Liturgy to Celebrate New Life as Midwives of Grace by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

Liturgy: Celebrating New Life as Midwives of Grace by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

GATHERING SONG AND GREETING

Presider:  In the name of God, Midwife of Grace, and of Jesus our brother, and of the Holy Spirit, our Liberator.  ALL:  Amen

Presider:  My sisters and brothers, God loves us infinitely and is with us always.  ALL:  and also with you.

PENITENTIAL RITE

Presider:  Let us pause now for reflection.  Place your hand over your heart and breathe in God’s passionate love for you…breathe out God’s, extravagant love for everyone….

Open yourself to Spirit energy empowering you…

Now let us praise God by singing Glory to God…

Song of Praise: Glory to God, glory. O praise Glory alleluia. 
Glory to God, glory. O praise the name of our God. (x2)

OPENING PRAYER

Presider: God of Love, Midwife of grace, we experience your grace drawing us to new life in the depths of our mystical souls and in our prophetic call .We rejoice with  our brother Jesus, through the power of your Spirit.  ALL: Amen. 

LITURGY OF THE WORD

First Reading

Responsorial Psalm

Second Reading

Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia

Gospel:

Reader:  The good news of Jesus, the Christ!

ALL:  Glory and praise to you, Jesus the Christ!

                           HOMILY

Profession of Faith:  ALL:  We believe in God who is compassion in our world. We believe in Jesus, whose death and resurrection reveals God’s infinite love. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of Wisdom Sophia, who energizes and guides us to live Christ’s presence. We believe in the communion of saints, our heavenly friends, who inspire us to live holy lives. We believe in the church as the people of God, living in faith, hope and love.

GENERAL INTERCESSIONS

Presider:  That we may bring new life into our world, we pray

Response: God of all, love through us

Presider:  That we may foster healing of our Earth, we pray.  R.  

Presider:  That the sick may be healed, we pray.  R.   

Presider:  That we may be forever one with our beloved dead in the communion of saints we pray. R.   (Other Intentions)

PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS

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 may we become your new creation.  (hold up bread and wine)

ALL:  Blessed be God forever.

(All come around the table to pray the Eucharistic Prayer, background music may be played) 

Presider:  God is with you, abounding in love

ALL:  and also with you. 

Presider:  Lift up your hearts in Christ who lives and loves , heals and empowers through you.

ALL:  We lift them up to God. 

Presider:  Let us give thanks to our God.

ALL:  It is right to give God thanks and praise.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Voice One:  Life-giving Love, You call all persons to be friends of God. United with You, we are one with all beings in the community of creation as we celebrate the new life occurring in our expanding cosmos. We join the angels and saints as we sing:

ALL: Sung “We are holy, holy, holy, you are holy, holy, holy, I am holy, holy, holy” chant by Karen Drucker

Voice Two:  Gracious God, you set the banquet table and invite all to the feast that celebrates your dazzling love in the universe.  As midwives of grace we are Your hands, lifting up those who suffer, the vulnerable and neglected in our world today

Voice Three: We especially thank you, Holy One, for Jesus, the Compassion of God, who came to show us a new vision of community where every person is loved and all relate with mutual respect.

Voice Four:

Jesus threatened the religious and political leaders of his time and so they put him to death.  As God raised Jesus to new life, we trust that your promise of faithful love will be with us in our suffering and raise us up to fullness of life. 

All: (please all extend hands as we recite the consecration together)

Let your Spirit come upon these gifts as we pray:

On the night before he died, Jesus took bread into his hands and said:

This is my body, he said. Take and eat .

 Do this in in memory of me.

Pause

At the end of the meal Jesus took a cup of wine, raised it in thanksgiving to you, and said:

”Take and drink of the covenant made new again through my life in you. Do this in memory of me.

Presider:  Now then, let us proclaim the mystery of the Christ Presence made new again through you:  

ALL:  In every creature that has ever breathed, Christ has lived; in every living being that has passed on before us, Christ has died;  in everything yet to be, Christ will come again! 

Voice Five:  .  We thank you for ordinary people in our lives who show us how to love tenderly and have revealed the heart of our God, especially  (pause to remember and name some of these holy women and men). 

