The Holy Island lies just off the extreme
Northeast corner of England with a population of just over 160 persons. Over
650,000 visitors come to the Holy Island every year.
Holy Island is a place of uniqueness: It is
internationally famous both for its medieval religious heritage and also its
more recent picturesque 16th century castle. Many visitors are
attracted by the peace and tranquility which pervades the island.
Tee Kasper, ARCWP, will
attend a retreat on forgiveness presented at the Siena Retreat Center in
Racine, WI. The retreat schedule is posted below. As we lead the church into
the 21st Century, may we reflect on, and absorb into our souls,
forgiveness, peace and reconciliation in our world. May we raise our
consciousness beyond our tribal religions, celebrate our diversity, and embrace
one another as sisters and brothers in a global village.
Forgiveness
Project Exhibit Week-long Experience
July
31, 2016
Siena
Retreat Center 5637 Erie Street Racine, WI 53402
In conjunction with hosting
the International Forgiveness Project Exhibit, Siena Retreat Center is offering
a five-day retreat experience to reflect on the themes of forgiveness, peace,
and reconciliation in our world. Including a variety of themes and led by
diverse presenters, this week promises to be a rich opportunity for reflection
and spiritual growth.
Topics to be included
are: forgiveness and trauma, forgiveness and local communities, brain
research and spirituality, global peacemaking and reconciliation, and
forgiveness in some of the world’s spiritual traditions. Each day will
afford the opportunity for facilitated discussion in an integration group.
The retreat experience
begins on Sunday, July 31, 2016, with the Exhibit Opening and concludes in the
afternoon of Thursday, August 4, 2016.
Sunday, July 31st, 2016
1:00pm: Welcome, Remarks by Sammy Rangel, Keynote Speech by Sami
Rasouli
3:00pm: Exhibit Opens
6:00pm: Presentation by Rodney Prutney
Monday, August 1st,
2016
9:30am, 1:30pm, & 6:30pm: Presentations by Sami Rasouli on
Global Peace, Reconciliation, and Forgiveness
Tuesday, August 2nd,
2016
9:30am & 6:30pm: Presentations by Dusty Farnon, OP, on Trauma
and Forgiveness
1:30pm: Presentation by Colleen McGeady-Ambrose on the Brain,
Spirituality and Forgiveness
Wednesday, August 3rd,
2016
9:30am & 1:30pm: Presentations by Terry Johnson on
Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and the Universe Story
6:30pm: Presentation by Colleen Mc-Geady Ambrose on the Brain,
Spirituality, and Forgiveness
Thursday, August 4th,
2016
9:30am: Presentation by Rabbi Dena Feingold on Forgiveness in the
Jewish Tradition
1:30pm: Presentation by Reirin Gumbel on Forgiveness in the Zen
Buddhist Tradition: Teaching and Meditation
A discussion/integration circle will be facilitated by Terry
Johnson daily, Sunday through Thursday.
Cost of $435 includes $50
non-refundable deposit, overnight accommodations, meals, and program.
Individual days (including noon dinner): $35.
Tomorrow I will travel to
Scotland to be with Morag Liebert, RCWP. We will visit many holy places in our
time together and one place on our itinerary is
the Isle of Iona. Iona is described as a place where the divide between the
spiritual and the material is tissue-paper thin. Scotland, like my beloved
Ireland, is a country saturated with sacred places: standing stones, burial
cairns, holy wells and hermits’ caves, as well as myriad abbeys, monasteries
and churches in varying states of repair.
I will be visiting the Holy Island of Lindisfarne: In 635 AD Saint Aiden came from Iona and chose to found his monastery on Lindisfarne. The Christian message flourished here and spread throughout the world.
Another holy place in Scotland is Findhorn. Although we will not
visit Findhorn this time, I want to share with you a movie from Findhorn that
is most appropriate for us as we lead our church into a new century and we
select new leadership in our country.The film “New Story Film: Change the Story, Change the World” is posted
on the Findhorn site at www.findhorn.org.
Click the link below to view the movie now:
https://vimeo.com/160627867.
There are many good music resources for liturgy on YouTube. Here are a few selections from artist Sara Thomsen. By Breath (prayer to the four directions) Holy Angels (birth, baptism, transititon) May the Longtime Sun (blessing) The Beauty of the Dancer (blessing)
Community Member: We your community bless you and thank you for leading us in prayer today.
