Day 6 Morning Prayer
Opening Prayer: All of Creation is a window onto the divine presence and unfolding. We pray today that we may have eyes to see the shimmering moments calling to our hearts that help us fall ever more in love with this beautiful world.
Song: O Sun
First Reading: Francis of Assisi
The Sacraments
I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments –
he got so excited
and ran into a hollow in his tree and came
back holding some acorns, an owl feather,
and a ribbon he had found.
And I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear,
you understand:
everything imparts
His grace.”
---Francis of Assisi
Sung Psalm Opening: O Beauty, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
Psalm 87
The whole earth is holy
loved into being with delight.
The earth is beautiful
every mountain, every bush, every fish.
Love encompasses all
Love encompasses all.
Give thanks and praise, use it well
and dance the holy dance.
Sung Doxology: Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
Second Reading: Julian of Norwich
And in this he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and I perceived that it was round as any ball. I looked at it and thought: What can this be? And I was given this general answer: It is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could suddenly fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.
Silent Contemplation
Prayers of Concern:
We offer prayers now for all that is on our hearts.
I’m out walking. I watch her run ahead, stopping to sniff each blade of grass, then running back to nuzzle my hand and gaze up at me with adoring eyes. My heart softens to the love she pours in and I marvel at her delight in living fully each moment. I give thanks for her, and for you who created her. And I pray for humanity, that we might live with such joyful attentiveness and adoring love.
Sung Response - O God of Earth, reveal to us your splendor.
I’m out walking. I notice the strike of my boots on the hard ground of the trail. I kneel and feel the rock’s weatherworn roughness, wondering about the generations of footsteps it has known. I am in awe of its resiliency, and the resiliency of the human spirit. I give thanks for endurance which comes from you. And I pray for humanity, that we might have strength to resist all that threatens to destroy Mother Earth.
Sung Response - O God of Earth, reveal to us your splendor.
I’m out walking. I find myself standing by a cairn gazing at snow-capped peaks glistening in the sun as far as my eye can see. I feel profoundly at peace, at one with myself and with you. I give thanks for this Earth-gift and wonder at the mystery of how you knit her together in such beauty. And I pray for humanity, that we might fall in love with beauty - in each other and in all creation.
Sung Response - O God of Earth, reveal to us your splendor.
Please add the prayers you are longing to express.
Sung Response - O God of Earth, reveal to us your splendor.
Closing Song: Brigid’s Birds
Closing Blessing
May Christ who shimmers in all creation
surprise you each day with glittering moments,
when you can see again how
Light lives in everything,
how it partners
with dark soil to bring forth
aster and lavender,
rosemary and daffodils,
a hundred kinds of squash,
kale and cabbage, apple and berry,
grapes sweetened by the sun.
How the dough you knead in your hands
is an alchemy of touch and time,
how everything is
a call to communion –
the wafer of moon,
a chalice of stars.
Let the Mystery of it all
dance in your heart,
always widening your horizons,
inhabiting new landscapes.
May you know each moment as sacred
and everything around you a call
to remember this one true thing.
Sung Amen
Credits: All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: O Sun by Peter Mayer
First Reading from Francis of Assisi. Quoted in Daniel Ladinsky, trans., Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and the West. New York: Penguin Books (2002) p. 53.
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 87 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Second Reading from Julian of Norwich. Julian of Norwich: Showings (Classics of Western Spirituality.) New York: Paulist Press (1978) p. 130.
Prayers of Concern written by Valerie Allen
Sung Response by Betsey Beckman
Closing Song: Brigid’s Birds by Margaret McLarty
Closing Blessing: Earth as the Original Sacrament written by Christine Valters Paintner
Please note: All of the Opening and Closing Songs are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). The Psalm Opening, Doxology, and the Response to the Prayers of Concern also have accompanying congregational gestures. The audio and video recordings of these are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
Day 6 Evening Prayer
Opening Prayer: As the day descends into darkness, let us remember all the ways the world was illuminated today. Let us give thanks for the truth that everything is sacred and savor the reality that holiness embraces us.
Opening Song: Open Hand
Sung Psalm Opening: O Beauty, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
Psalm 65
It is good to give thanks,
for the boundless mercy
which renews us and makes us whole.
Happy are those who know this
and open themselves to the Light.
and sing—
You make the sunrise and the sunset shout for joy.
You are the earth’s fertility.
Your law governs her cycles of snow, run-off, flood, and rain.
You crown the year with abundance
The wild lands are watered with dew.
The hills deck themselves with green.
The meadows adorn themselves with flocks,
The valleys gown themselves with grain.
They dance together.
They join in song.
Sung Doxology: Glory to the Maker, Lover and Keeper as ago, in this breath and will be ever Amen, Amen.
Reading of the Night: John Klassen, OSB
Jesus shows a wonderful attitude toward created things by using water, bread, fish, wine, light, creatures such as birds of the air, foxes, seed and mud. The parables show that Jesus assumed the worth of the created universe, the dependability of nature, the recurrence of the seasons, the normal pattern of sowing and harvesting, of planting a vineyard and caring for it, of seeing the clouds and counting on the rain. The natural world is the stage where the reign of God is enacted, the place where faith in God with all of its dimensions is lived out.
Silent Contemplation
Closing Poem: A Glimpse of the Underglimmer
You can see it sometimes in October
when the sun’s low angle slides
gold over the field,
effervescence of light,
or you stand in a forest of cedars
and March rain pads
hundreds of tiny feet across
the emerald canopy,
or the fireflies of July form
new constellations, then vanish
into summer’s night leaving only
trails of light in your memory,
or you stand in a May meadow,
a fox crossing quietly, you hold
still as possible, the sliver of moon
above, holding its breath with you.
Closing Song: Saint Gobnait
Credits: All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Open Hand by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 65 by the Rev. Christine Robinson
Reading of the Night from John Klassen, OSB. Quoted in Nature as a Spiritual Practice by Steven Chase. WB Eerdmans (2011) p. 80.
Closing Poem by Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace. Paraclete Press (2020).
Closing Song: Saint Gobnait by Simon de Voil
Please note: All of the Opening and Closing Songs are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). The Psalm Opening, Doxology, and the Response to the Prayers of Concern also have accompanying congregational gestures. The audio and video recordings of these are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.