death

Spirit, breathe your story of truth into ours

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Geralt via Pixabay
 
Truth-telling, wind-blowing, life-giving spirit –
    we present ourselves now
        for our instruction and guidance;
    breathe your truth among us,
        breathe your truth of deep Friday loss,
            your truth of awesome Sunday joy.
 
Breath your story of death and life
    that our story may be submitted to your will for life.
We pray in the name of Jesus risen to new life –
        and him crucified.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
Prayers for a Privileged People
 
________________________________
 
 
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 
He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, 
    and he will tell you what is yet to come. 
He will glorify me because it is from me
    that he will receive what he will make known to you. 
All that belongs to the Father is mine. 
That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
 

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Prayer professing faith

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1881 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God, Creator, you planned from the beginning –
    telling evil that the woman’s offspring would crush it.
You called to Abraham from his land on the margins to follow you. 
He and three more generations relied on you to live in a strange land. 
Later, you led the descendants of Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage. 
You led your people with judges like Deborah, 
    with kings like David whose family included migrants, 
    and with prophets like Daniel who lived as minorities in strange lands. 
In all these ways you remind us to focus our hope on your salvation 
    rather than in an earth-bound culture. 
And when it seemed that you were absent, you sent your Only Son.

Transgressing our sense of power, your Son was born as the baby of a virgin. 
Tempted in the ways we still are – riches, fame, and glory – 
    he chose a life of humble service, service to others even while he was betrayed. 
He drank the full cup of suffering. 
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice and tortured. 
Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make people holy through his own blood.

When he died, he crossed the border of hell. 
Three days later God raised him from the grave, exchanging death for life. 
He appeared to Mary, Mary Magdelen, Salome, and Joanna; 
    he walked with Celopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus 
    to those on the margins. 
Then he appeared to Peter and the twelve, 
Christ, raised from the dead, presents us with salvation.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
 
___________________________
 
 
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 
    “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 
     and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations,
     beginning at Jerusalem.”
 

Prayer for Holy Saturday

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Lamentation of Christ, Andrea Mantegna, via Wikimedia Commons

Today a tomb holds him who holds the creation in the hollow of his hand; 
    a stone covers him who covered the heavens with glory. 
Life sleeps and hell trembles, and Adam is set free from his bonds. 
Glory to your dispensation, whereby you have accomplished all things, 
    granting us an eternal Sabbath, your most holy Resurrection from the dead.

What is this sight that we behold? What is this present rest? 
The King of the ages, having through his passion fulfilled the plan of salvation, 
    keeps Sabbath in the tomb, granting us a new Sabbath. 
Unto him let us cry aloud: Arise, O Lord, judge the earth,
    for measureless is your great mercy and you reign forever.

Come, let us see our Life lying in the tomb, 
    that he may give life to those that in their tombs lie dead. 
Come, let us look today on the Son of Judah as he sleeps, 
    and with the prophet let us cry aloud to him: 
You have lain down, you have slept as a lion; 
    who shall awaken you, O King? 
But of your own free will you rise up, 
    who willingly gives yourself for us. 
O Lord, glory to thee
 
Mattins, Holy Saturday, Orthodox
The Oxford Book of Prayer slightly modernized
 
___________________________________
 
 
The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph 
    and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 
Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. 
But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

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Prayer on Good Friday

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by Murilo Soares via pexels
 
Prayer on Good Friday.
Which isn’t good at all.
One of the great misnomers of all time.
It’s bleak, haunted, immensely sad.
It rivets and ravages me every year 
    as I sit hidden behind a post-beam
    in the balcony of the chapel,
    where no one can see me weeping
    at the poor broken Yeshua,
    betrayed by his best friends,
    beaten by sneering cops,
    blood dripping into His eyes,
    grilled by a police chief who couldn’t care less
        about justice and mercy and only wants to evade blame
        for a matter he considers minor at best.
 
Yet it wasn’t minor at all,
     and somehow it turns on that harrowing day long ago.
A mysterious young man from a country village,
    causing an epic political and civil ruckus in the city.
A murderous mob, angry religious Brahmins, potential colonial unrest
    that will not look good at headquarters.
Gnomic answers by the calm young man when interrogated.
Poor Peter bitterly berating himself for his cowardice,
    and which one of us would have done better?
The apostles frightened, the sound of hammers 
    nailing the young man to a cross,
    the lowering darkness, 
    the murmurs of fear through the city as the sun is blotted out.
Veronica’s veil and Simon’s shoulders, Simon the African,
    did compassion surge and make him step forth,
    or was he shoved into legend by a soldier?
 
The gaunt young man sagging toward death; 
    His quiet blessing of a thief;
    His last words to his mother;
        one last desperate cry;
    He thirsts, He prays, He dies.
 
And in the chapel not another word, not another sound;
    and soon we exit silently, and go our ways,
    for once without the tang of Euchaist on our tongues,
    for once without a cheerful chaff for friends and handshakes all round;
    and no matter how bright the rest of the day,
        how brilliant the late afternoon, 
        how redolent the new flowers,
        how wild the sunset over the river
    you shiver a little; not just for Him, but for all of us,
    His children, face to face with despair.
And so silently home to pray for light emerging miraculously
    where it seemed all dark.
And so: amen.
 
Brian Doyle, 1956 – 2017, Catholic author from Oregon
A Book of Uncommon Prayer
____________________________
 
 
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.
 

prayer to live in happiness and peace

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by Agnes Leung via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 
O God, our Father, 
we know that the issues of life and death are in your hands, 
    and we know that you are loving us with an everlasting love.  
If it is your will, grant to us to live in happiness and in peace.
 
