Emmaus Liturgy for Sunday, October 25, 2020

• Welcome to our evening liturgy:

Tonight we celebrate the overflowing of the Loving God within our constraints, limited measurements, exclusions, and impossibilities. We celebrate this event with some lines from Julie Cadwallader Staub’s poem “Measurement.”

Look at us: we quantify everything we can in this complex and astonishing world.

But no one can measure the velocity of hope, the way hope hatches fully fledged—in fact, already flying-- between one world and the next between one breath and the next.

And we can only try to imagine the circumference of compassion; the way it shows us the shape of love embracing, expanding, factoring in forgiveness. It invents its own quantum leap, its own speed of light.

Opening Song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y0Phy9y2yg

Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu May there be happiness in all

Om Om Om Om Om Om

Sarvesham Svastir BhavatuMay there be happiness in all

Sarvesham Shantir BhavatuMay there be peace in all

Sarvesham Poornam Bhavatu May there be completeness in all

SavershamMangalam BhavatuMay there be success in all

Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti Om, Peace, Peace, Peace

Opening Prayer: (Victoria) “May the nourishment of the Earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.” - John O’Donohue

First reading: The Groaning of Creation

Kay We listen to a provocative poem by Rebecca del Rio, “Constant.”

The constant is this: life is chaos, disintegration, blooming anew into order and collapsing again to blossom into something perfect, then chaos, disintegration and on.

We watch helplessly, entranced, like the magician’s audience, the hypnotist’s mark.

Nothing to do but join hands, bow heads, say blessings to the capricious, wild original God.

Responsorial Song: In Labor All Creation Groans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1QKs7A4Wkg

“In Labor All Creation Groans” Text: Delores Dufner © 1992, 1993, The Sisters of St. Benedict, admin. OCP Publications.

In labor all creation groans till fear and hatred cease,

Till human hearts come to believe: In Christ alone is peace.

In labor all creation groans till prejudice shall cease,

Till every race and tribe and tongue in Christ will live in peace.

Be our Peace, Be Our Peace, Be Our Peace Christ our Peace

In labor all creation groans till rape and murder cease,

Till women walk by night unharmed and Christ is this world’s peace.

Be our Peace, Be Our Peace, Be Our Peace Christ our Peace

In labor all creation groans till false divisions cease,

Till enemies are reconciled in Christ who is our peace.

Be our Peace, Be Our Peace, Be Our Peace Christ our Peace

GOSPEL: Mark 12:38-44 (David)

38 As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43

Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

David: A reading from the Gospel according to Mark.

All: Praise to you Jesus the Christ.

Homily with the question: How do we integrate death with grace—personally, communally, planetarily in our journey of faith?

How do we integrate death with grace—personally, communally, planetarily in our journey of faith? First of all, we can accept that time, trouble, vulnerability, grief, and death, constitute the heartbeat of the world, together with the joyous promise of and our desire for and transformation and healing of the earth.

Accepting that God is creating something new through time and death, suffering and struggle, especially in the global dark night of our age with regard to our political, economic, and financial structures that disintegrate communities, species, and environment. Spurred to take care of our common home, I feel that the present time is inviting each one of us—and all of us together—to embody feelings of wonder, compassion and hope.

Wonder for the amazing blooming of life that has preceded us and appeals to our responsibility for the ongoing adventure of the cosmos. Compassion for the groaning planet earth that we are ravaging and that urges us to change our lifestyles. And hope that in the bottleneck our living God will inspire in our hearts new capacities to favor the creativeness and novelty of the Spirit—unimaginable as that may be.

Liturgy of the Eucharist

Offertory Song:Coldplay – The Scientist (Cello & Piano) – Brooklyn Duo AMV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eIPllih7Qg

Eucharistic Prayer:

Steve: God is within us and God is among us.

All:Amen.

Dan: Let us lift up our hearts,

All:We lift them into the Mystery.

Steve Let us be thankful for all the ways in which we feel God’s presence.

All:It is good to be grateful.

Dan: This commingling of life and death in favor of life that seems to be inscribed in the DNA of the Universe encourages us not to separate the solar, galactic, and cosmic stuff, but to consider them as a constant to the labor and adventure of life.

Steve: Jesus enters the eternal life of Love, carrying with him the groaning, yearning, and hope of the evolutionary process and delivers—as a yeast in the dough of space and time—a new consciousness, a creative and compassionate Spirit. In the light of Jesus’ life we can glimpse and experience the disruptive, crucified, rising, and insurgent mystery emerged in the journey of the Universe.

All: We break and share this bread with the dough of space and time, and we give it to one another as our pledge of openness to the Spirit of Love in our midst and as our remembrance for the life of Jesus, our morning star, embodied brightness of boundless Love.

Dan: This cup of wine and drink is symbolic of the cup of life. As you share this cup of wine and drink, you undertake to share all the future may bring. May you find life’s joys doubly gladdened, its bitterness sweetened, and all things hallowed by true companionship and love.

All: We take this wine and drink, as Jesus asked his friends to drink, mindful of a relationship of love and trust between ourselves and the Spirit of Life, believing, as Jesus believed, that to live in love is to live in God and to have God live and love in us.

Our father/Our Mother: Taught by Jesus we pray (Based on the original Aramaic – source unknown)

Steve:O Cosmic Being who gives birth to all radiance and vibration! Soften the ground of our being and carve out a space within us where your presence can abide.

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 binds us, as we release othersfrom 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.

Dan:Kiss of Peace

Steve • Everyone is invited to this table. The Spirit, whom the Universe cannot contain is present to us in this bread.She who redeems us and calls us by namenow meets us in this cup.So, come, take this bread,Drink this wine,In them, the Spirit comes to us, so that we may become one with the Spirit.

Communion Song:What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye) Feat. Sara Bareilles/Playing for Change/Song Around the World[3:39]

• Announcements:

A Closing Lakota Prayer:John Poole

“Aho Mitakuye Oyasin”

All my relations. I honor you in this circle of life with me today. I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you in this prayer…

To the Creator, for the ultimate gift of life, I thank you.

To the mineral nation that has built and maintained my bones and all foundations of life experience, I thank you.

To the planet nation that sustains my organs and body and gives me healing herbs for sickness, I thank you.

To the animal nation that feeds me from your own flesh and offers your loyal companionship in this walk of life, I thank you.

To the human nation that shares my path as a soul upon the sacred wheel of Earthly life, I thank you.

To the Spirit nation that guides me invisibly through the ups and downs of life and for carrying the torch of light through the Ages, I thank you.

To the Four Winds of Change and Growth, I thank you.

You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other.

One nation evolving from the other and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery.

Thank you for this life.

End