Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community Christmas Day Liturgy with Eileen Miller at Braden River Rehab Center in Bradenton, Florida

Welcome!

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

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

Opening Prayer. Presider: Let us pray. Nurturing God, you became human in Jesus and showed us how to live life fully. You know what it means to laugh and cry, to walk and talk, to love and be loved. / We know that your mothering presence is always with us. May we like Mary, rejoice as we give birth to God within us, and may we give birth to God in everything we say and do. All: Amen

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke 2: 15-20:

When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem and see this event that God has made known to us.” They hurried and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger; once they saw this, they reported what they had been told concerning the child. All who heard about it were astonished at the report given by the shepherds.

Mary treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart. The shepherds went away glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as they had been told.

This is the Good News for a hungering humanity!

R. May these words live in our hearts!

Shared Homily - (Q: What Christmas message do you carry in your heart?)

Profession of Faith.

All: We believe in God who is creator and nurturer of all. We believe in Jesus the Christ, who is our love, our hope, and our light. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of Wisdom Sophia, who energizes and guides us to build caring communities and to challenge injustices. We believe in the communion of saints our heavenly friends, who support us on life’s journey. We believe in the partnership and equality of women and men in our church and world. We believe that all are one in the community of creation. We believe that God calls us to live fully, love tenderly, and serve generously. Amen.

Presider: Always mindful of God’s love and care for us, we bring our needs to our loving God. For what now shall we pray?

Presider: Blessed are you, God of all life, through your goodness we have bread, wine, all creation, and our own lives to offer. Through this sacred meal we become your new creation. ALL: Blessed be God forever.

Eucharistic Prayer

Voice One: Mothering God, you brought forth all creation from your Life-Giving Womb. O Love of the Ages, we praise you and leap for joy in your presence.

Voice Two: O Holy One of Ancient Israel, you revealed yourself in Mary’s womb, in a shining star, in humble shepherds, in a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. You embrace us with infinite love in every situation and relationship. You dwell in the depths of our hearts, we proclaim your praise:

Voice Three: We invite you this day to deepen our awareness of your boundless love as we gather around the table of abundant life.

Remembering Jesus. All (hand extended in blessing):

On the night before he died, while at supper with his friends, Jesus took bread, broke it, and shared it with those present, saying, “Take this, all of you, and eat. This is my body which will be broken for you.” (Pause) Then Jesus took a cup of wine and shared it with those present, saying, “Take this all of you and drink. This is the cup of my life-blood. Do this in memory of me.”

All (2nd Invocation of Spirit, with hand on each other’s shoulder): Come Holy Spirit to rest on us. Convert us from the patterns of this passing world until we conform to the shape of Jesus whose food we now share. Amen

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

All Sing: We are holy holy holy (x1) We are whole; You are holy holy holy (x1) You are whole; I am holy (x1) I am whole; We are holy holy holy (x1) We are whole.

Communion (Silent Night)

Sacrament of the Sick

Final Blessing. All (hand extended):

            May God’s Light encircle you

            May God’s Love enfold you

            May God’s Peace encourage you

            May God’s Presence enrich you

            Today and always. Amen

Presider: Go in the peace of Christ, let our service continue! All: Thanks be to God.

Toward a more than literal and more than rational and more than capitalist Christmas! by Matthew Fox