In all our undertakings,
    Grant us prosperity and good success.
In all our friendships,
    Grant us to find our friends faithful and true.
In all our bodily things,
    Make us fit and healthy,
        Able for the work of the day.
In all the things of the mind,
    Make us calm and serene,
        Free from anxiety and worry.
In material things,
    Save us from poverty and from want.
In spiritual things,
    Save us from doubt and from distrust.
Grant us 
    In our work satisfaction;
    In our study true wisdom;
    In our pleasure gladness;
    In our love loyalty.
 
And if misfortune does come to us, 
    grant that any trial may only bring us closer to one another and closer to you; 
    and grant that nothing may shake our certainty that you work all things together for good,
    and that a Father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. 
Hear this our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
William Barclay, 1907-1978, minister in the Church of Scotland
 
___________________________
 
 
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
 

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Easter Prayer of Pope Gregory the Great

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
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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the last step of love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Cristo crucificado, Titian via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
A few hours more,
A few minutes more,
A few instants more,
For thirty-three years it has been going on.
For thirty-three years you have lived fully minute after minute.
You can no longer escape, now; you are there, 
    at the end of your life, at the end of your road.
You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.
You must take the last step,
The last step of love,
The last step of life that ends in death.
 
You hesitate.
Three hours are long, three hours of agony;
Longer than three years of life,
Longer than thirty years of life.
 
You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.
You are there, motionless, on your Cross.
You have renounced all activity other than embracing these 
    crossed planks for which you were made.
And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.
Let mortal flesh die, and make way for eternity.
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge in his 
    still beating heart.
Immeasurable heart,
Overflowing heart.
Heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that it bears.
 
Lord, one more effort.
Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Saviour.
You brothers are there; they need you.
Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.
Lord, save us,
Save us.
 
See.
He has taken his heavy heart,
And,
Slowly,
Laboriously,
Alone between heaven and earth,
In the awesome night,
With passionate love,
He has gathered his life,
He has gathered the sin of the world,
And in a cry,
He has given all.
‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
 
Christ has just died for us.
 
Michel Quoist, 1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest and writer 
 
_____________________________
 
 
It was now about the sixth hour,
    and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 
    while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” 
And having said this he breathed his last.

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Forgive our sin, O Lamb of God

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Lamb of God, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED
 
 
The sins of the world,
such dreadful sins.
not just the personal sins
but the solidarity of sin
greater than the total
    of individual sin
nuclear evil in endless fission,
    O Lamb of God.
 
The sin of racial pride
that sees not the faith
    that all men are divinely made
nor the riches of pigment
    in portrait faces,
the same psychology
and religious search,
that each is the sibling
    for whom Christ died.
 
The burgeoning greed
    that never heeds the needs of others
involved in a merciless system,
looking only at profit and dividend,
the last of possessions
    that cannot accompany us
    at our last migration:
Take away these sins,
    O Lamb of God.
 
The massive sin of war,
    millions of lives impersonally destroyed,
billions of pounds wasted
    on weapons, bombs,
    truth enslaved,
    the hungry still unfed,
    grief stalking unnumbered homes:
Weep over us,
    O Lamb of God.
 
The sin of the world,
    alienation from thee
    not just weakness
    but evil intention,
organized and unrestrained
    with its own momentum
    leading to death:
O Lamb of God,
    take away this sin.
 
Begin with me,
O Lamb of God,
    forgive my sins,
    cleanse my heart,
    disarm my will
    and let me fight
    armed with thy truth, righteousness and love
    with thy cross of love
    incised upon my heart,
        O Lamb of God.
 
George Appleton, 1902-1993, Anglican Bishop in England and Jerusalem
 
________________________
 
 
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 
“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
 

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A final meditation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Sir Thomas More, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Give me grace, good Lord
To count the world as nothing,
To set my mind firmly on you
And not to hang on what people say;
To be content to be alone,
Not to long for worldly company,
Little by little to throw off the world completely
And rid my mind of all its business;
Not to long to hear of any worldly things;
Gladly to be thinking of you,
Pitifully to call for your help,
To depend on your comfort,
Busily to work to love you;
To know my own worthlessness and wretchedness,
To humble and abase myself under your mighty hand,
To lament my past sins,
To suffer adversity patiently, to purge them,
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
To be joyful for troubles,
To walk the narrow way that leads to life,
To bear the Cross with Christ,
To keep the final hour in mind,
To have always before my eyes my death,
    which is always at hand,
To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell,
To pray for pardon before the judge comes;
To keep continually in mind the passion 
    that Christ suffered for me,
For his benefits unceasingly to give him thanks;
To buy back the time that I have wasted before,
To refrain from futile chatter,
To reject idle frivolity,
To cut out unnecessary entertainments,
To count the loss of worldly possessions ,
    friends, liberty and life itself as absolutely nothing,
    for the winning of Christ;
To consider my worst enemies my best friends,
For Joseph’s brothers could never have done him
    as much good with their love and favor
    as they did with their malice and hatred.
 
Thomas More, 1478-1535, English statesman, beheaded by Henry VIII
________________________
 
 
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 
Be wretched and mourn and weep. 
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
 

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prayer about growing old

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments
image by Vinoth Chandar via Flickr CC BY 2.0 DEED
 
 
When the signs of age begin to mark my body 
    and still more when they touch my mind;
when the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off
    strikes from without or is born within me;
when the painful moment comes 
    in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that
    I am ill or growing old;
in all these dark moments, O God, 
    grant that I may understand that it is you, 
        provided only my faith is strong enough,
    who are painfully parting the fibers of my being
    in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance
        and bear me away within yourself.
 
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 – 1955, French philosopher and Jesuit priest
 
___________________________
 
 
Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
    carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am he,
    and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save.

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