Please Join us Tomorrow, Sunday, September 8, 2024 for our Emmaus community celebration:
We start at 3:45 with a welcoming: 4:00 Liturgy:
5:00 Yummy Potluck and massive sharing
In-Person at Knox Presbyterian and Thanksgiving Lutheran (a facility we share with both congregations)
1650 West Third Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
or Join Zoom Meeting with this link:
Passcode: 1234
Or Use the Meeting ID: 519 315 8573
Passcode: 1234
Or by Phone: +16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose) +16694449171,,5193158573#
Emmaus Liturgy for September 8, 2024
Alice: Introduction
I’d like to begin our celebration with a video from Brother David Stendal Rast who has committed his life to teaching an attitude of gratitude. He believes gratitude completes us, that gratitude is the realization that we have everything we need, at least in this moment. Let’s watch the video:
Video: A Grateful Day with Brother David Steindl-Rast - Gratefulness.org.mp4
Peter:
Every language in the world has a way of saying, thank you. This is because gratitude is an inherent quality that resides within each one of us.
Gratitude is essentially the recognition of the unearned gifts we receive in life. I didn’t create the sandy beaches, or the bright sunshine, the blue sky or the redwoods. I’m just grateful for them. I didn’t create my friends or family – they just appeared (for better or sometimes for worse). Gratitude acknowledges the positive things that come our way that we didn’t ask for. It also allows us to see the negative from a vantage point of acceptance. It’s a feeling that spontaneously emerges from within. It’s not simply an emotional response; it is also a choice we make. We can choose to be grateful, or we can choose to be ungrateful. Within the Emmaus community we embody the mirth of gratitude (laugh). We’ve made it a habit in our hearts.
But we live in difficult, often sad, even tragic times. We’ve endured a lot of anxiety, tragic news and bad government. Truthfully we understand there may be more to come.
By making gratefulness our focus we can share our gifts with each other and our families and our wider communities. We can be that salt, that leaven that gives rise to grateful living.
When we feel gratitude it’s like a fire that ignites acts of generosity: feeding the homeless or visiting the sick or even listening to a MAGA Republican; we are moved to offer ourselves to others without expecting anything in return.
Buddhists refer to generous acts that are freely given as “royal generosity.” When we live our lives in gratitude, we create openings that invites many other positive experiences into our lives.
Explain the Exercise:
So let’s take 10 minutes of quiet reflection and a bit of writing to touch on the gifts we’ve received and for which we are grateful.
Each of you has a lined piece of paper with several questions for your consideration. You may ignore the questions if you like and draw up your own list of gifts you have received for which you are grateful.
After 10 minutes we’ll share our thoughts. If you’d like to share, please stand and move to the chair next to me and talk about your gratitude:
Question 1: If you approached the day as if it were your very first day, what would you see, hear, smell, feel or notice? What would be extraordinary, What heartbreaking?
Question 2: What are some experiences in your life for which you are most grateful?
Question 3: Who are some of the people for whom you are most grateful?
Question 4: When you consider your own life, have you ever felt grateful in the midst of sorrow or difficulty?
Question 5: What has it felt like to hold gratefulness in one hand and grief or sorrow in the other?
Peter:
Peter thanks everyone for sharing and encourages people to leave their sheets to be collected for use on the blog and on the website:
Peter: To complete our thoughts on gratitude I’d like our new Vice Chairperson, Marcie Dahlen to read this poem by EE Cummings:
Marcie:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Liturgy of the Eucharist
Cathy begins our Eucharistic Prayer:
Cathy: We gather together to share the Mystery of the Divine in every person, in everything we touch. Spirit of Life, Spirit of the Divine, come to us in this celebration and bless these gifts of bread and wine. Encircle us with your love and inspire us to become the transformation we seek to become.
Peter: We are on a journey and our road meets with those of everyone who is walking toward freedom and liberation tonight – wherever they come from, whatever sadness they face.
Part of our job is to constantly remind people that we are one human family together, encouraging everyone we meet that “we must go on, we cannot turn back. We have a role in creating a world of peace for us and all our children. Everyone is welcome in this new world without borders. Lament cannot take hold if gratitude gets there first.”
Cathy: This is the message of our brother Jesus, who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Our brother Jesus now invites us to share with him this simple meal, which he celebrated the night before he died with his companions. He knew the hours were precious and the time short. This gave new meaning to his words:
ALL: Come to the table and break this bread with me and understand that it is life itself.
Peter: And then he raised the cup and looked with love at each of the people in the room and saw everyone who had lived or would ever live and he invited them all saying:
ALL: Come and drink this cup of wine which we share together. Remember me and celebrate me by recreating this meal whenever the Spirit moves you. It is a cup filled with love.
Cathy: Kiss of Peace
And now, let us offer one another in place with a sign of peace and love.
Peter: Everyone is welcome to this table.
Holy Spirit, whom the universe cannot contain, is present to us in this bread.
She who 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.
Cathy: We invite everyone now on Zoom to partake of this communion we share while we listen to our Communion Song.
Communion Song:
Alice: It is my pleasure at this time to introduce our new Chairperson, Denise Dixon. We are grateful she put her name forward along with Mary FitzGerald and Marcie Dahlen. We stnd in gratitude for the wisdom and strength of these women who are so dedicated to our community.
Denise: This part of our service is done. And I’d like to end as Fr Angelito from Our Lady of Guadalupe used to. He would say (we would all say underlined parts)
This mass is never ending. We take the fruits of it with us to influence our thoughts and behaviors throughout the 2 weeks until we come again. And then, we said Thanks be to God for the blessings it has bestowed on us. Amen
Denise: And now the very important job and my first time at leading Announcements!
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