"The Christmas story also warns of the darkness to come in the life of Jesus, the price he will one day pay in taking on the Empire of the day, when it tells us that Herod, the Roman Empire’s representative in Israel, is out to murder this “savior” and puts out a decree that all new born male babies should be murdered. And the flight to Egypt is the response to that. Literalists want to think this journey was for real; rationalists want to throw out the whole story. But the meaning is clear and is deeper than any effort to commit reductionism: Every son or daughter of God (and that is each of us) will awaken powers that are threatened by the message of peace (and therefore justice) preached by people of good will. Christmas warns us that it will not be an easy task to live out one’s Divine incarnation.
• There lies another profound teaching from the Christmas stories: Incarnation. Literally, the taking on of flesh. By whom? By Divinity. God is so in love with humanity and the Earth that God becomes one of us, light embodied, flesh, very much “God-among-us,” very much a lover and user of Earth and her many gifts to humans. It follows that flesh is holy, flesh is sanctified, all of our chakras (including number two, our sexuality) are incorporated into the sacredness of Divinity. None of us need regret any longer our incarnation, our fleshiness, our sexuality or the sacred flesh of Mother Earth that welcomes us and nourishes us.
• There is a powerful affirmation of the four-legged ones and the role they play in divine revelation in these stories. Not only are the sheep present when the shepherds hear the news from the cosmic beings, the angels; but they are also there at the manger where the Divine baby is placed--see Isaiah 1.1 which talks of how “Israel has not known me but the ox and donkey have known me.” In other words the non-two-legged ones can be much closer to God than humans. They bless us; we learn from them; we are not here just to use them. That is a profound and necessary message in a time of eco-awakening such as ours. It strikes at the heart of speciesism, the narcissistic notion that our species alone is the “people of God.”
• The baby Jesus was born in a manger, his parents were poor, no room in the inn. But the Cosmic Christ is born there also. In poverty; in exile; like immigrants; excluded from the hotels and motels. All this is a teaching also of the preferential option for the poor that the Scriptures announce and that we still have to learn and practice. It challenges all those who stand by while strangers and those in exile suffer immeasurably trying to survive. It is a story about justice and justice-making.
• Christmas day is not so much a Birthday Party for the baby Jesus in the year 2015—an exercise in nostalgia certainly--so much as it is a Birthday Party for the Christ in all of us, the Buddha Nature in all of us, the Image of God in all of us yearning to Come Alive and Be Born finally, throwing off the shackles of history and fear and lack of self-worth to take on the dignity and the responsibility of being grown-ups; of being God-like; of being compassionate; of being fully alive.
• There are many reminders of the Cosmic dimension to our lives in the Christmas story. The star of Bethlehem is one such reminder: the heavens themselves, the cosmos, is part of the birth of each of us and part of the incarnation of each of us. It is revelatory and can point the way to the Divine. Science tells us that it took not just stars but supernovas and galaxies and the birth of atoms and the life, death and resurrection of multiple beings in the sky and the preparation of the earth including fine-tuning the atmosphere, for each of us to be born to this amazingly rich and beautiful and unique planet.
• The story of the magi searching for this star reminds us that cosmology moves us beyond sectarianism and living in our comfortable boxes of religion or ethnicity or race or class for the magi were not Jews but seekers from other cultures seeking the same goal: A savior or teacher or Messiah who will remind all of us what life is truly about in its depths.
• Wherever there are angels there is the cosmos represented for angels are cosmic beings not restricted to our planet or to human endeavors alone. Angels accompany all creativity and certainly all new creation. There prominence in these stories then beginning with Gabriel’s announcement to Mary and culminating with the appearance to the shepherds are part of the necessary messaging that as humans wake up to their own dignity, to their incarnation and marrying of the Divine and the human, all of creation is eager to accompany us and to praise with us. But in the meantime we need the angels and need to call on them for their inspiration (a “muse” is another word for an angel) and guidance as we try to find our way as a species on an endangered planet. Angels are allies, cosmic allies, eager to assist us.
• Light and Darkness. Christmas time is of course solstice time which in the northern hemisphere corresponds to the darkest time of the year. So many cultures have honored this special, dark time of the year with pyramids and monuments (think New Grange in Ireland or Stonehenge or the pyramids of the Yucatan peninsula) made by intellectual genius and serious manual labor to get people to connect psyche and cosmos, honoring the dark but inviting in the light also. In this context the “light of Christ” and the light of all of us is invited to shine not just one day a year but every day of the year, any one of which can be very dark. Especially in the dark times is the light of Christmas to be remembered. And darkness is the most appropriate time for the birth of the Divine. It is a time of stillness and of quiet and from there the Christ is born.
• The tradition of the Christmas tree, borrowed from ancient so-called “pagan” practices, is still another reminder of our interdependence as humans with the more-than-human peoples. Not only animals but the tree people are honored at Christmas—and for good reason. It is the ancestors of the trees after all that first emerged from the waters of the oceans and learned to defy gravity and built circulatory systems that later evolved to become our blood systems. It was the tree people, so many millions of years older than ourselves, that taught us how to stand erect. And proud. And stately. Our lighting of the tree, our decorating of the tree, our inviting a tree into our homes for a few weeks is such an invitation to move beyond our narcissism as a species and learn anew how blessed we are by so many beings that are more than human.
These are just some of the lessons of Christmas. These archetypes do what all archetypes do: They wake us up. Christmas is a time of wake-up.