Voice Six: And so, liberating God, Midwife of Grace, we hold our religious ministers and political leaders in the light of Christ Sophia, Holy Wisdom.  We pray for our pope and bishops, the young and the elders, and all God’s holy people.

Voice Seven:  We remember those who are sick and suffering.  May they be healed and comforted.  We remember Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary Magdala, Peter, Paul,  Junia, our patron saints.  We remember our loved ones and all those who have died, that they may experience the fullness of life in the embrace of our gracious God.

ALL:  Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, all praise and glory are yours, Holy God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

THE PRAYER OF JESUS

ALL:  Our Father and Mother . . .

and forever.  Amen.

THE SIGN OF PEACE

Presider:  Let us pray for the peace of Christ in our world as we sing and hold hands in a community prayer for peace (Peace is flowing or other appropriate hymn)

 LITANY FOR THE BREAKING OF BREAD

ALL:  Loving God, You call us to speak truth to power, we will do so. Loving God, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice, we will do so. Loving God, You call us to live as Your presence in the world.  We will do so.

Presider:  Behold the Body of Christ.  All are invited to partake of this sacred banquet of love. 

ALL:  Jesus we are worthy to receive you and become you for others.  We are the Body of Christ. 

Presider:  Let us share the Body of Christ with the Body of Christ!  ALL:  Amen.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Presider:  Life-giving God, You come to birth each day in our universe through suffering death and new life. Your Spirit is moving in us as we love passionately, and extravagantly to bring  your shalom to everyone equally especially the marginalized.

ALL:  Amen

CONCLUDING RITE

Presider:  Our God is with you.

ALL:  and also with you. 

BLESSING

(everyone please extend your hands in mutual blessing)

ALL:  Holy One, Midwife of Grace, we bless one another as we serve others with loving kindness .

DISMISSAL

Presider:   Go, bring forth life as midwives of grace in our world.  Let the service begin!  ALL:   Thanks be to God.

CONCLUDING HYMN

God, A Midwife: Psalm 22:9-10 “Yet You drew me out of the womb, you nestled me to my mother’s bosom; you cradled me in your lap from my birth; from my mother’s womb, you have been my God.”

                              Bridget Mary Meehan

Association of Roman Catholic Woman Priests

http://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/

www.arcwp.org

"The Paradox of our Age" by Silvia Brandon-Perez ARCWP

THE PARADOX OF OUR AGE

"We have bigger houses but smaller families.
more conveniences, but less time
we have more degrees, but less sense;
more knowledge, but less judgement
more experts, but more problems;
more medicines, but less healthiness;
We've been all the way to the moon and back
but have trouble crossing the street to meet
the new neighbor.
We built more computer to hold more
information to produce more copies than ever,
but have less communication;
We have become long on quantity,
but short on quality.
These are times of fast foods
but slow digestion; 
Tall men but short character;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.
It's a time when there is much in the window,
but nothing in the room."

– His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama 

A couple of days ago while looking for articles on Johrei, a movement I joined many years ago and practiced and shared in Newark, New Jersey, as I recall in the late '80s (I was initiated and still have my Ohikari pendant but had not found a nearby Johrei institution), I found a Johrei Fellowship location in San Francisco.  I sent an email to them and left a phone message and couldn't connect, but I finally made an appointment for yesterday at 11 a.m. The night before the 84-year-old widow and my twin sister from another life, Maria, had spent a harrowing panicky and painful night, and we had been talking and praying until 3 in the morning.  That morning a home physiotherapist had visited to install a toilet seat with arms and a bed assist, so by the time we left I had to have a latte with a double shot to make sure I was not going to fall asleep in the car...

The location is wonderful, many of Meishu-sama's books and writings were on sale and I came back with many things.  We both had a treatment and my pendant was blessed again while we chanted the Amatsu Norito (Prayer of Heaven) in Japanese.  The Amatsu Norito is said to be three thousand years old, and it asks God to cleanse the world of all evil, error and impurities, to hear our prayers, to protect us and to bless us all with joy and happiness.

These days we are in an age of non-history and non-reflection.  We judge others by the standards and mores of our own times, and because we have failed to learn history, and by that I mean not the history of the mass media or of whatever convenient empire has thrust down our throats, rather than the history of the daily steps, woes and joys of earlier times, we judge according to our own prejudices.  All the word “prejudice” means (Latin praejudicium) is judgment in advance. And although we are allegedly told by Hillel the Elder: "Pass not judgment upon thy neighbor until thou hast put thyself in his place," we judge those of earlier generations by our current “judgments in advance.”  

