A Service of Healing – Lent 2006
Seekers Church
A Christian Community
In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour
A Service of Healing – Lent 2006
Re-Viewing the Covenant
CIRCLE TIME
ENTRANCE
REFLECTION
“… people in their actual material reality make things a lot more difficult when what we think we want is spirituality – the cultivation of a sensitive and rewarding relationship with eternal truth and love. [But] the desert monastics have an uncompromising message for us: relation with eternal truth and love simply doesn’t happen without mending our relations with Tom, Dick and Harriet. The actual substance of our relation with eternal truth and love is bound up with how we manage the proximity of these human neighbors.”
Rowan Williams,
“Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another.”
Quoted in Trinity News, vol.. 52, no. 3, pg 8.
OPENING WORDS
INVOCATION
Leader: God, my God,
why have you abandoned me-
far from my cry, my words of pain?
People: I call by day, you do not answer;
I call by night, but find no rest.
Leader: I am poured out like water,
my bones are pulled apart.
All: My heart is wax melting within me,
my throat is baked and dry
my tongue stuck to my jaws.
You bring me down to the dust of death.
KYRIE ELEISON
WORD FOR THE CHILDREN
KYRIE ELEISON
SILENCE
CHANT
LITANY
Leader: Sometimes we feel helpless, God,
People: Bombarded by endless images of suffering
and disaster on the nightly news.
Leader: Sometimes we feel hopeless, God,
People: When we work for justice and peace in your world
and at every turn seem to be thwarted.
Leader: Sometimes we feel angry, God,
People: When the powerful spend their energy
lining the pockets of the rich
not alleviating the suffering of poor people.
Leader: Sometimes we feel both shame and fury, God,
People: When people use your Holy Name
to justify savagery, torture and murder.
Leader: Sometimes we feel like failures, God,
People: When numbers of new families with children
do not come towards our community.
Leader: Sometimes we feel aggrieved and estranged, God,
People: When even in our faith community
We are misunderstood or mis-seen.
Leader: Sometimes we feel you are punishing us, God,
People: When we experience setbacks
In those places that are dearest to our hearts-
relationship, family, vocation, faith community.
Leader: Sometimes we feel like we have no right to lament
about life from our place of relative privilege, God
People: When we hear of so many in your creation
who suffer for lack of the basic necessities of life.
Leader: And yet we hear your call
to speak from our deepest hearts;
to be in solidarity
with our sisters and brothers who suffer,
and to be in full relationship with you.
All: Bless our laments, Holy One.
Help us to trust in your faithfulness
even when you might seem to be far away from us.
Help us to know your steadfast love and redemption.
NIGGUN
GUIDED MEDITATION
PRAYERS FOR HEALING
Psalm 51:12-19
Leader: Creator, reshape my heart,
God steady my spirit.
People: Do not cast me aside
stripped of your holy spirit.
Leader: Save me, bring back my joy,
support me, strengthen my will.
People: Then I will teach your way
and sinners will turn to you.
Leader: Help me, stop my tears,
and I will sing your goodness.
All: Holy One, give me words
and I will shout your praise.
OFFERING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
Leader: Out of great love, God, who is rich in mercy,
has made us alive together with Christ.
Through Christ, God has shown us
the immeasurable riches of grace.
Let us go into the world to be open channels of that love
and vessels overflowing with that grace.
All: Amen.