Recently I read a good-intentioned article about teaching children about religion that was published in a progressive Christian magazine. But it offered a sad and scary teaching when the author wrote that stories about Jesus are “sometimes the truth and sometimes myth.” Shame, shame! There looms a dangerous dualism here. Adults ought to know by now that myths are truths; they carry truths that are too big for just factoids to carry. It would be a disaster to attempt to purge all religion of its myths. As psychologist Rollo May points out, myths are the basis of all morality. There is an unnecessary dualism here between "truth" and "myths."

The stories of the Nativity need not be factual but mythically they are immensely powerful. The artists who composed them knew what they were doing--they catch the deep imagination and yearnings of the human heart for justice for the poor and in doing so offer what is in many ways the essence of the Christ path--that Good News will come to the poorest (the shepherds) and the four-legged ones (ox and sheep) will be in a privileged place and that Divinity is young--a child--not just an old, bearded fellow. And that we are cosmic beings born of a cosmos that has loved us and we will find no peace without remarrying our psyches to the cosmos. The Gospel writers were NOT members of academic seminars: They were ARTISTS and they wove together powerful teachings and stories from the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere including their own hearts and imaginations to create powerful works of art. It was the Jesus event that aroused this creativity and breakthrough thinking in them. It is an insult to throw out their brilliant mosaics based solely on a modern perspective of "facts only." Do not underestimate the power of myth and story to move minds and hearts and thereby create metanoia or transformation.

We do not need a literalism from the left. We and our children will be the poorer for it. Academia, for all its accomplishments, like the quest for the historical Jesus and all its accomplishments, carries a great shadow side as well. One that needs some uplifting regarding the deeper, archetypal, mythical and therefore truly BIG stories of our religious lineage.

Are any of the lessons I have outlined here been truly heeded, lived out, celebrated, achieved by the human race in the past 2000 years? Isn’t it time we begin? Isn’t it time Christmas arrives, the Cosmic Christ arrives, finally

Christmas Prayer by Fra Giovanni, 1513

There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.

 No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present instant. Take peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within reach is joy. Take joy.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away. 

Christmas Prayer," Emmanuel, God is with us" by Michael Morewood

http://progressivechristianity.org/resources/christmas-prayer-emmanuel-god-is-with-us/#.VnviUsA9yuU.mailto

"...

Our Christmas prayer is that we may recognize

and actively acknowledge

the presence of the sacred

in places we are reluctant to look:

— in the stables of our own lives

— among the downtrodden in our society

— in refugees

— in people who are different from us..."

Christmas Message , Compiled by Mary Lou Kownacki and Benetvision Staff

Christmas message
"The very scandal of Christianity lies in the fact that it sees divinity in humanity. It’s a hard idea to swallow, after all. Every major religion recognizes the role of the Creator in the development of life, of course. But in it? Part of it? Identified with it? Gods everywhere look down from the heavens of the world religions and pronounce laws or grapple with demons or pass judgment from on high. Only Christianity argues that the Creator has taken on the flesh and blood of creation in order to bring us to assert the divine in ourselves.

In the Christmas story we see God become helpless, become like us, become subject to the tensions of growth, become flesh so we might have the confidence to recognize that we have the stuff it takes to become like God.

So what is this about renouncing flesh? How can we call the way God made us inherently bad as philosophers have done since the time of Aristotle?

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning says of it, “Earth is crammed with heaven.”

The flesh, in other words, is all we have. It is our glory. It is our power. It is sweet. It is beautiful. And it is the clay out of which we shape a better tomorrow.  "

Compiled by Mary Lou Kownacki and Benetvision Staff

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Christmas Liturgy from Mary Weber, ARCWP, Theme: Amazement and Light

      

  

What difference will Christmas make in your life this year?

Gregorian chant: Proclamation of Christmas: St. Meinrad Schola

Voice One:   In the name of a God who renews us through the birth of a baby, in the name of the newborn child who shows us the way to live and in the name of the Spirit who enlightens, comforts and advocates for us.   ALL:  Amen.  My sisters and brothers, God is within you!  ALL:  And also within you. As we prepare to celebrate this amazing feast of the birth of Jesus, we open our minds and hearts to hear God’s word and wisdom. ALL: We take your Word into our minds and hearts, open to new understanding.

Voice Two:  We ask for the grace to continually acknowledge our need to grow in goodness and caring for ourselves and for others.   ALL:  We accept your love and forgiveness for the times that we have lost sight of the wonder and hope that Christmas brings us. May we live into and through that mystery that gives new birth to our spirits.  Amen.                                 

