Post Easter Blessings

The risen Christ walks beside us—awaiting our invitation to stay with us, break bread with us, interpret life for us, give us hope, and share in thanksgiving. May we, like the disciples before us, have our eyes opened to recognize Christ as he comes to walk beside us this day.

-Rueben P. Job
A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God

Easter Blessing

If you are looking for a blessing, do not linger here.

Here is only emptiness, a hollow, a husk

where a blessing used to be.

This blessing was not content in its confinement.

It could not abide its isolation,the unrelenting silence,

the pressing stench of death.

So if it is a blessing that you seek,

open your own mouth.

Fill your lungs with the air that this new

morning brings and then release it with a cry.

Hear how the blessing breaks forth in your own voice

how your own lips form every word

you never dreamed to say.

See how the blessing circles back again wanting you to

repeat it but louder, how it draws you, pulls you

sends you to proclaim its only word:

risen

risen

risen.

- Jan Richardson

www.thepaintedprayerbook.com

April 23

Jesus,

lover of life,

you died today.

You died as a hungry child

You died as a soldier in battle

You died seeking justice

You died in a tornado

You died in a hospital bed

You died in the street

You died alone, away from home.

Jesus,

lover of life,

hear my crying

for those who die today

and for the pain that is in me and in the world.

Amen.

(Adapted from)

-Ruth Burgess

Wild Goose Publications

Maundy Thursday Reflections

To wash the feet of a brother or a sister in Christ, to allow someone to wash our feet, is a sign that together we want to follow Jesus, to take the downward path, to find Jesus' presence in the poor and the meek. Is it not a sign that we too want to live a heart-to-heart relationship with others, to meet them as a person and a friend, and to live in communion with them?

-Jean Vanier

Holy Week

Many blessings to you this Holy Week.

This week embodies the most passionate aspects

of our faith: suffering, pain, and death...

giving way miraculously to life-out-of-death,

Resurrection. The "springtime" that Lent

has promised finally comes into being

as we embrace our identity

as God's "Easter people."

Lenten Signs of Hope

O loving Christ who waits for all
to move forward,
to change inward,
to love outward.
Wait now with me as I long and learn to become more like you.
Guide me to wait with the lost,
to stand with the weak,
to have a heart for the brokenhearted.
Amen.

- Pamela C. Hawkins
The Awkward Season: Prayers for Len

Lenten Messages of Hope

What is the gift of sorrow? It is so natural to want to come up with a positive side to sorrow. “God must have wanted me to learn [fill in the blank].” I think that the gift of sorrow is the same gift that we receive during Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. The gift of sorrow is God’s loving and compassionate presence with us—in whatever we are experiencing. God in Christ walked through the human experience of suffering. And God cradles us in our tears, our hopelessness, our grief, and our sorrow.

- Beth Richardso

Lenten Messages

Show me the Way, O Christ,

to care for those who are hurting,

and weeping, and starving.

Teach me the way, O Christ,

to forgive those who are lying,

and wounding, and excluding.

Be light in the dark

and bread for the journey

that I might become

a living prayer for you in the world.

Amen.

- Pamela Hawkins

The Awkward Season: Prayers for Lent