Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community Memorial for Bob Murray May 12, 2018 Imogene & Michael Rigdon Presiding, Mindy Lou Simmons, Music Minister

Welcome to Memorial Liturgy for Bob Murray: Bridget Mary

Bob and Mary Murray

Imogene and Michael Rigdon, married priest couple, preside at  Memorial Liturgy for Bob Murray 

Gathering Song: #437 On Eagle’s Wings, 1-4

All: In the name of God our creator, Jesus our brother, and the Holy Spirit our wisdom. Amen.

Presider: God is with you. All: And also with you.

Opening Prayer. Presider: Loving God, we gather to remember Bob who recently died. We give thanks for his life and the many blessings he brought to us and to the world. We ask you to comfort Mary and his family & friends in our grief. We ask this in the name of the risen Christ. All: Amen

All sing: Glory to God, glory. O praise God, alleluia. Glory to God, glory. O praise the name of our God. (x3)

1st reading from the book of Wisdom (3:1-6, 9)

All: Thanks be to God.

Psalm 23. All sing: My God is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want, #834. Verses recited.

2nd reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy (4:6-8)

All: Thanks be to God.

All Sing: Alle, Alle, Alleluia.

Priest Michael Rigdon

A reading from the gospel of John (14:1-6)

All: Thanks be to God. All sing: Alle, Alle, Alleluia.

A Time of Memory and Hope

            Bob’s Family and Friends

            Presider Reflections

Profession of Faith. All: We believe in one God, a divine mystery beyond all definition & understanding. God the Creator is the heart of all that has ever existed, that exists now, or that will ever exist. God’s divinity infuses the entire cosmos, making everything in it sacred. We believe in Jesus, the messenger of God’s Word, bringer of healing & the center of God’s compassion. Through his incarnation, we have become a new people, called beyond the consequences of our brokenness. We believe in the Spirit, the Wisdom that strengthens our call to follow Jesus, who is the vehicle of God’s love, a source of God’s compassion & truth, & instrument of God’s peace in the world. And we believe that God’s kin-do is here now & will be forever. It is stretched out all around us for those with eyes to recognize it, & hands to share it with everyone—no exceptions.

Community Petitions. Presider: Mindful of God’s love and care for us, we bring the needs of all people to our loving God. Response: Loving God, hear us.

Presider: Healing God, you faithfully listen to our prayers. Strengthen us as we strive to respond to the needs of your people. We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ. All: Amen

Collection and Procession of Gifts to the Table.

All Sing: #361 Seed Scattered and Sown, 1&;3

Eucharistic Prayer.

Please gather around the table for our community meal.

All sing: We are holy... You are holy... I am holy... We are holy...

All: As we do in this place what you did in an upstairs room, send down your Spirit Sophia on us and on these gifts of bread and wine that they may become for us your body, healing, forgiving, and making us whole. And that we may become for you, your body, loving and caring in the world until your kindom comes. Amen.

We remember Jesus. Presider: On the night before he died, Jesus sat at the Seder meal with his companions. Reminding them of what he taught, he bent down to wash their feet. 

All, with hand extended in blessing: Jesus returned to his place at table, lifted the Passover bread and spoke the blessing, then broke the bread saying: “Take and eat, this is my very self.” (Pause)

Jesus then raised the cup of blessing, spoke the grace, and offered them the wine saying: “Take and drink of the covenant made new again through my life for you and for everyone. Whenever you do this, you remember me.”

All: Remember, gracious God, your Church throughout the world. Make us open to receive everyone. In union with all people, may we strive to create a world where suffering is diminished, and where all people can live in health and wholeness.

Thru Christ, with Christ, in Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit, all glory is yours, gracious God. Amen (sing)

Prayer of Jesus (Sing “Our Father and Mother”)

Group Sign of Peace. Presider: Let us share with each other a sign of the peace.

All: This is Jesus who liberates, heals and transforms us and our world. All are invited to partake of this banquet of love. We are the Body of Christ.

