People's Prayers

Monday, May 21, 2018

Prayers of the People: Two Men and a Bird? Trinity Sunday, 1st Sunday after Pentecost '18 Yr B

For Sunday, May 27, 2018, 1^st Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Readings: Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29 or Canticle 13, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

In the year that King Uzziah died…The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke…Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal…touched my mouth with it and said, “…your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send…” and I said, “Here am I; send me!” [Isaiah 6:1a, 4, 6a, 7-8]

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness…The Lord shall give strength to his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of Peace. [Psalm 29:2, 11]

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God…When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit…heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. [Romans 8:14, 15b-16a, 17b]

“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit…’You must be born from above.’” …”If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” [John 3:6, 7b, 12]

It’s so very difficult – ok, impossible – for us as mere mortals to wrap our brains around the mystical mysterious concept of the Trinity, or mathematically speaking: 1 + 2 = One. Two out of the three persons of this, our Trinitarian God, are genderless although many refer to God as Father and some think of the Spirit as the feminine of Wisdom, or Sophia as it is written in Biblical Greek. While our human minds cannot possibly grasp the Trinity in its complexities, we still wrestle with how to reduce it to fit in a small box in our minds that we can pretend to understand. The mind naturally seeks to sort and file its collected data into usable bits amidst the consternation of those pieces that simply don’t fit the space allotted.

The Christian Trinity is, plainly and purely, if not simply, a mystery. Yet if it is explained then there is no mystery and is easily dismissed. What is God-like in that? Some minds clamor for any mystery to be reducible and solvable to fit neatly into that file as in wanting to know the steps an entertaining magician uses to perform an illusion. Others are comfortably engaged in the wonder of the ways it is unfolding.

The mystery of the Trinity is nothing if not confounding. One God/Three Persons – separate yet one, equal with different roles that are ultimately the same, belief in one is meant to be belief in all and the One that is the same but different. “Stranger than we think and stranger than we can think,” to borrow from physicist Neils Bohr’s description of the Universe. Franciscan Richard Rohr tells us that some ancient mystics have suggested that we are called as an almost fourth person in the flow of God, as Jesus says later in John’s Gospel, "so that where I am you also may be" [John 14:3].
One of my favorite ways to attempt a workable sense of the Trinity – gender language aside – is through a piece of a 6th century creed from Dublin known as Tírechán’s Creed ~ when speaking of God it says:

He has a Son who is co-eternal with himself;

and similar in all respects to himself;

and neither is the Son younger than the Father,

nor is the Father older than the Son;

and the Holy Spirit breathes in them.
And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable.

Perfectly clear now, yes? Well, here’s another wrinkle, someone else once wrote – I don’t remember who – that if your understanding of the Trinity is 2 men and a bird, it is time to rethink! If we can truly understand the mysteries of God, then that God, for me, is way too small.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, release us from our quest to reduce You and the vast mystery of faith to our human level of certainty and understanding. Grant us openness of mind, sincerity of heart, and willingness to come to You unknowing, allowing the wind of the Spirit, the redemption of Christ, and our birth from Above, to move through us in Your many and miraculous ways.

Most Holy Trinity

RESPONSE: In faith we answer Your call

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, in a world where principle and integrity are obscured in the smoke of fear and confusion, let us answer “Here we are; send us” to seek Your Voice, speak with clean lips, and to bear witness for truth and justice in the halls of governments in our World, our Nation, and in our Community. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Most Holy Trinity

In faith we answer Your call

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, embrace and sustain the hope and faith of those bowed low by illness, addiction, or loneliness, and give comfort to all who give them care. We now join our voices to pray aloud for those in need…add your own petitions

Most Holy Trinity

In faith we answer Your call

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, we joyfully ascribe the glory due Your name as you receive those we love into everlasting life, in the beauty of holiness they have now achieved. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Most Holy Trinity

In faith we answer Your call

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently…add your own petitions