Opening Song: Room at the Table
LEADER: The grace of
Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of
you.
ALL: And also with you
LEADER: Let us
welcome one another with a sign of peace.
Call to Prayer
LEADER: In every
generation, like Mary of Magdala, women have and continue to faithfully and
generously respond to the call to serve God and God’s holy people. They have
been apostles and disciples, leaders, preachers, educators, counselors,
musicians, artists, writers, comforters, pastoral ministers, chaplains and yes,
priestly people offering their gifts to the Body of Christ.
Yet, our Church now suffers a
poverty of spirit brought about by the exclusion of women from full
participation in the life, ministry, and leadership of the church.
Today, we women and men, sisters
and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, mothers and
fathers, godparents – members of the Body of Christ -- gather together as one
family to pray for a Church, modeled on the inclusive practices of Jesus and
Saint Paul, that is truly alive with the gifts, spirit and potential of all its
members.
SIDE A: We gather in
thanksgiving for and celebration of Mary of Magdala and countless other women
who came before us – our foremothers in faith -- whose too often forgotten
stories instruct and inspire us.
SIDE B: We gather in solidarity
with the women of today whose demands for justice and inclusion call us to
conversation.
ALL: We gather in hope for our
daughters, the next generation, whose God-given possibility and potential compels
us to work for a Church for Our Daughters.
Opening Prayer
LEADER: Let us pray
Good and Loving God, Creator of
women and men in your own image,
ALL: Create in us and in our
Church a desire for the wholeness you planned;
LEADER: Word made
flesh and born of a woman,
ALL: Empower us that we, like
Mary of Magdala, may hear and proclaim Your redeeming truth
LEADER: Spirit
companion of women throughout space and time,
ALL: Guide us as we work to
build a Church for our daughters, AMEN.
Liturgy of the Word
First Reading:A Reading by Christine Schenk in
Catholic Women Speak
Contemporary biblical scholarship
has uncovered important roles held by women in the early Jesus movement. Luke
tells us that Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Susanna and many other women accompanied
Jesus and ministered with him in Galilee. Yet this Lukan reading is rarely
heard on Sunday. Mary of Magdala’s commissioning to “go and tell my brothers”
that Jesus has risen does not appear on Easter or on any Sunday in the Easter
Season in the United States but is relegated to Easter Tuesday.
St. Paul worked closely with
women leaders like Phoebe, Junia, Lydia, and Prisca. Unfortunately, Romans 16,
a passage that names ten women and identifies some of them as deacons,
apostles, and coworkers, is never proclaimed on a Sunday. Nor are the accounts
of women leaders in the Acts of the Apostles.
And where are the biblical
stories of the strong women leaders of salvation history? Couldn’t we include
the story of Shiprah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives who saved a nation of boy
children, perhaps even Moses, by defying Pharaoh’s law to kill all male infants
born to enslaved Hebrews?
Proclaiming Lectionary texts that
exclude or distort the witness of women, particularly in a church where all
priestly liturgical leadership is male, is dangerous for our daughters and our
sons. Young girls can hardly avoid internalizing the notion that God must have
created them less important than their brothers. If all-male liturgical
leadership and Sunday Lectionary readings are subtly seeding subordination in
our daughters, what is being planted in our sons?
These are the inspired words of
Christine Schenk
All:We receive them with open hearts and minds
Second Reading:A reading from Vision and Viewpoint by Joan Chittister
If
I were pressed to say why I love him,” Montaigne wrote of his deceased friend
Etienne de Boetie, “I feel my only reply could be, ‘Because it was he, because
it was I.’” Friendship, real friendship, in other words, is the blurring
of two souls into one where it was thought two had been. No price exacted. No
interest paid.
Friendship is the linking of stories. It is a spiritual act, not a social one.
It is the finding of the remainder of the self. It is knowing a person before
you even meet them. I am not so sure, then, that we so much find a friend as it
is that friendship, the deathless search of the soul for itself, finds us. Then
the memory of Mary Magdalene becomes clear, becomes the bellwether of the real
relationship.
