for November 2, 2014, All Saints, 4th Sunday in SoC*, Readings: Sr. Joan Chitister*, Ps 107:1-7,
33-37; Ephesians 4:1-6, Mt 5:1-12
LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY
Leader: ~ Lord of All Saints and All Sinners, You have created
all of us with unique gifts and we have each developed our own unique flaws.
Today we celebrate those who have gone before, and those among us, who have
given themselves entirely to You for the sake of us all. Whenever we struggle, or forget, to find a single moment for You in a day, grant us the
wisdom to look to the examples of saints and Saints to guide us to a glimpse of
Your face, and then act accordingly, from the center of our humanness.
Universal,
Omnipotent, Boundless God
RESPONSE: Help us to be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
~ Lord of All Saints and All
Sinners, grant us the courage to decry injustice, condemn poverty, and refuse
inequality as we raise strong voices, for those who have none, to the leaders
of the World, our Country, and our Community, most particularly in these critical
times. We pray especially for:
Universal, Omnipotent, Boundless God
Help us to
be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
~ Lord of All Saints and All
Sinners, deliver from distress those whose spirits languish in the pain of
illness, anxiety, or addiction, and endow those who give them care with patience,
gentleness, and love. We pray especially for:
Universal, Omnipotent, Boundless God
Help us to be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
~ Lord of All Saints and All
Sinners, as You comfort those who mourn, help them, and us all, to always
remember that our loved ones rejoice to enter their great reward in heaven.
We pray especially for:
Universal, Omnipotent, Boundless God
Help us to be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
~ Lord of All Saints and All
Sinners, we pause in this moment to
offer You our other heartfelt intentions and petitions, silently or aloud…
Universal, Omnipotent, Boundless God
Help us to be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
~ Lord of All Saints and All
Sinners, we offer our praise and thanksgiving for all who have humbly accepted
Your call to help us navigate our path to redemption. Help them remain faithful
role models as we taste the possibilities of our spiritual greatness together. We
pray especially for:
Universal, Omnipotent, Boundless God
Help us to be dauntless in our faith
that we may live as You have called
that we may live as You have called
The Celebrant adds: Just, Merciful, Gracious God, in all humility we bow our heads and
pray for Your blessing even as we often fail, but still continue to try, to
embody those qualities of saintliness that will bring us to Your eternal life. We
ask Your continued love and patience through Jesus, our Redeemer, and in the Unity
of the Holy Spirit, who with You live and reign as One God above all, through
all, and in all, for ever and ever. Amen.
*1st Reading - A Reading from the
writings of Joan Chittister:
For centuries the church has
confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them
saints when what we really often mean to say is "icon,"
"star," "hero," ones so possessed by an internal vision of
divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of
the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in ourselves.
What qualities will be necessary to live a life of integrity, of holiness, in
the twenty-first century? What models of those values, if any, have been raised
up to show us the way to God in a world that is more preoccupied with the
material than with the spiritual, more self-centered than selfless, more
concerned with the mundane than with the divine, more parochial than cosmic?
(They) are male and female, Christian and non-Christian, married and unmarried,
religious and lay, pragmatists and artists, named saint by a process or proclaimed
saint by the people who lived in the shadow of their lives. They are people
like you and me. With one exception, perhaps. In their eyes burn the eyes of a
God who sees injustice and decries it, sees poverty and condemns it, sees
inequality and refuses it, sees wrong and demands that it be set right. These
are people for whom the Law above the law is first in their lives. These are
people who did not temporize with the evil in one system just because another
system could have been worse. These are people who saw themselves clearly as
the others' keepers. These are people who gave themselves entirely to the
impulses of God for the sake of the world.
~ Sister Joan Chittister [from: A Passion for Life: Fragments of the Face of God, Orbis, Maryknoll, NY, 1996]
~ Sister Joan Chittister [from: A Passion for Life: Fragments of the Face of God, Orbis, Maryknoll, NY, 1996]
* The Season of Creation originated in the Anglican Church of South Africa in 2008 and is designed for us to explore our faith from a Creation perspective. We are to realize our place in the order of God’s creating and to see and act upon the need to care for our entire life-support system - the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil in which we grow our crops - not merely humanity, but our total environment, as it pertains to ALL life.
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