Most Holy Trinity

In faith we answer Your call

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, we lift to Your care the souls and hearts of our Earthly Guides, ordained by You to walk with us, beyond the bindings of earthly things toward the glory of all things of heaven. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Most Holy Trinity

In faith we answer Your call

The Celebrant adds: Creator, Savior, Sanctifier, grant us the blessing of Your peace as we accept the strength You have given us as joint heirs of Your eternal Kingdom. Expand and amplify our faith that its depth and constancy are revealed in the ways we answer Your call. We ask through each and all of the Three Eternal Persons in the sacred mystery of the Holy Trinity, who are One God, forever and ever. Amen.

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Monday, May 14, 2018

Prayers of the People: Who's on Fire? ~ Pentecost Sunday '18 Yr B

For Sunday, May 20, 2018, Pentecost Sunday, Year B, Readings: Acts 2:1-21, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 104:25-35, 37; John 15:26-27, 16:4

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house...Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. [Acts 2:1-4]

O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and…then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act… [Ezekiel 37:13b-14a,b]

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the LORD endure for ever…Bless the LORD, O my soul. Hallelujah! [Psalm 104:31, 32a, 37]

Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth…he will testify on my behalf. You are also to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” [John 15:26-27]

It is hard to believe that it is now the 50th day after Easter, and the 10^th day after the celebration of the Ascension of Jesus. It is Pentecost – the word itself comes from the Greek for fiftieth – and it did not begin with the time of Jesus. In the Jewish calendar this ancient feast is Shavuot and follows 50 days after Passover. It celebrates the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

It would have been another of the reasons that the disciples had gathered together. Of course, they were also waiting with some trepidation, no doubt, for the sign promised by the resurrected Jesus just 10 days before, in his last in-person teachings, as he said he would send them the Advocate, the Spirit of truth. It may well have been comforting to be together in the familiar structure of this ancient feast. What must each day have been like for them, individually and collectively? Just in a few recent months they experienced praying – or trying to stay awake - with Jesus in the Garden, then the sudden arrest, Peter’s denial, the trial, the carrying of the cross through the City, and the violent execution of Jesus, his resurrection, then his ascension, to mention only a few details. I would think they would still be reeling in their own shock, grief, and fear trying to cope with these inexplicable turns of events. Now here they are gathered together again without quite knowing what was coming next, let alone when “it” would arrive. Perhaps in their remembrance of God giving Moses the Law, they also remembered the encounter Moses had with God in the burning bush. And then suddenly a sound like a violent wind and tongues of fire resting on them gave them more than good reason to be bewildered and amazed!

Today it may be easy for us to be blasé, to know the story too well, to be immune to the thrill, the astonishment. Whatever the planning, hopes, and desires of the Liturgists, sadly and often, it seems, that the wonder of it all has been lost.

So it is then, that today is the day to STOP knowing the story. Today is the day to START experiencing the Spirit – be amazed and astonished and bewildered! We have the Spirit within us, and God’s grace, and the love and Salvation of Christ merely for the wanting of it! Peter reminds us in the words of the prophet Joel, that when Christ returns, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And Jesus tells the disciples, from whom we follow on, that they/we are to testify on behalf of Jesus. The Gospels tell us how to do it, God filled our lungs with breath, and the Spirit gives us our voice.

Let us rejoice and be glad and joy-filled, and alive in it, after all, it's Pentecost and we're on fire!

Also known as the Birthday of the Church, Pentecost marks the official beginning of the ministry of the Apostles beyond their local area and into the known world to bring the message of Christ to all.

This day is known as Whitsun/Whitsunday in Ireland and the UK, a descendant of a Gaelic celebration from medieval or perhaps more ancient times.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Lord GOD, Almighty, rattle our bones, amaze and astonish us, bewilder us out of our distractions and detachment, fling us out of the ordinary into the stunning wonder and exquisite joy of the Holy Spirit within.