Prayer Cycle / Birthing the Holy / Day 2
Day 2: Untier of Knots & Mustafia
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer: Untier of Knots
OPENING PRAYER
We arise this day and call on Mary, Untier of Knots to help us consider those places in our lives where we are holding things too tightly. Soften our hearts and bolster our healing so we may transform our tender, hurting places into portals for divine grace.
OPENING SONG: Undo Me
FIRST READING: Thomas Merton
And when I thought that there was no God and no love and no mercy, you were leading me all the while in the midst of (God’s) love and (God’s) mercy, and taking me, without my knowing anything about it, to the house that would hide me in the secret of (God’s) Face. Glorious Mother of God, shall I ever again distrust you?
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 26
You know my heart, O God, and all its hidden caverns.
I can open my whole self to myself and to you.
You know when I trust and when I falter.
Where I walk faithfully, and where I fritter away my life.
You know how I fool myself, keep bad company,
and protest my innocence.
May I come to you anyway?
May I sing my thanksgiving and enjoy your worship?
Though I’m a long way from perfect
a long way from mature, a long way from good,
You know my heart, O God –
I would make it whole, open it to You,
and sing your praises.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
As we contemplate the scripture this day, let us listen to how Mary brings grace to a tangled moment of confusion.
SECOND READING: The Gospel According to John (2:1-5 – NRSV)
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
We offer prayers now for all that is in our hearts.
O Source of Love, our lives become so tangled with old hurts, resentments and fears. Forgive us when we pull the cords tighter, refusing to let go, blaming others and holding on to hate. Help us look to Mary, Untier of Knots, to learn how to let go and allow healing. Help us surrender to the gift of forgiveness.
SUNG RESPONSE
Untier of Knots, be our guide. Creator God, empower us.
Beloved Mary, you know how complicated politics can be, that situations rarely have one cause, no matter how simple they seem on the surface. We pray for the many who suffer the consequences of decades of entanglements. Entanglements where profits from the arms trade are more important than peace, where economies that serve only the rich are boosted by money from abusive regimes and where those in positions of trust misuse their power to line their own pockets rather than care for the vulnerable or our planet. Untie these knots for us, Blessed Mother and set your children free.
SUNG RESPONSE
Untier of Knots, be our guide. Creator God, empower us.
Compassionate Mother, you know that so many of us feel knotted up inside with worry and fear. Health concerns, financial worries, fear of what is happening in the world, despair over climate change. These things can all lead to us living a constricted life where we feel bound and unable to move. May we feel your hands tenderly untying the knots that hold us and may your presence in our lives bring spaciousness and peace.
SUNG RESPONSE
Untier of Knots, be our guide. Creator God, empower us.
Please add the prayers you are longing to express.
SUNG RESPONSE
Untier of Knots, be our guide. Creator God, empower us.
CLOSING SONG: Prayer of St Francis
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.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer by Christine Valters Paintner, arranged by Melinda Thomas
Opening Song: Undo Me by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Birthing the Holy: Singing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
First Reading: Thomas Merton, Seven-Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt Publishing, 1948), 143.
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Interpretation of Psalm 26 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Second Reading: The Gospel According to John (2:1-5 – NRSV)
Prayers of Concern written by Polly Paton-Brown
SUNG RESPONSE based on Litany of Mary by Laura Ash. Adapted & recorded by Simon de Voil and Alexa Sunshine Rose
Closing Song: Prayer of St. Francis by Simon de Voil from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
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
Please note: All of the songs and prayer responses are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs & responses 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). Audio and video recordings of the Prayer Cycles are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
Evening Prayer: Mustafia
OPENING 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.
OPENING SONG: Hail Mary
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 122
I was glad when they said to me,
Let us go to a sacred place
A place where the divine is
to give thanks.
Though I know
That God is everywhere, I go gladly.
I pray for peace, here and in all the places of earth.
Peace in Jerusalem, peace in Baghdad,
peace in Albuquerque.
Peace and Justice. Peace for my friends,
peace for my adversaries.
I seek what is good for all for the sake of Peace.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
READING OF THE NIGHT: Qur’an
The angels said, “O Mary, God has chosen you, and has purified you. God has chosen you over all the women of the world.” (And) the Angels said, “O Mary, God gives you good news of a Word from Him. His name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, well-esteemed in this world and the next, and one of the nearest. He will speak to the people from the crib, and in adulthood, and will be one of the righteous.” She said, “My Lord, how can I have a child, when no man has touched me?” God said, “It will be so. God creates whatever God wills. To have anything done, God only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. And God will teach him the Scripture and wisdom, and the Torah and the Gospel. (And he will be) A messenger to the Children of Israel.”
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
CLOSING SONG: Litany of Mary
CLOSING BLESSING:
Blessed Mary, Mustafia,
we celebrate you
along with our Islamic siblings.
God chose you to be vessel,
mother, nurturer, midwife,
that holiness be planted
in you like a tiny, blessed seed.
You were the rich soil and garden
in which your holy child would grow and flower
into a healer, a prophet, into the Beloved One.
Mustafia, guide us in discovering
the ways we have been chosen
to bring blossoming into the world.
Help us to listen closely
for the seeds rumbling deep within us
and to know which ones to nourish.
Let us see how every one of us
has been chosen for a holy task,
and that we are the ones to fulfill
this sacred work on earth.
Be especially with those who feel a lack of purpose
in their lives, who long for a holy direction.
Help them to see that they too are charged
with bringing the sacred to life,
How their yes and our yes
might help transform the world.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner, arranged by Melinda Thomas
Opening Song: Hail Mary by Alana Levandoski from the album Birthing the Holy: Singing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Interpretation of Psalm 122 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Reading of the Night Adapted from Clear Qur’an 3:42-49
Closing Song: Litany of Mary by Laura Ash from the album Birthing the Holy: Singing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
Closing Blessing by Christine Valters Paintner from Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal used with permission from Ave Maria Press
Please note: All of the songs and prayer responses are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs & responses 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). Audio and video recordings of the Prayer Cycles are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