 Voice Three: Today we are filled with awe as we reflect and embrace the message of Christmas. We are called to be God’s Light in the darkness of fear, hate and exclusion. We are beckoned to dry the tears of our world and to bring hope to the despairing. Let us renew our desire to incarnate God’s promise and possibility to our sisters and brothers everywhere. May the one whose birth we celebrate this season be born anew in us.  All: Amen

LITURGY OF THE WORD

FIRST READING: “Holding On To Our Amazement” by Mark Nellsen

SECOND READING: “The Light Is Here and Now” by John Philip Newell from The Rebirthing of God

Psalm 97 REFRAIN: ALL: A light will shine on us this day: a child is born for us. 

 From Nan Merrill’s Psalms For Praying

Gospel: A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke 2-15-20

Reader: The good news of Jesus the Christ. All: Glory to you, Jesus the Christ!                                       

Shared Homily

 STATEMENT OF FAITHFULNESS     Michael Morwood  

We believe that God’s Spirit is in everyone.    Response:  We hold this truth in our hearts.

We believe that God’s Spirit is seen when people love and care and when they try to be neighbor to one another. We hold this truth in our hearts.

We believe that God’s Spirit is blocked when people hurt one another and when they turn to violence and war. We hold this truth in our hearts.

We pray that people everywhere will listen to the presence of God’s Spirit in them and that they will respect the presence of God’s Spirit in other people. We hold this truth in our hearts.

We pray that war and violence and hatred will come to an end. We hold this truth in our hearts.

We commit ourselves to respecting God’s presence in other people and to being peace-makers. We hold this truth in our hearts. Amen

       General Intercessions

Mary:  May each of us be renewed during this season of light! Response: May our lights shine!

That the darkness of greed, hate and exclusion be vanished by our actions. Response:

 For all those that we have promised to pray for. Response:

That we may embrace the rebirthing of God by reaching out to all. Response:

For what else shall we pray?

Eucharistic Prayer – Gratitude (by Jay Murnane) edited

 Voice Four: O Holy One, we are amazed by the world around us, and we respond with deep thanks. We are blessed by the lights of the heavens: the sun and moon, planets and comets and stars; we are blessed by the darkness which keeps us from being blinded by the light, and eases us into contemplation and rootedness. We are blessed by the generous oceans, and the cliffs and shores which embrace them and allow us to be touched, and to touch. We are blessed by streams and lakes and rivers, by snow and rain. We are blessed by mountains, which teach us of solitude; where we can feel the power of the softest wind. We are blessed by all the harmonies of creation, which charge our souls with hope. We are blessed by the children whose open arms and imaginations teach us enthusiasm and delight at living in the now. We are blessed by friends who share with us the dark and the light, the tears and the laughter – our companions on the journey. We are filled with appreciation for all these blessings, as we become aware that all is oneness and oneness is all. And so we say:

Voice Five: Holy, Holy!  Holy, Holy! Holy Source of wonderful life. All of creation is filled with your glory; Deep compassion all around us! Blessed are those who come in the name of the Source of wonderful life; Because of the pain in our hearts and the immensity of the world’s pain, we often walk this good earth without appreciation and awareness. We are blessed by all those who have asked us to look around, open up, breathe deeply and really see.  We appreciate our elders in the family of life – whale and wolf and sunflower and wheat – who simply live with joy and abandon. We celebrate the troubadours and the truth-tellers who have gone before us, and who are with us now. We celebrate Jesus, who lived fully in love to show us how to live, and who died only for the sake of integrity and life.

ALL: On the night before he died, he sat at a table with friends and relived with them his work, his teaching and wisdom of the universe. Then he went among them as servant, washing their feet, touching their hearts.  When he returned to his place, he took bread, gave thanks and offered it to them saying:

  Take this bread and eat it; It is my life.  (pause)

He lifted a cup of wine, gave thanks and offered it: Take and drink of the covenant made new again through my life poured out for you and for everyone that you might really be free.

Whenever you remember me like this, I am among you. ( pause)All extend hands over the bread and wine and say:

 THEREFORE, WE ASK THAT YOU SEND YOUR HOLY SPIRIT AFRESH UPON US AND UPON OUR GIFTS THAT THEY MAY BECOME FOR US AND WE FOR THE WORLD, THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS THE CHRIST AT WHOSE INVITATION WE CELEBRATE THIS EUCHARIST!