Mary Magdalene is the woman whom scripture calls by name in a time when women
were seldom named in public documents at all. She is, in fact, named fourteen
times—more than any other woman in the New Testament except Mary of Nazareth,
the mother of Jesus, herself. She is clearly a very important, and apparently a
very wealthy woman. Most of all, she understood who Jesus was long before
anyone else did and she supported him in his wild, free ranging, revolutionary
approach to life and state and synagogue. She was, it seems, the leader of a
group of women who “supported Jesus out of their own resources.” And she never
left his side for the rest of his life.
She was there at the beginning of the ministry. And she was there at the end.
She was there when they were following him in cheering throngs. And she was
there when they were taking his entire life, dashing it against the stone of
synagogue and state, turning on him, jeering at him, shouting for his death,
standing by while soldiers poked and prodded him to ignominy. She tended his
grave and shouted his dying glory and clung to his soul. She knew him and she
did not flinch from the knowing.
The Magdalene factor in friendship is the ability to know everything there is
to know about a person, to celebrate their fortunes, to weather their straits,
to chance their enemies, to accompany them in their pain and to be faithful to
the end, whatever its glory, whatever its grief. The Magdalene factor is
intimacy, that unshakeable immersion in the life of the other to the peak of ecstasy,
to the depths of hell.
These are the inspired words of Joan Chittister
All:We receive them with open hearts and
minds
Shared Homily
STATEMENT OF FAITH; EUCHARISTIC PRAYER – Celebration
of Women as leaders and
STATEMENT OF FAITHFULNESS
I
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.
I 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.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the life of God that is our innermost life,
the breath of God moving in our being,
the depth of God living in each of us.
I believe that I am called to be Jesus' twin,
allowing myself to be a vehicle of God's love,
a source of God's wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of God's peace in the world.
I believe that God's reign 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,
I believe in the community of God seekers
in all the religions, as well as outside of them,
the great prophets, mystics, and saints,
and those just beginning their spiritual journey.
I believe in a future on this earth when all
will be God-centered and God-conscious,
when we will learn to live in love and peace,
in the fellowship of brothers and sisters.
I believe that in death, life is changed,
not taken away, and that we will go
from step to step in God's life, God's love.
and God's glory for all eternity. Amen
WE BRING TO THE TABLE
PRESIDER 1: Mother, Sophia, Divine Spirit that lives
with and through our lives, we bring these needs, thoughts, joys, and sorrows
to the table of our human beingness and your wonder light:
Please share if you want,
your thoughts and needs within our community…
PRESIDER 2:In gratitude for your amazing love and
care of each of us, in wonder for your attention to our needs, we thank you and
know that you bend down to hear our prayers in holiness and love.
AMEN.
EUCHARISTIC PRAYER:
PRESIDER
1:Our Eucharistic Prayer is
shared by all. Please, if you feel comfortable, say it with us in communal
harmony as we bring our very selves to this place of holiness that we help to
create.
PRESIDER
2:We lay our stoles on the table
in preparation and presentation of our community spirit.Together, as we represent our lives, we
give of ourselves as our Holy Creator gives her very self to us…
Adapted
from the liturgy by Bridget Mary Meehan
ALL:It is right that we give you thanks and
praise, loving God. You created this world, that you called good, and invited
us to become its stewards. Even when we betrayed your trust, you chose to call
us back to yourself, over and over again.
Your
Word has been spoken throughout human history through those you called as
prophets – especially Mary of Magdala and other women and men whom we would
disregard, but whom you empowered with your passion for our salvation.
As
we gather around this table, we once again recall your breaking into our world,
for our redemption, and your calling forth unlikely prophets to reveal your
truth.
In
joyful thanksgiving for your constant, faithful love, we join our voices in an
unending hymn of praise:
Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker
You
gave us Jesus, who walked among us, trying to teach us to see as you see, to
love as you love, to be as you are. Jesus listened to the cries of the people,
aching for freedom. He healed those bound by cruel disease.
He
answered those who were burdened with questions. He challenged those enslaved
by the law to understand its true meaning. He fed those who hungered, and
awakened deeper thirsts.
He
gathered a community around him, women like his friend Mary, and other close
friends with whom he shared all that God made known to him. It was with these
dear to him that Jesus shared a friendship meal.
As
we come together in memory of that meal, we pray that Your Spirit will come
upon these gifts and upon us, that we may become the body and blood of Christ.