ALL (sing): Holy gifts for holy people, come you hungry and believe. Come and receive Christ’s body offered, come and be what you receive. (x2)

After Communion: #376 The Servant Song 1-5

Prayer of Thanksgiving (Didache, Instruction, 100CE)

Men: For the thanksgiving, give thanks this way: First, for the cup: We thank you, Abba God, for the sacred vine of David your son, whose meaning you made clear to us through our brother Jesus, yours ever be the splendor.

Women: And for the bread fragment: We thank you, Abba God, for the life and wisdom whose meaning you made clear to us through Jesus, yours ever be the splendor.

All: As this fragment was scattered high on hills, but by gathering was united into one, so let your people from earth’s ends be united into your single reign, for yours are splendor and might through Jesus Christ down the ages.

Prayers of Thanksgiving.

All sing, hand extended in blessing: You are the face of God, I hold you in my heart, You are a part of me, You are the face of God. You are the face of God, I hold you in my heart, You are my family, You are the face of God.

Presider: Go in the peace of Christ, may our loving service to all continue! All: Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

Closing song: #688 Song of Farewell (refrain x2)

Reception and Pot Luck Supper

Celebration of Life of Bob Murray and  Sally Brochu's and Russ Banner's Birthdays.

"To Be A Peacemaker" by Sr. Joan Chittister

"In times of great personal and social upheaval, real peacemakers, genuine bridge-builders, do four things:

First, they tap into their own deepest spiritual self and recommit to the higher values that shine in them there.

Second, they speak kindly to the other at all times. No name-calling, no threats, no ultimatums, no personal judgments.

Third, they articulate their own values, goals, concerns and hopes clearly and calmly.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, they listen carefully to the issues and commitments that impel and motivate the other, looking for desires that are common to both sides.

Then, and only then can we say that we are honestly committed to working together for the common good. Only then can we call ourselves peacemakers. Never before have we needed this kind of common commitment so badly. Honesty, clarity, kindness and wisdom are the key to a just future. Maybe it’s time for us to form uncommon groups of unlike minds using these simple guidelines as a way forward."

"A New Corporate Confession" by Rev. Dawn Hutchings

https://pastordawn.com/2018/02/17/lent-letting-go-of-our-tightly-held-piety-to-see-our-need-of-confession-3/#more-10965 

The following is an excerpt from the above article on confession.

LETTING GO – A New Corporate CONFESSION

P: God, creatively active for billions of years in this emerging universe, come to expression in us. In God we live and move and have our being. In, with and through us God can be generous, loving, creative, happy, delighted, sad, and disappointed.

C: God loves in us; God cares through us; God laughs in us; God cries in us.

P: As we open ourselves to the power of God in and around us, we often cling to our desire for control, our self-centered nature, and our fears.

C: Together in the presence of God and to one another, we confess that our failures have all too often defined us.

P: By the power of the Spirit who lives and breathes in with and through us we can let go of all that separates us from God and from one another.

C: Together, we confess our sorrow for the limits we have put on God’s Spirit at work in us. We confess that we often fail to live in ways that foster our relationship with God and with one another.

P: In Jesus we have met the One whose life teaches us to act justly, walk humbly, love selflessly, expand our notions of neighbour, love our enemies, care for creation, and forgive as we are forgiven.

C: In Christ, we freely let go of our fear and open ourselves to the Spirit’s power to heal our relationships.

silence for reflection

P: In Christ we have learned the healing power of compassion.

C: In Christ, we freely let go of our own arrogance, our tightly held grudges, our temptation to seek revenge and our desire for victory.

P: In Christ we have seen the power of grace.

C: In Christ we open ourselves to the powers of mercy as we begin the work of forgiving ourselves, our neighbours, and our enemies.

silence for reflection

P: In Christ, God’s power to forgive is realized. May God continue to find generous and courageous expression in, with and through us as we forgive ourselves, our neighbours and our enemies. Breathe deeply of the Spirit, as you continue Love’s reconciling work! Let the Reign of God evolve in, with and through us!

C: Let us give life to: the love of God, the peace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, now and always. Amen. 