Voice Six: As we are joined with all of creation, so are we joined with Jesus in life and ministry, death and resurrection. We are joined with him in standing with the broken and wounded of the earth, with hands open and ready to serve, creativity turned to healing, resolution and reconciliation. We journey towards greater and fuller openness and awareness, a living sense of gratitude and amazement, always opening up to the amazing energies of your creative spirit, we enter into life as Jesus did, as his companions, and truth-tellers, breathing with your own spirit, we are able to mirror your own glory, O Holy One, as we live ever fuller openness and awareness, a living sense of gratitude. Always opening up to the amazing energies of your creative spirit, we enter into life as Jesus did, as his companions,  and truth-tellers, breathing with your own spirit, we are able to mirror your own glory, O Holy One, as we live every day. Amen

The Prayer of Jesus Our Father/Mother

The Sign of Peace

Mary:  Jesus, You said to your disciples, “My peace I leave you.  My peace I give you.”  Look on the faith of all and grant us your peace and unity.  ALL:  Amen.

 God’s peace is with us and everyone!   Let us offer each other a sign of peace.

LITANY FOR THE BREAKING OF BREAD

ALL:  Light of our lives, You call us to spirit-filled living; guide us by your Spirit.  Light of our lives, You call us to spirit-filled service; strengthen us to serve with compassion.  Light of our lives, You call us to be Your spirit in the world, grant us peace. (Someone hold up the bread and cup) This is Jesus, who liberates, heals and transforms our world.   

All: Jesus you have made us worthy to receive you and become you for others. We are the Body of Christ.

          Prayer After Communion

 Loving God, may the Eucharist that we celebrate bring us to rebirth Christ in our lives again...  May we continue to bring light and amazement to the mission and ministry of spreading the Good News of God’s unfailing love.  May we strive to feed all at the Banquet of Love.  May we accept the liberating power of the Holy Spirit who is with us still.  This we ask in the name of Jesus, the Christ. ALL:  Amen. 

     CONCLUDING RITE

Mary:  God is always within us All: God will never leave us!

BLESSING (Everyone please extend your hands in mutual blessing.) ALL:  May our loving God, bless all here gathered in the name of God our light and life, in the name of Jesus our liberator, and healer  in the name of the Holy Spirit, our nurturer, and companion, as we care and minister to one another in love, and as we embody amazement and light.  Amen.

DISMISSAL:  Go in the peace of Christ!

ALL:  Thanks be to God.

                                      

Street Mercy Christmas Party for Homeless in Sarasota on Christmas Day, My Encounter with "Uncle Buck", Co-Founder

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/2015151229857 
"We're trying to show people that the stigma of the homeless is not what everybody thinks it is," said Steven Howard Thompson, the founder and vice president of Street Mercy, who also lives in one of the two homeless camps and goes by the street name "Uncle Buck. "Everybody thinks we're hopeless, drug addicts or alcoholics and don't deserve to be helped out," Thompson said. "We want to show unconditional love, and that everybody deserves a second change. All must be clean and sober. About 85 percent of them work."
If you want to donate, but can't attend. Contact:  engage@dreamlarge.org
 For more information, contact Randy Crosson at 844-786-2729, ext 153.

Bridget Mary's Response:
Several months ago, I met Steven Howard Thompson, "Uncle Buck" at McDonald's. He shared the mission of "Street Mercy" with me during our meal. I gave him my contact information. 
Not long after our lunch, he sent a message that he needed a tent and supplies. Our Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community responded and two of our leaders met Uncle Buck at his homeless camp with tent and supplies in hand.  
When I read the article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune today, I was happy to hear that the public is invited to a Christmas Party at two homeless camps on Christmas here.
Unconditional love,  in which "wounded healers" who are "recovering homeless"  mentor the "struggling homeless" offers both compassion and a reality check.   Until you walk the walk, it is hard to talk the talk and really understand the issues and heartbreak involved in the lives of people who do not have a home.  If we affirm the  human dignity and blessedness of each person and offer a family/community support network, then we are moving forward spiritually as well as practically in creating a Sarasota where there is a home for everyone. Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, www.arcwp.org

Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community: Christmas Liturgical Celebration 2015 - God With Us

Christmas Liturgical Celebration 2015 - God With Us

Receiving the stole: All present are invited to wear a stole during this liturgy.

