Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,
Last Spring we created a prayer cycle and audio podcast series to accompany my book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal. Today we continue our release of the companion video podcasts with Day 2 Morning and Evening Prayer. The full prayer cycle is available here.
Each day of the prayer cycle focuses on thematic and archetypal energies associated with a different name for Mary. Today’s video podcast for Day 2 morning and evening prayer takes as its theme Untier of Knots and Mustafia. In her role as Untier of Knots Mary invites us to consider those places where we are holding on too tightly and open to tenderness and healing. Mustafia is a name for Mary from the Islamic tradition and challenges us to answer our unique calling in the world and heal divisions between those we “other.”
Untier of Knots Closing Blessing (Morning Prayer):
CLOSING BLESSING
Mary, we come to you knotted
in a hundred different ways.
Our hearts are knotted with grief and anger,
our bodies feel knotted with tension,
our minds knotted with anxiety and fear.
We ask you to gently work on those places
of tightness and holding within us,
to loosen them so gently,
so that freedom emerges slowly.
Mary, you are the untier
of all the knots of our lives.
Be with us as we try to release
all of our tangled places:
the frustrations we carry,
the paths that feel like dead ends,
the complexity of relationships.
Help us to soften our hard edges
and yield to your grace.
Allow us to see you at work within us,
slackening and unbinding.
Sustain us in the moments
when all feels like it is unravelling.
Help us to trust your work
and know that we must first come undone
before we can be woven back together again.
Bless us with patience and wisdom;
support us in loosening our steady grip
so we might also prevent more knots
forming in days to come.
OPENING PRAYER: Mustafia (Evening Prayer)
Mary, Mustafia, chosen by God to birth the holy, help us to answer our unique calling in the world. May your love heal divisions with those we “other” and reject based on culture, skin color or belief. Guide us this evening to a path of peace, kindness, and compassion.
We are blessed to work with a gifted team of artists and contemplatives to bring this prayer cycle to you and pray it nourishes you as you journey with Mary and birth the holy in your own life. If you would like to help support us financially in creating this free resource, we gratefully receive contributions.
Join Therese for Centering Prayer on Wednesday and Melinda for yoga on Thursday
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Closing Blessing written by Christine Valters Paintner from Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal used with permission from Ave Maria Press. Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner and arranged by Melinda Thomas.