"We must Rapidly Begin the Shift from 'Thing-Oriented' Society to a 'Person-Oriented'' Society." Martin Luther King Jr.

Delightful, Funny Stories About Prayer, Miracles and Life

https://onbeing.org/programs/claire-danes-ellen-burstyn-tracy-k-smith-et-al-stories-about-mystery-dec2017/

Demonstrators Protest Against Torture at Gina Haspel Confirmation Senate Hearing Including ARCWP Priest Janice Sevre Duszynska

(3rd from Left) Janice Sevre Duszynska ARCWP with Code Pink demonstration at Senate Confirmation Hearing of Gina Haspel as President Trump's nominee to head CIA.

Janice Sevre Duszynska, Medea Benjamin,Ti Ghe Barry, Dave Barrow, and Pete were arrested. Janice cried out "stop crucifying Muslims" in the Senate chamber and as a result of her witness, she was arrested. Janice spent a night in a freezing cold DC steel cellblock/jail where she killed 12 cockroaches. There were no blankets on the bed. She could not sleep because it was very cold and the bright lights were shining all night. They gave her a sandwich of white bread, processed cheese and bologna. Janice said that she meditated and sang favorite chants, "peace, salem, shalom", "ubi caritas", and "dona nobis pacem" throughout the night and felt the Spirit's presence with her.
In the morning the prison guard took Janice and the other women to give a urine sample. They were confined to a room from 10:30am until 3:00pm. Then she was called to the court room and she had to walk with handcuffs, feetcuffs, and a chain around her waist. The result of the hearing was Janice will have to appear in court on June 11th and she is banned from all the Capitol buildings. Janice also has another court day on October 1st for her witness fat a non-violent sit-in at Congressman Fteny Hoyer's office, the Democratic whip, to stop a $240 billion arms sale to the Saudis.
She was greeted by her friends from Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Community and Code Pink. The article below tells the story of Ray McGovern's witness and hearing. He was released at 5:00PM. Janice and Ray were both interviewed by media.

Ray McGovern, former CIA officer,  arrested for questioning Gina Haspel

Haspel Says CIA Won’t Torture Again as Ray McGovern is Dragged Out of Hearing

2nd UPDATE: After refusing to directly answer questions about her history as an alleged torturer, Ray McGovern decided to ask Gina Haspel a question or two of his own and he wound up in jail for it, reports Joe Lauria.

Updated with news that McGovern returned home and details of him being charged with Unlawful Disruption of Congress and Resisting Arrest.

By Joe Lauria  Special to Consortium News

Instead of facing a judge to defend herself against prosecution for violating U.S. law prohibiting torture, 33-year CIA veteran Gina Haspel on Wednesday faced the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing to confirm her as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Haspel does not look like someone who would be associated with torture. Instead she would not be out of place as your next door neighbor or as a kindly grade-school teacher. “I think you will find me to be a typical middle-class American,” she said in her opening statement.

Haspel is the face of America. She not only looks harmless, but looks like she wants to help: perhaps to recommend a good gardener to hire or to spread democracy around the globe while upholding human rights wherever they are violated.

But this perfectly typical middle class American personally supervised a black site in Thailand where terrorism suspects were waterboarded. It remains unclear whether she had a direct role in the torture. The CIA said she arrived at the black site after the waterboarding of senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah had taken place. Some CIA officials disputed that to The New York Times. The newspaper also reported last year that Haspel ran the CIA Thai prison in 2002 when another suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded.  

Even if she did not have a direct hand in overseeing the torture, she certainly acquiesced to it. And if that were not bad enough, Haspel

urged the destruction of 92 videotaped CIA “enhanced interrogations,” conducted at the prison in Thailand, eliminating evidence in a clear-cut obstruction of justice to cover-up her own possible crimes.

At her public hearing Haspel refused to say that the torture was immoral. Instead she tried to romanticize her nefarious past in adolescent language about the spy trade, about going to secret meetings on “dark, moonless nights,” in the “dusty back alleys of Third World capitals.”

Haspel claimed to have a “strong moral compass.” We really can’t know because we only found out about what she did in Thailand in 2002 because of press reports. Just about everything else she did during her three decades at the agency remains shrouded in secrecy because she refused to declassify almost all of her record for the committee.

“Bloody Gina,” as some CIA colleagues called her, told the hearing she would not re-institute the “enhanced interrogation” program if she became director. One wonders if the US were attacked again like on 9/11 if she would keep her vow, especially as she admitted nothing wrong with “enhanced interrogation” the first time.

Haspel testified that the U.S. has a new legal framework that governs detentions and interrogations forbidding what she refused to call torture. But the U.S. already had a law on the books against it when the Senate ratified the international Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on October 21, 1994. Every time the U.S. “tortured some folks” after that, as Barack Obama put, it broke U.S. law.

In speaking about it in a folksy way, Obama was minimizing the enormity of the crime and justifying his decision to not prosecute any American who may have taken part in it. That includes Haspel. So instead of facing the law she’s facing a career promotion to one of the most powerful positions in the United States, if not the world.

McGovern Speaks Out

Haspel tried to wiggle out of relentless questioning about whether she thought torture was immoral, let alone illegal. Completely ignoring U.S. ratification of the Convention Against Torture, Haspel clung to the new Army Field Manual, which contains a loophole in an annex added after 9/11 that justifies cruel punishment, but not specifically torture.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who was tortured in Vietnam, had no doubts about Haspel. After the hearing he issued a statement saying, “Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”

Because she wasn’t giving any straight answers, Ray McGovern, a CIA veteran of 27 years and frequent contributor to Consortium News, stood up in the hearing room and began asking his own questions. Capitol police were immediately ordered by the chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), to physically remove McGovern from the room. As he continued turning towards the committee to shout his questions, four officers hauled him out. They ominously accused him of resisting arrest. Once they got him into the hallway, rather than letting him go his way, four policemen wrestled him to the ground, re-injuring his dislocated left shoulder, as they attempted to cuff him.

After spending the night in jail, McGovern, 78, was to be arraigned on Thursday. He has not responded to several voice message left on his mobile phone. A police officer at Central Booking told Consortium News McGovern was no longer under their control and had been sent to court. According to DC Superior Court, he has been charged with Unlawful Disruption of Congress and Resisting Arrest. Ray returned home Thursday night.

McGovern was one of several people arrested before and during the hearing for speaking out. The spectacle of citizens of this country, and in Ray’s case a veteran CIA officer, having to resort to disrupting a travesty of a hearing to put an alleged torturer in charge of the most powerful spy agency in the world is a disturbing indicator of how far we have come.

A Different Kind of Hearing

In 1975, Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) conducted hearings that revealed a raft of criminality committed by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over a period of thirty years from the end of the Second World War. It has been more than 40 years since that Senate investigation. After the release of the CIA Torture Report by the Senate in 2014 and the revelations about the NSA by Edward Snowden, a new Church Committee-style expansive probe into the intelligence agencies is long overdue.

Catholic politician touted as Germany’s next leader says women should be ordained as priests

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/05/10/catholic-politician-touted-as-germanys-next-leader-says-women-should-be-ordained-as-priests/

Women's Ordination Conference New Video Series: First Video- Kathy Gibbons Schuck RCWP

Kathy Gibbons Schuck, a priest from Pennsylvania,

shares how her vocation allows her to live out the universal call to holiness in a personal way. To celebrate our launch, we're offering a GIVEAWAY of the book Called - Women Hear the Voice of the Divine by Gretchen Kloten Minney! To enter the drawing, do one or more of the following: Subscribe to our YouTube channel (1 entry)  Share our video on Facebook (1 entry)  Tag a friend to watch our video on Facebook (1 entry)  Winners will be announced May 18th and books will be shipped anywhere in the world.  We need to hear your story! To submit your 1-minute video to Catholic Women Called, fill out this simple form and WOC program associate Katie Lacz will guide you through the steps. We are collecting videos until May 21st.  For equality,