(pause
as bread is lifted)
We
remember how, on the night before he died, Jesus was at table with those he
loved. He took bread and blessed you, God of all creation. He broke the bread
shared it with his friends and said, "Take this, all of you and eat it.
This is my body which will be given up for you."
(pause
as wine is lifted)
Then
he took the cup of blessing, spoke the grace, and offered them the wine:
“take
and drink the covenant renewed in my blood, for you and for everyone, that all
captivity may cease. When you do this you remember me.”
(pause)
Gracious
God, we celebrate this feast in memory of Jesus, our brother. We honor the
memory of those who shared his earthly ministry, were last at the cross and
first at the tomb, and became the first bearers of the Christian tradition.
This tradition has been passed through the ages and is now entrusted to us. We
treasure our faith in the new life birthed in us.
God
Most Holy, keep us faithful to your Word alive in us. Help us to hear your
voice calling each of us to discipleship and to service in your name.
Strengthen us to follow your call, despite sanction, ridicule, and rules that
may seem to limit the possibilities before us.
We
will do the work of compassion and justice so that all women and men can
approach each other as equals, living in the light of your constant care.
PRESIDER
2:Let us join together as we make
our prayer as Jesus did:
Gracious
God, creating all around us;
Respectfully,
we celebrate our mutual existence.
Beautiful
green earth life happens here and everywhere.
Since
we have everything we need right here, we can share with each other
And
green earth life can be less painful and more healing.
For
it is through us, with us, in us, in our unity, creating with you, Gracious
God, today and always.
ALL:
Glory to God! As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world
without end. Amen.
PRESIDER
2:Let us offer each other a sign
of the Peace that Jesus shares with us.
LITANY FOR THE BREAKING OF 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.
SHARING OF THE MEAL:
PRESIDER
1: Let us share the deep reality
of universal communion. Let us eat and drink deeply of Passover and self-giving
love. Give glory to the living God whose covenant with us we have experienced
in Jesus. All are invited to partake of this sacred banquet of love.
ALL:Jesus, you
invite us to receive you and become you for others. We are the Body of Christ.
May the Source of Life whose power now at work in us can do immeasurably more
than we can ask or imagine, be given glory through all generations. Amen
DISTRIBUTION OF BREAD AND WINE: You are the Body of Christ.
You are the Blood of Christ.
Communion Song: One Bread, One Body
Closing Prayer
LEADER: My friends,
as we go forth into the world to help build a Church for our daughters, we
reflect on the courage, faithfulness, and ministry of Mary of Magdala and call
upon our good and loving God to bless us for the work ahead
LEADER: Mary of
Magdala traveled with Jesus and the other disciples in a small community,
learning about God’s new reign of justice and love.
ALL: God of Wisdom, lead us to
that community of faith where we too can learn and grow.
LEADER: Mary and the
other disciples persevered with Jesus, even when he was persecuted by his own
religious leadership and government authorities.
ALL: God of Strength, help us
stand in Jesus’ truth and healing love especially when we experience
persecution for justice’s sake.
LEADER: Jesus sent
Mary to proclaim the Good News to the Apostles even though they would not
believe them.
ALL: Rabboni, teach us how to
proclaim the miracle of your Risen love in a disbelieving world.
LEADER: Because of
her witness, Mary of Magdala is known as the Apostle to the Apostles.
ALL: Help us, O God, to accept
our apostolic call to go and tell our brothers and sisters of Jesus’ power to
heal, even wounded structures which exclude.
LEADER: Today, women
are called to discipleship and leadership in our Church and faith communities.
ALL: Healing Spirit, help our
Church welcome the women leaders and ministers you send us today.
LEADER: That our
daughters may know radical inclusion and justice, equality without
qualification, and a Church institution that transforms oppression into love
without bounds
ALL: Spirit of Transformation,
guide us as we work to build a Church for our daughters.
Blessing
LEADER: And may God bless us who is
Source of all Being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit
ALL: AMEN.
Closing Song: We are Called
Liturgy from Future Church, Bridget Mary Meehan and the Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community of Albany, NY
Today, I begin my pilgrimage to holy places in
Scotland with Morag Liebert, RCWP. Our first destination is the Holy Island of
Lindisfarne. 
