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A prayer for Good Friday
Life-Giver of all that is and ever has been, who meets us in our grief: We arrive here at the end of the week, weary, and with fires and holy places on our minds and hearts: the Notre Dame Cathedral, Black churches in Louisiana, Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, and forest cathedrals. So much destruction, despair, loss, death, and ashes. On this Good Friday we reflect on death and despair, grief and loss, sorrow laid bare like a landscape scorched of its trees or a community of its spiritual centre. We feel the emptiness in our bones, our hearts reach across time and space to those most closely touched by the flames. Spirit of Life, we know that you grieve too. Hear our cries, as we cry for the brokenness in our world and our own ability to inflict wounds on others and on the earth. May our Wounded Healer offer comfort and company as we wait in stillness and silence for hope to be born again from the ashes. Amen. Wendy Janzen, 2019
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April 14 - Lent 6 (Palm Sunday)
Prayer for the 6th Sunday of Lent - Source of all being, Eternal Word, Holy Spirit: Today we enter into a week called holy; drawing nearer to the events that shook up history and invite us into faith. It is a day of rejoicing and singing your praises. We wave our pine boughs, our hemlock branches, our cedars, and lay them down before you, eagerly wanting to demonstrate our devotion. We confess that we are so easily caught up in excitement and expectation that we forget to look more deeply at what is really going on around us. Your presence and your work among us is not shallow or simple. Have mercy on us, O God, when we don’t understand faith is messy stuff. Help us to lay down our misguided expectations of you, of others, of ourselves. We pray with confidence of your love and compassion for us and for the entire universe. Open our hearts wide enough to hold the brokenness with the beauty, the pain with the praise, the rain with the sunshine, and all the blessings and gifts of life, and death, and new life. Together with all of creation we cry hosanna and hallelujah! Amen. - Wendy Janzen, 2019 Prayer for the 5th Sunday of Lent
I had a little fun with alliteration on this one... O One who welcomes wonder and wipes away tears: As we continue to wander through the weeks of Lent, O God, we pray that your tender mercy would restore our weary hearts. You know our sorrows, our fears, and our worries. Restore us, God, and turn our weeping into joy. We want to witness your works: You create new ways in the wilderness, and waterways in the desert. May we, like the wild animals, honour and worship you. Anoint us wild ones with your extravagant love, so that the fragrance of your presence may waft through the air in our wake, wherever we go. Amen. - Wendy Janzen 2019 Prayer for the fourth Sunday of Lent
Luke 15:11-32 Spirit of generous grace and lavish love, We come to you in prayer with a sense of confession. We confess that sometimes we are strong-willed, self-focused, adventure-seeking, and lack a sense of connection, accountability, or belonging to the larger whole. We act out of our own interests, and fail to see the impacts our actions have on those around us, both human and more-than-human. Forgive us for times when our actions have hurt others. Bring us into awareness that everything we do has ripple effects. Remind us that we are in communion and community with all of creation. Thank you for your forgiveness, your acceptance, your embrace. Pick us up when we fall, give us a fresh start, make of us a new creation, make us partners in your reconciling work: reconciling the whole world, all of creation, to your heart. Amen. -Wendy Janzen, 2019 Prayer for the third Sunday of Lent ~
O God, Water of Life, At times our souls are dry, or even frozen, like a stream in the wintertime. We feel stuck and immobilized, not sure where to turn or how to move forward. And so we wait. Give us patience in our waiting. Allow us to see its value. Help us to just rest a while, and let go of our fears, let go of control. In the stillness of our waiting, help us to notice that deep down, below the ice, there is still life and movement. We wait for the springtime sun, the warmth that will slowly melt the ice in our souls, our hearts, our bodies, our relationships. Shine your love in our lives, O God. Bring us back to life, and allow us to flow freely again. You are the Source of all that is, the Love that warms our souls, the Water that give us life. We praise you and give you thanks! Amen. Wendy Janzen 2019 Prayer for the first Sunday of Lent ~
O God, Divine Presence, Wild Spirit, we enter into this season of Lent aware of of just how much wilderness can change us. Some of us enter with trepidation, some, with a sense of familiarity, some, with exhausted, empty spirits, some, with foreboding and resistance, some, with anticipation and hope eager, in a strange way, to be laid bare and broken open by the wilderness. Lead us gently, by the hand, Into this wide open, fierce wilderness, that we might be able to trust where this journey may take us and how it may change us. Amen. ~ Wendy Janzen March 10, 2019 |
AuthorReflections, poetry, prayers, photos, and resources written by Wendy Janzen unless otherwise noted. Archives
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