Liturgy in Celebration of Women-Spirit Rising
Deb Trees, ARCWP, and Deven Horne led
the Upper Room Mother’s Day liturgy with the theme: Women-Spirit Rising.
Opening Prayer PEACE REFLECTION by Deb Trees
Please
close your eyes and feel the quiet space around you. As you breathe in, note
your own center. Send quiet peace to the person on your left, and around the
circle. Switch to the right and send quiet peace around. As we reach ourselves,
let us send that quietness to the center of our group, up to the sky above,
flowing out to our surrounding areas, and finally
back to ourselves in compassion.
With our
final breath, we feel the Holy Ones’ presence within. Amen.
Opening Song: I and the Mother are One by Jan Phillips
https://youtu.be/YgjBYzLr3gM
First reading: One Living God
From She Who Is by Elizabeth
Johnson
Even if this were not the case, it
would obviously be advantageous to reclaim the power and vulnerability of
mothering as metaphor for God. The experience of originating others and of
nurturing them into maturity is not solely a male one but is intensely female
on a fundamental biological and psychological level. Women conceive, bear in
their own bodies, and give birth to new persons; human beings receive life and
nurture from their mothers in a diversity of ways, and the consequent complex
relationship is profoundly formative of persons and society. Human relationship to the creative origin of
the world traditionally expressed in relation to God as father is thus
excellently carried in the symbol of God as mother. Speaking about God
critically in these terms yields an understanding of divine reality shaped by
the wonder, greatness, and hard work of a particular female experience,
suggesting that where good mothering is found there we have hints to divine
relationality with the world. In the patriarchal social context the maternal
metaphor brings to bear a different vision. Language traced on this female
pattern intimates that birth-giving, nurturance, play and delight in the other,
unmerited love, fierce protectiveness, compassion, forgiveness, courage,
service and care of the weak and vulnerable characterize what surrounds us as
absolute mystery. Women’s living and life-giving experience as mothers is
fitting metaphor for speech about the gracious Sophia-God of Jesus and her
world-renewing Spirit.
These are the words of Elizabeth
Johnson, and the community affirms them by saying: AMEN.
Gospel: Mark 16: 15-20
Then Jesus told them, “Go into the
whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation.
“The one who believes it and is
baptized will be saved, the one who refuses to believe it will be condemned.
Signs such as these will accompany those who have professed their faith: In my
name they will expel demons, they will speak in new tongues; they will be able
to handle poisonous snakes; if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm
them, and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.
Then after speaking to them, the
Savior was taken up into heaven and was seated at God’s right hand. The
disciples went forth and preached everywhere. Christ worked with them and
confirmed their message through the signs which accompanied them.
These are the words of Mark, and the
Community affirms them by saying: AMEN.
Shared Homily
Homily Reflection by Deven Horne
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus
shares one last time a teaching with his disciples. Like a good mother who has
given all she can of her wisdom, love and protection, he now releases them to
the world with confidence that they are ready and he tells them to go out into
the whole world. Then Jesus leaves them. Imagine the confidence of a parent
telling a child he or she is ready for the whole world. Not stay close to home
so I can keep track of you or help you. But go far and wide. My mother recently
ascended, left me, and I could not help but think of the parallels of her life
to this scripture and to Jesus. I never remember my mother telling me I
couldn’t do something that I told her I wanted to do. Where did I get that confidence except from
knowing she believed I could do it. Jesus believed his disciples could do
anything if they believed as he believed in them. He told them they could speak
new languages, heal the sick, fight off serpents and much more than him.
Where would we be without the feminine
God preparing us to be on our own? The One who as Elizabeth Johnson tells us in
her book “She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse”,
“that where good mothering is found there we have hints of divine relationship
with the world”.
Throughout Jesus’s life as throughout
my mother’s life, I learned about “birth-giving, nurturance, play and delight
in the other, unmerited love, forgiveness, courage, service and care for the
weak”. Ascension and separation has to happen in life so that we can have life.
As the disciples wept as Jesus left, so I wept when my mother left with the
ingrained memory of divine love which I am ever grateful. Whether the life of
giving and teaching was short as in Jesus’s case or very long as in my
mother’s, the impact is the same and as powerful as only the Divine Grace can
be. In an instant, and over time, and throughout time eternal, we are born into
the creative, nurturing love that only the Divine spirit can give and we are
sent forth to continue to create that love wherever we go and for as long or as
short a time we live, because we were created from and know that maternal love.
Homily Conclusion by Deb Trees
Thank you everyone for your wonderful
insights and sharing. Deven and I wanted to say how the words of Jesus to his
disciples impacted us: Not just go and
share the Good News with the other people, but with “ALL of CREATION.” In another version of the Gospel, “with All
CREATURES”. That message of Constant
Love impacting everything we do and then sharing it with ALL is what is amazing
to us about the Creator’s Mothering Ways. We wish you all a Happy Mother’s Day!
Statement of Faith
All: We believe in the Holy One, a
divine mystery
beyond all definition and rational understanding,
the heart of all that has ever existed,
that exists now, or that ever will exist.
beyond all definition and rational understanding,
the heart of all that has ever existed,
that exists now, or that ever will exist.
We believe in Jesus, messenger of the
Divine Word,
bringer of healing, heart of Divine compassion,
bright star in the firmament of the Holy One's
prophets, mystics, and saints.
We believe that We are called to follow Jesus
as a vehicle of divine love,
a source of wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of peace in the world.
We believe in the Spirit of the Holy One,
the life that is our innermost life,
the breath moving in our being,
the depth living in each of us.
We believe that the Divine kin-dom is here and now,
stretched out all around us for those
with eyes to see it, hearts to receive it,
and hands to make it happen.
bringer of healing, heart of Divine compassion,
bright star in the firmament of the Holy One's
prophets, mystics, and saints.