Welcome and Theme

Presider: Welcome to our Christmas liturgy.  Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus, human like us, who reveals God always with us in our everyday loving. We celebrate Jesus, human like us, who challenges us to let his story be our story, too.

           

Opening Prayer

Presider: O Holy One, we are thankful for our brother Jesus who led us to see the sacred in the ordinary. Through his teaching, we believe that we live in You, and You live and come to a wonderful expression in us. Amen.

Please join in singing our opening song:

Opening Song: # 59 Glory to God by Marty Haugen

Refrain:

Glory to God, in the highest (3x)

And peace to God’s people on earth.

We sing praises to you,

God of life, God of wonder,

Hearts filled with joy,

let our voices be thunder.

Refrain

Sing to Jesus the Christ,

Word of life to the nations,

Raised up in glory

As our hope and salvation.

Refrain

In the Spirit we come

For the feast and the stories,

Speaking of God

In the pain and the glory.

Refrain (2x)

LITURGY OF THE WORD

Reading 1: A reading from In Search of Belief by Joan Chittister 

I believe that in the humanity of Jesus lies the glory of us all.
If Jesus is the Breath of the Spirit, if the Spirit can work through the
 humanity of Jesus, then the Spirit can work through our humanity,
as well.

The Jesus who was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” not only reminds us
of the Spirit within but shows us the character of the life
we shape by opening ourselves to the impulse of God who, daily, leads us
 beyond ourselves. As Jesus responded to the Spirit in his own life, so we
 realize, can we. As Jesus was formed by it, we now know we are.
The awareness of the Spirit within us is the awareness of the Cosmic,
 created by God and embodied in Jesus.

The Spirit opened Jesus to a world beyond his own. The Spirit does
 the same for us, if only we allow ourselves to become bigger
than the limitations of a humanity in which the divinity has
never been unleashed.
We tie ourselves to the religions of the world: to national
chauvinism, to religious intolerance, to racist conclusions
 and sexist structures and call it fidelity to the law of God.
But all the while, the conception of Jesus leads us to
 reach out to the Samaritan Woman, the Roman soldier,
 the needy in our midst, where the  Holy Spirit is also working,
also struggling to bring life to the full.

The conception, the impulsion, the kindling of Jesus
by the Spirit of the Holy calls us to become less concentrated
on sin and more on grace, less concerned with the restrictions
of law and more with the limitless possibilities of love,
 less obsessed by the limitations of being human more in awe of its potential.
It is humanity that is the womb of the divine in us."

Presider: Please join in praying our response:

Response: We are birthing a new creation.

What are we birthing?

Wisdom and justice,

Peace and compassion,

Concern for all God’s little ones,

For the homeless and the destitute,

The hungry, and all who bear the brunt

Of indifference and oppression.

With joy we say: We are birthing a new creation.

What are we birthing?

A deep respect for our planet ,

Its windsong and its waters,

Its topsoil and its forests,

And a oneness with the wilderness

That is image of our soul.

With joy we say: We are birthing a new creation.

What are we birthing?

An unbreakable bond in the Spirit

That binds as one - all brothers and sisters,

Transcending class, color, culture,

Religion, race and gender.

With joy we say: We are birthing a new creation.

(adapted from A Psalm of Bringing to Birth by Miriam Therese Winter in WomanWord (1990.)

Alleluia

Gospel: A reading from the Gospel of John. (John 1: 1-9)

In the beginning there was the Divine word and wisdom.

The Divine word and wisdom was there with God,

And it was what God was.

It was there with God from the beginning.

Everything came to be by means of it;

Nothing that exists came to be without its agency.

In it was life,

And this life was the light of humanity.

Light was shining in the darkness,

And darkness did not master it.

There appeared a man sent from God named John.

He came to testify – to testify to the light –

So everyone would believe through him.

He was not the light; he came only to attest to the light.

Genuine light the kind that provides light for everyone

Was coming into the world.

Followed by:

Cosmic Silent Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyDxjwd7oU&feature=youtu.be

Homily

Statement of Faith

Presider: Please join in proclaiming our statement of faith.

All: We believe in one God, 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.

We believe in Jesus, messenger of God's Word,
bringer of God's healing, heart of God's compassion,
bright star in the firmament of God's
prophets, mystics, and saints.

We believe that We are called to follow Jesus
as a vehicle of God's love,
a source of God's wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of God's peace in the world.

We believe that God's 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.

