction. Help me keep those little openings open, let my soul rest.

Let me create my own sacred space in my heart, in my mind, and in my listening. And when I am up late at night, and during the night let me both connect my prayers with all others prayers and then —I’m not so alone.

May there be peace with you and peace within me

And peace within all of us.

All: Let me open my hands and listen with my heart.

- Adapted from a Lenten Reading byAmy Ekeh

SHARED HOMILY:

Pat will lead in and read the starter questions.

Is there a way of listening you want to deepen in yourself? Look into your heart and see what’s resonating there, what wants your attention? And the attention of the community? What can we help you hold, join with you in our prayerful hearts and ways? And in joining you we set our intention to be with you right here right now. Is there a place you want to wander into in these 40 days? Is there a door you wish to open?

PRAYERS OF THE FAITHFUL:

Pat: What do you bring to the table, what do you pray for? What are you grateful for?

Offertory Song: Sounds of Silence Simon and Garfunkel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEppFUWLfc

Our Eucharistic Prayers:

Steve: As we approach this season of Lent, let us pray to the Holy Spirit for peaceful minds and listening hearts so we can hear what is being asked of us.

All: Inside each one of us is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

Pat: It is still winter, the air remains brisk and cold, but secretly below the surface of things there is a great, silent activity taking place.

All: Listen closely, we may get a glimpse of it.

Steve: O Creator of all things, big and small, hard and soft, tough and fragile, have we forgot how easily we can belong to everything by just listening?

All: May we know the deep love that permeates everything in Your Grand Creation. May we walk with soft feet and compassionate hearts on this earth so we do no harm to her or others. May we hear the beating heart of Gaia, our Mother.

Pat: O Beloved Jesus the Christ, it can be so difficult to remember how everything is born from an opposite and miraculous otherness.

All: Silence and winter have led us to that otherness. So let this winter of listening be enough for the new life I must call my own.

Steve: O Holy Spirit, as we enter into this Lenten Season, we ask for the strength to listen deeply. Help us to quiet our minds. Be with us, guide us, and unveil what has been brewing in each one of us throughout this dark, cold winter.

All: On this cold night of wind and stars, the first whispered opening of those hidden and invisible, springs that uncoil in the still summer air, each yet to be imagined begin to rise.

The Eucharistic Prayer was inspired and adapted from the Poem, Listening to Winter by David Whyte

CONSECRATION:

Steve: On the night before He died, Jesus was at table with His friends, He said listen very closely. Then He took bread, he gave thanks to the Creator, He broke it, gave it to his friends and said,

All: “This is my body, shared with you.”

Pat: As supper was ending, Jesus took the cup of wine. Again He said listen very closely. He gave thanks to the Creator, gave it to his friends and said, This is the cup of my love for you and for all. Going forward, you will be my hands and my feet. Do this to remember me.

Steve: Let us proclaim the Mystery of Our Faith

For, it is “Through You, With You, and In You, In Unity with you O Great Spirit, all glory and honor is yours Forever and Ever. All: Amen

Pat: Now together, as one community, we offer to you O Creator, our prayer, received from 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.

Steve: The Kiss of Peace: A Gaelic Blessing by John Rutter

Deep peace of the running wave to you.

Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

Deep peace of the gentle night to you.

Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.

Deep peace of Christ, of Christ the light of the world to you.

Deep peace of Christ to you.

Now offer a gesture of peace to all those in our beloved Emmaus community.

Invitation to Eucharist:

Pat: So through this Eucharist, and in the spirit of our Beloved Community, we extend the invitation of Jesus to each and everyone of you to take and eat this bread, and drink from this cup. Let us come to this table, this is the table of the Risen Christ, where all are welcome.

COMMUNION:

POST COMMUNION REFLECTION: Everything is Waiting For You David Whyte

https://youtu.be/QmA4s8r630s?t=7

CLOSING SONG: What’s Going On Marvin Gaye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEp7QrOBxy

Jim Jepson: THE CLOSING PRAYER:

Rent Your Heart

To receive this blessing all you have to do is to let your heart break

Let it crack open

Let it fall apart so you can see its secret chambers and hidden spaces where you have hesitated to go.

your entire life is here inscribed whole upon your hearts walls: every path taken or left behind, every face you turn toward or turned away,

Every word spoken in love or enrage, every line of your life you would prefer to leave in shadow,

Every story that shimmers with treasures known and those you have yet to find.

It could take you days to wander these rooms. 40 at least.

And so let this be a lesson for wandering, for trusting the breaking, for tracing the rupture that will return you to the one who waits, who watches,

Who works within the rending to make your heart whole.

- Jan Richardson

Steve: And this Beloved Emmaus Community says:

All: AMEN

ANNOUNCMENTS: