darkness

wash me with your tears

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Jesus Wept by Daniel Bonnell
 
Lord, we show you our wounds so that you may heal us.
And even if we do not, you know,
    and you wait to hear our voice.
Do away our scars by tears,
    like the woman in the gospel who washed your feet with hers.
 
You know how to help the weak,
    when there is no one who can prepare the feast,
    or bring the ointment,
    or carry along a spring of living water.
You come yourself to the grave.
 
So come to this grave of mine, Lord Jesus,
    that you would wash me with your tears.
With my dry eyes I have no such tears
    as to be able to wash away my offenses.
With your tears I will be saved, if I am worthy of your tears.
 
With them you will call me out of the tomb of this body and say, 
    “Come forth.”
Then my thoughts will not be kept pent up
    in the narrow limits of this body,
    but may go forth to you, and move to the light,
    that I may think no more on the works of darkness,
    but on the works of light.
 
Ambrose of Milan, c.339-397, Bishop of Milan
 
___________________________
 
 
When Jesus saw her weeping,
    and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,
    he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
 
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 
    “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, 
    his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, 
    and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, 
    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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Open unto me

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
Open unto me, light for my darkness
Open unto me, courage for my fear
Open unto me, hope for my despair
Open unto me, peace for my turmoil
Open unto me, joy for my sorrow
Open unto me, strength for my weakness
Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion
Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins
Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness
Open unto me, love for my hates
Open unto me, Thy Self for myself
Lord, Lord, open unto me!

Howard Thurman, 1899-1981, American author, educator and civil rights leader
___________________________________
 
 
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
    he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
 

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Easter Prayer of Pope Gregory the Great

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source by Luca Giordano via Wikipedia
 
It is only right, with all the powers of our heart and mind, 
    to praise You Father and Your Only-Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear Father, by Your wondrous condescension of Loving-Kindness
    toward us, Your servants, You gave up Your Son.
Dear Jesus You paid the debt of Adam for us to the Eternal Father 
    by Your Blood poured forth in Loving-Kindness.
You cleared away the darkness of sin 
    by Your magnificent and radiant Resurrection.
You broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a Conqueror.
You reconciled Heaven and earth.
Our life had no hope of Eternal Happiness before You redeemed us.
Your Resurrection has washed away our sins, 
    restored our innocence and brought us joy.
How inestimable is the tenderness of Your Love!

We pray You, Lord, to preserve Your servants 
    in the peaceful enjoyment of this Easter happiness.
We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord, 
    Who lives and reigns with God The Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
    forever and ever.

Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604) of Rome, Patron Saint of Teachers
_________________________
 
 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again 
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

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Have mercy on my darkness, my ashes

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments
photo by Elvis Bekmanis on Unsplash

 
Lord, have mercy.
Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion.
Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about in circles,
    my wandering, my evasions.
I do not ask anything but such mercy, always, in everything, mercy.
My life here at Gethsemani – a little solidity and very much ashes.
 
Almost everything is ashes.
What I have prized most is ashes.
What I have attended to least is, perhaps, a little solid.
 
Lord have mercy.
Guide me, make me want again to be holy,
    to be a man of God even though in desperateness and confusion.
I do not necessarily ask for clarity, a plain way,
    but only to go according to Your love,
    to follow your mercy, to trust in Your mercy.
 
Thomas Merton, 1915 – 1968, American Catholic writer and Trappist monk
 
_______________________
 
 
To you, Lord, I called;
    to the Lord I cried for mercy:
“What is gained if I am silenced,
    if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
    Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
    Lord, be my help.”

You turned my wailing into dancing;
    you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
 that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
    Lord my God, I will praise you forever.
 

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to become people of your light

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Adorazione dei Magi by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
On Epiphany day,
     we are still the people walking.
     We are still people in the dark,
          and the darkness looms large around us,
          beset as we are by fear,
                                        anxiety,
                                        brutality,
                                        violence,
                                        loss —
          a dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are — we could be — people of your light.
     So we pray for the light of your glorious presence
          as we wait for your appearing;
     we pray for the light of your wondrous grace
          as we exhaust our coping capacity;
     we pray for your gift of newness that
          will override our weariness;
     we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust
          in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage, and freedom to enact
         your rule through the demands of this day.
         We submit our day to you and to your rule, 

                                  with deep joy and high hope.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 – 2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
Prayers for a Privileged People
 
________________________________
 
 
After this interview the wise men went their way. 
And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. 
It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. 
When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! 
They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, 
    and they bowed down and worshiped him. 
Then they opened their treasure chests 
    and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

meet us in our wilderness

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photo by Daniel Born on Unsplash

 
Loving God
when we stand in our own wildernesses
when we stand in the midst of our questions
when we stand surrounded by our hurts and darknesses
may we meet you
in the same place
a God not scared to meet us
in that which is liminal
shadowy
uncomfortable
and imagine a God
who dares breathe new life
in the arid moments

God
may we live in such an advent
a moment of life
a place of promise
that takes all we are
the cracks and bruises
and speaks with promise
with vision
reimagining everything we are
and says
you are renewed
you are reborn
you are alive again
 
In such a place as this
where deserts bloom
and new roadways are made
may we grow again
dare believe in something more
and live into such a way
and that we begin here
this moment
this place
this community

a birthing place
a promise place
an unconditional place
of love
in skin
and among us

May we live within that promise
forever
So be it
Amen

 
Roddy Hamilton, New Kilpatrick Parish Church Scotland
 
__________________________
 
 
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.