Presider: We pray acknowledging God’s Spirit here with us. Standing in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, we bring our many needs and concerns to the table. Please feel free to voice your concerns beginning with the words, “I bring to the table….”. (at conclusion) We pray for these and all unspoken concerns. Amen.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Presider: Please join in praying our Eucharistic Prayer: Oneness

All: O Holy Wisdom enfolding us, we lift up our hearts and proclaim that our spirits are one.

You are, and we are in your presence. You are with us and we live.

Everything lives because of you, and everything is one.

Your Spirit moves among us like the wind, and we are blessed.

With joy, we enter into the oneness and attune ourselves to this harmony as we sing:

Holy, Holy, Holy

(Words and music by Karen Druker)

We are holy, holy, holy,

We are holy, holy, holy,

We are whole.

Spirit Divine, Come to Me,

healing Love, healing Me.

Open my heart, allow me to see,

Beauty and love, lives in me.

You are holy, holy, holy…

All: O, Holy One, we wish to be more fully alive, children of wisdom and of oneness; we wish to drink deeply of your spirit.

We thank you, O Holy One, for those who have come among us pointing to your wisdom, those who have come as our mirrors, our advocates, our friends.

We thank you for Jesus, our brother, so full of life and generous love. We find you and our truest selves in him.

Before he walked towards his greatest challenge, he called his friends together around a table and he reminded them of oneness and the fullness of life.

At the Seder meal, they sang together the psalms of liberation, and then carefully he went among them, to wash their feet.

Presider: (lifts bread) Please extend your hands in blessing over these gifts.

All: Back at the table, Jesus took bread from the meal into his hands, said the grace and shared it with them, saying,

Come, eat this bread;

it is my life. (pause)

Presider: (lifts bread)

All: Then he took a cup of wine, said the grace and shared it, saying,

Come, share the cup of my life,

which makes the covenant  new again for you and for everyone,

so that you might be truly free.

Whenever you do all this, you are what I am. (pause)

All: We remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us and all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages.

We praise you in union with them, and give you glory through Jesus, our brother. For it is…

Through him, we have learned to how to live.

Through him, we have learned how to love.

Through him, we have learned how to serve.

Great AMEN (sung)

Presider 1: Let us pray together the prayer of Jesus:

Creator of All

(Written by the Monks of Weston Priory)

Creator of all,

You are with us.

Holy is your name.

May Your kin-dom come,

Your will be done

by all who share the work of your creation.

Give us bread for the world’s hunger

And forgiveness in your mercy

As we forgive those who are in debt to us

For You are compassion, justice and love

Forevermore.

amen!

PRAYER FOR THE BREAKING OF BREAD

Presider: Please join in our prayer for the breaking of the bread.

All:   Loving God, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice.  We will live justly.  
Loving God, You call us to be Your presence in the world.  We will love tenderly.
Loving God, You call us to speak truth to power.  We will walk with integrity in your presence.

COMMUNION

(Presiders lift the bread and wine)

Presider: This is Jesus, the Bread of Life. How blessed are we who are called to the table.

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: Please pass the bread and wine with the greeting: You are the face of God.  

Communion Song: Instrumental

Communion Meditation Song: # 92 O Little Town by Over the Rhine (p.32)

Songwriters LINFORD DETWEILER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxEaFAmO_Jk

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy dark and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

The lamplit streets of Bethlehem
We walk now through the night
There is no peace in Bethlehem
There is no peace in sight

The wounds of generations
Almost too deep to heal
Scar the timeworn miracle
And make it seem surreal

The baby in the manger
Grew to a man one day
And still we try to listen now
To what he had to say

Put up your swords forever
Forgive your enemies
Love your neighbor as yourself
Let your little children come to me

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy dark and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by

ANNOUNCEMENTS

(Presider begins announcements and recognition of special events during the month, etc.)

BLESSING

Presider: Please raise your hands as we bless each other.

“May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities
that are born of faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received,
and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us." ...”
Amen.
~ Saint Terese of Liseaux

Presider: Please join in singing our closing song and wish each other a Christmas blessing of peace.

Closing Song:  #11. Blessing Song

© Jan Phillips 2012

May the blessing of peace be upon you may peace be all you know
may the blessing of peace be upon you may it follow wherever you go.

Shalom, salaam, shaanti, pacem May peace prevail on earth

Shalom, salaam, shaanti, pacem May peace prevail on earth.

(continue with joy, love, light)