This brings me in a roundabout way to Augustine of Hippo, whom I know as St. Augustine, who said, and this is one of my favorite quotes from his writings: ​Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.  [On the topic of not knowing history, Augustine has generally been adjudged to be a male chauvinist, but he was probably no better or worse than the rest of the men in his time, whose world view assumed the “natural” subservience of women.]    

While I was busy with the Bernie or Bust work of last year, I struggled to understand why I was so much for Bernie, and why it felt so comfortable to listen to him, and I realized he reminded me profoundly of my beloved paternal grandfather, abuelo Gerardo, who was a non-observant Sephardi, brought “low” by marrying a Cuban Catholic woman who not only refused to convert to Judaism, but who said she would bring up their children as Catholics.  It is funny because I don’t remember particularly ever having gone to church with her.  She was a beautiful woman who smoked endlessly and who had meticulously manicured fingernails… She tried very hard to get me to stop biting my nails as a child, and even gave me a manicure or two (which worked until my mother had a fit and said she was not to do that anymore).  Because my beautiful and manicured abuela Inés with her hands yellowed with nicotine, her flowers and her guitar, played with a husky voice from the smoking, seemed to me in retrospect to be a shallow woman, it was interesting later to realize she had been a suffragette, a tremendous activist for women’s vote and rights, no wonder abuelo Gerardo fell in love with her… it was her mother whose room I slept in, whose hands I watched making old recipes, whose eyes clouded by inoperable cataracts I watched with fascination, whose long braids I loved to touch… 

I have been struggling with faith, with anger, with family issues, with the concept and difficult task of forgiveness.  Tonight a wonderful fellow priest sent out this link to an interview with Martin Sheen.  I will write later on about meeting with and praying with him on two separate occasions and two separate places, but for now, just enjoy: https://onbeing.org/programs/martin-sheen-spirituality-of-imagination-2/#.

Hillel also says, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14.  Every day something interesting is happening in this “ministry of mine,” including my elder care ministry.  Every time I mean to do my housework or gardening someone comes in with a question which becomes a three-hour problem to take care of; I will not be getting this year’s or last year’s award for the best housekeeper or gardener.  I write in short bursts, interrupted by the anguish of my friend, and I postpone whatever I was doing and know that someday there will be someone who will listen to me as well.   Even though she attended my ordination, tonight she asked me to pray with and for her as “whatever minister you became.”  I realize that she has not and cannot accept my rebel priesthood as a Catholic woman… and I don’t need to mess with her mind.  I wish I could bring her out of her adoption of the old Catholic church full of sin and punishment and into my belief in a redemptive divinity, but I don’t “need to” evangelize her out of her beliefs and into mine.  Suffice it to say that I love my faith, I love the concept of the Eucharist and what Ramón Estévez, whom we mostly know as Martin Sheen, has to say about this in his interview with Tippett.  

To healing, to the joy of being sacred beings, to the marvels of life, even in its moments of dread and pain.

Upper Room Liturgy - June 25, 2017

Debra Trees and Beth Dounane led the Upper Room's inclusive liturgical celebration on Sunday, June 25 with the theme of "light."  

The readings today help us to see in the light, from the posture of light inside and around us, and to know no fear. We are known in our very depth, even to counting the hairs on our head. Let us bring that light to everyone we encounter, and be light for each one, including ourselves. 

Santa Orlando places stoles on the presiders and blesses them as they lead the community in prayer.

Deb and Beth used the Gospel reading for the day and chose an inspired first reading from Parker Palmer printed below. 

The Light for Another by Parker J Palmer.

from Krista Tippet, On Being website, December 17, 2015

In times of deep darkness, we not only need light — we need to be light for one another. That’s a message we must take to heart as we find ourselves lost once again in the all-too-familiar darkness of America’s culture of violence.

Who better to deliver that message than Mary Oliver, in a powerful poem that re-tells the story of the Buddha’s last words. Before he died, she tells us, “He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd” and said, “Make of yourself a light.”

We are the frightened crowd the Buddha looked into as he drew his last breath. We are the people who need to be light for one another.