 

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I believe, help my unbelief

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praying man by Ruth Mabee
 
 
Lord, I want to love you, yet I’m not sure.
    I want to trust you, yet I’m afraid of being taken in.
    I know I need you, yet I’m ashamed of the need.
    I want to pray, yet I’m afraid of being a hypocrite.
    I need my independence, yet I fear to be alone.
    I want to belong, yet I must be myself.
    Take me, Lord, yet leave me alone.
    Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief.
O Lord, if you are there, you do understand, don’t you?
Give me what I need but leave me free to choose.
Help me work it out my own way, but don’t let me despair.
    Come unto me, O Lord – I want you there.
    Lighten my darkness – but don’t dazzle me.
    Help me to see what I need to do and give me strength to do it.
O Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.
 
Bernard SSF, 1928-2007
 
______________________
 
 
And they brought the boy to him. 
And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, 
    and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 
And Jesus asked his father, 
    “How long has this been happening to him?” 
And he said, “From childhood. 
    And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. 
    But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 
And Jesus said to him, 
    “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, 
    “I believe; help my unbelief!” 

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Forgiveness and Hope

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Christ is Risen, Lawrence OP, Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 
 
Our God, whose Son is the light of the world,
    in his penetrating light, we acknowledge our darkness;
    in his constant grace, our careless love;
    in his generous giving, our sordid grasping;
    in his equal justice, our dire prejudice;
    in his fortitude, our fearful failure;
    in his inclusive love, our deep divisions;
    in his pure sacrifice, our soiling sins.
 
But in his Cross is our forgiveness,
  and in his resurrection our enduring hope.
This pardon and the promise we now claim,
  in penitence and faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
Horton Davies, 1916-2005, Professor of Religion Princeton University
 
________________________
 
 
And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, 
    the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. 
And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, 
    he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

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Why have You forsaken me?

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Study for Crucifixion (1947) by Graham Sutherland, CC BY-NC 2.0
 
 
Lord, 
you were not only tempted for forty days down by the Jordan 
but constantly all through your ministry.
 
Not to obvious blatant sins
but to the subtler deflections from the Father’s will;
to cunning compromise which would defeat the Father’s purpose.
 
As when the presence of the seeking Greeks
suggested the possibility of a wider mission
in which you might have been listened to and welcomed,
without the necessity of the cross.
 
As when in the Garden of Olives across the valley,
you wrestled with the doubt that death could be the Father’s will.
 
Or when, in the presence of Pilate
you might have pleaded your case with your accusers;
or in those fiercest moments of pain,
acquiesced to the mocking cry of the crowd to
    ‘Come down from the cross and we will believe,’
 
Until one temptation remained –
the final test, the last claim of love,
the fiercest attack of evil –
more subtle and shattering than the rest,
when, cloaked in a blanket of darkness
came the whispering doubt:
    What if God too has forsaken you?
 
And at last, the battle done, the last temptation met,
faith complete, the task finished, evil defeated,
love triumphant, you said:
    ‘Father into your hands I commend my spirit –
    the rest lies with you, Father, dear Father.’
 
And then it was that by the cross with its limp body
there must surely have sounded the voice from heaven 
    once more:
    ‘This is my beloved Son.’
    Son in call,
    Son in obedience,
    Son in love
    Son in death and in triumphant life.
 
George Appleton, 1902 – 1993, Anglican Bishop in England and Jerusalem
 
_____________________
 
 
It was now about noon, 
    and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,
    for the sun stopped shining. 
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Jesus called out with a loud voice, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last.
 

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prepare us to receive your gift

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Adoration of the Shepherds / Gerard van Honthorst / Wikimedia
 
Lord, may you now let us this year once more approach the light, celebration, and joy of Christmas Day that brings us face to face with the greatest thing there is: your love, with which you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so that all of us may believe in him and therefore not be lost, but may have eternal life.
 
What could we possibly bring and give to you? So much darkness in our human relationships and in our own hearts! So many confused thoughts, so much coldness and defiance, so much carelessness and hatred! So much over which you cannot rejoice, that separates us from one another and certainly cannot help us! So much that runs directly against the message of Christmas!
 
What should you possibly do with such gifts? And what are you to do with such people as we all are? But all of this is precisely what you want to receive from us and take from us at Christmas – the whole pile of rubbish and ourselves, just as we are – in order to give us in return Jesus, our Savior, and in him a new heaven and a new earth, new hearts and a new desire, new clarity and a new hope for us and for all people.
 
Be among us once again, on this final Sunday before the celebration, as we together prepare to receive him as your gift!  Make it so that we may rightly speak, hear, and pray, in proper, thankful amazement about everything that you have in mind for all of us, that you have already decided regarding all of us, and that you have already done for all of us! Amen
 
Karl Barth, 1886 – 1968, Swiss Reformed theologian
____________________________
 
 
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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