We believe that We are called to follow Jesus
as a vehicle of divine love,
a source of wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of peace in the world.
We believe in the Spirit of the Holy One,
the life that is our innermost life,
the breath moving in our being,
the depth living in each of us.
We believe that the Divine kin-dom is here and now,
stretched out all around us for those
with eyes to see it, hearts to receive it,
and hands to make it happen.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
Presider 1: As we prepare for the
sacred meal, we lay our stoles upon the table as a sign that just as Jesus is
anointed so is each of us. And, we bring
to this table our blessings, cares, and concerns.(Please feel free to voice
your concerns beginning with the words, “I bring to the table…”)
Presider 1: We pray for these and all unspoken concerns.
Amen.
Presider 2: O Holy One, you have been called by many names
by many people in the centuries of our planet’s life. Yet, no name truly
defines you or describes you. We
celebrate you as the marvelous, loving energy of life who caused us and our
world to be. We celebrate you as the Source of light and life and love, and we
celebrate your presence and all-ways care.
Presider 1: Please join in praying the
Eucharistic prayer together: WomanSpirit Rising written by Jay Murnane.
O Holy One, You give us life, and we
live and breathe with your Spirit. You create us female and male; You call us
good, and we live as equal partners. You share the earth with us, and we, as
co-creators with you, complement your ongoing activity of creation.
Among all our blessed ancestors, we
celebrate the women who gently and firmly confronted the structures of
oppression in their times with unique vision and compassion: Sarah, Deborah,
Judith, Miriam, Ruth, Esther, Anna, Miriam of Nazareth, Julian, Hildegard, and
so many more.
United with them, with WomenSpirit
rising, with our Mother-Planet and her people everywhere, with one another and
You, O Holy One, our spirits dance and sing this song of praise:
Blessed be our God!
Blessed be our God!
Joy of our hearts, source of all life
and love!
God of Heaven and Earth!
God of Heaven and Earth!
Dwelling within, calling us all by
name!
Alleluia, sing!
Alleluia, sing!
From Alleluia Sing
by David Haas
https://youtu.be/-FvAFEjAnrc
We give grateful thanks for all your
faithful servants, opening for all of us a path to life. We are thankful for
all the women who risked everything they had so that all of us could live in a
better, brighter world.
We give grateful thanks for our brother,
Jesus who showed us so simply, so tenderly, how the world is in our hands. He showed us how to be free of the blindness
and paralysis of fear.
He had nothing in this world but your
love, companions on the journey, and his very self. Together, that was more
than enough, and that remains our clarity in the midst of confusion: the
miracle of healing, new hope, nurturance, nourishment, liberation and life.
On the night before he faced his own
death and for the sake of living fully, Jesus sat at the Seder supper with his
companions and friends. He reminded them
of all that he taught them, and to fix that memory clearly within them, he bent
down and washed their feet.
(Presider 1 lifts plate)
When he returned to his place at the
table, he lifted the Passover bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread and
offered it to them saying:
Take and eat of the Bread of Life
Given to strengthen you
Whenever you remember me like this
I am among you
(pause)
(Presider 2 lifts cup)
Jesus then raised a cup of blessing,
spoke the grace saying:
Take and drink of the covenant
Made new again through my life in you.
Whenever you remember me like this,
I am among you.
(pause)
Let us share this bread and cup to
proclaim and live the gospel of justice and peace
O Holy One, we have felt deeply the
barrenness of our lives and of our community. Yet, we have always been pregnant
with your creative Word and your life-giving Spirit.
We make new our commitment to the
harmony of the original vision of creation living
justly, loving tenderly, and walking
this earth with integrity. We will bind
and blind and burden no longer and use our gifts only for life.
We will open up wide all that has been
closed about us, and our small circles. Like Jesus, we are filled with your
Spirit and with You, we renew the face of the earth.
for it is through living as Jesus
lived,
That we awaken to your Spirit within,
Moving us to glorify you,
O Holy One,
At this time and all ways.
Amen.
Presider 2: Let us pray as Jesus
taught us:
All:
O Holy One, who is within, around and among us,
We celebrate your many names.
Your Wisdom come.
Your will be done, unfolding from the
depths within us,
Each day you give us all we need;
You remind us of our limits, and we
let go.
You support us in our power, and we
act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place
within us,
the empowerment around us,
and the celebration among us, now and
forever. Amen (Miriam Therese Winter)
Presider 2: Please join in the prayer
for the breaking of the bread:
Presiders break the bread
All:
O Holy One, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We will live justly. You call us to be Your
presence in the world. We will love tenderly
You call us to speak truth to power. We
will walk with integrity in your presence.
Presiders lift the bread and wine
Presider 1: "This is the bread of
life. Through it we are nourished and we nourish each other.
All:
What we have heard with our ears, we will live with our lives; as we
share communion, we will become communion, both Love’s nourishment and Love’s
challenge.
Presider 2: Our Eucharistic
celebration is all-inclusive. You are a spark of the Divine and nothing can
separate you from God’s love. All are welcome to receive at this table. Please pass the bread and the cup with the
words “You are the Mothering Spirit of God.”
Communion Song: Berakah, The Blessing by Jan Novotka
BLESSING
Presider 2: Please raise your hands
and join in our blessing:
Blessed is She who spoke and the world
became. Blessed is She.
Blessed is She who in the beginning
gave birth.
Blessed is She who says and performs.
Blessed is She who declares and
fulfills.
Blessed is She whose womb covers the
earth…
Blessed is She who lives forever and
exists eternally.
Blessed is She who redeems and saves.
Blessed is Her Name.
Final Blessing: (From E. Johnson, She
Who Is…)
Closing Song Women’s Spirit
by Karen Drucker
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