There are many kinds of light. There’s the light that allows people lost in the dark to find their way home. There’s the light of compassion that comforts everything it touches. There’s the light of truth-telling about ourselves that allows us to see what we are doing — or allowing — that has helped bring this darkness upon us. There’s the light that shows us the way forward toward a better world. There’s the light of courage to walk that path no matter who says “Stop!”

No one of us can provide all of the light we need. But every one of us can shed some kind of light. Every day we can ask ourselves, “What kind of light can I provide today?”

Beth led the homily starter with a reflection on the poem: The Buddha's Last Instruction by Mary Oliver. 

The Buddha’s Last Instruction
by Mary Oliver

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

"Sister" by Cris Williamson

https://youtu.be/mKoIUHWo_Ts

Diane Dougherty, ARCWP "Roman Catholic Women Priests:..."We RESIST the invasion of these discriminatory policies into our communities and institutions–and stand in opposition to any teaching that interjects biased cultural and societal divisions in the name of God." Responding to Same-Se Marriage Policies Decree of Illinois Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Illinois

Invasion of the Body Snatchers-or in this case, an Invasion into the Body of Christ

In the 1954 movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, plant spores fall from space and grow into large seedpods capable of assimilating the characteristics of humans devoid of human emotion.   The latest decree by the Bishop of Illinois serves as an Invasion into the Body of Christ, by attempting to assimilate the characteristics of Catholic teaching, when in reality this instruction displaces our call to transforming humanity’s culture and societies.  The teaching  therefore is hierarchical, but not catholic and causes harms the LGBTQ  and religious community.

Illinois Bishop Thomas Paprocki has issued his “Same-Sex Marriage Policies Decree 6-12-2017 which is his guideline regarding the treatment of lesbian and gay ministers in church life. New Ways Ministry summarized in their blog, that the

Bishop is now calling pastors to refuse to bury people in same sex marriages.

Briefly, the bishop instructs church leaders that same-gendered people who are married should:

·      Be refused communion, because their relationships are immoral and against nature

·      Be refused a funeral in the Catholic Church because it gives public scandal.

·      Be refused employment in public liturgical ministry as readers, Eucharistic ministers or music ministers

·      Be refused admission into the Rite of Christian Initiation unless they leave the relationship

He goes on to say:

·      No church worker, acting in any professional capacity can participate in same-gender weddings

·      Church personnel are forbidden to bless these marriages.

·      If same gendered children are presented for the Sacraments of Initiation, due digression is needed, especially if it is a public baptism.

·      That children can be admitted to Catholic schools if they agree to the Family School Agreement

The blog notes this invasive teaching is growing in the dioceses of Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit . They have similar guidelines regarding communion and liturgical ministries, but the Illinois decree advances to funeral rites and punishment for pastoral ministers.

A teaching like this appeals to a cultural bias against a people, and promotes confusion among Catholics as this is one not shared by the conference of Catholic bishops, the Vatican or 63% of white Catholic laity in the US…yet promulgated by a few.

These policies demonstrate a leadership removed from pastoring toward cultural dictatorial rule.  Using their position to promote an unjust politic in the name of our religion, feeds into the present government’s determination to undue the civil and human rights earned by the LGBTQ community.  It offers justification of a rising elitist group seen as superior and more worthy in the eyes of God.  This teaching alone is idolatrous because it does not reflect a movement toward the gospel ideals.

Most Catholics ignore or run away when these invasions occur, but in our time, one group resists-The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests  and Roman Womenpriests USA.  Our goal is to transform the Catholic Church by creating inclusive structures that will renew the church.  As validly ordained women, we RESIST the invasion of these discriminatory policies into our communities and institutions–and stand in opposition to any teaching that interjects biased cultural and societal divisions in the name of God.  In our Inclusive Catholic Communities, we validly marry, bury, offer sacraments and pray with any and all in need.  We preach, teach and deliver a gospel of good news. We encourage others to RESIST, because programs and policies like this constitute a cultural invasion into the Body of Christ.  What divides the body makes us all sick.

As ordained clergy we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.  We join all people as we continue to instruct our hierarchical leaders promoting divisions to cease and desist.  If wee believe we are equal in the sight of God, our Church structures must be designed to give witness to that equality.  The LGBTQ community is supported and welcomed…this is a Catholic value.

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