Prayer Cycle / Soul of a Pilgrim / Day 1
Day 1: The Practice of Hearing the Call and Responding
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
We arise this morning with a listening heart ready to hear how we are being called into this next season of our lives. Wellspring of Wisdom, we ask you to show us the way forward, to illumine our gifts, and give us the courage to say yes.
OPENING SONG
Song of Brigid
Refrain:
Darkness to light, night into day.
Wellspring of wisdom,
show me the way.
FIRST READING: Mark Nepo
To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Love, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 78:1-5
Give ear, my people, to my teaching;
incline your ear to the utterance of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a proverb;
I will utter riddles from of old
which we have heard and known,
and which our mothers and fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their daughters and sons;
we will recount to generations to come
the praise worthy deeds of SHE WHO SPEAKS LIFE,
and her might and the wonderful works she has done.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
SECOND READING: Genesis 3:23-24
So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they’d been made. He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
God of the Garden, you created us from rich earth, and gave us the beauty and bounty of Eden to flourish in, yet we chose our own wisdom and found ourselves exiled. Now we are pilgrims. Call us back to our soul’s home, to each other, and to right relationship with the planet you entrusted us with from the beginning. Help us to clearly hear your voice and follow you with faith.
Sung Response O Pilgrim God, you call our hearts to follow.
We ask you to prepare us for the journey, no matter where our travels will take us. We are tempted to pack too much, afraid we won’t have all that we’ll need, but you call us to take little. Though we want to trust you in all things, we often don’t. Our possessions give us a false sense of safety. We believe our homes are our security, yet the only thing we can truly count on is you. Help us to follow wherever you may lead us.
Sung Response O Pilgrim God, you call our hearts to follow.
Spirit of Sojourners, as you call us to follow you, help us to remember that we are never alone, and though our steps will flounder at times, you will not forget us. You will uphold us, strengthen us, and guide us. Stay with us, Kind God, leading us on our way, giving us to each other again and again, for help, for healing, and for love.
Sung Response O Pilgrim God, you call our hearts to follow.
CLOSING SONG
Illumine Me
Illumine me, O Spirit Divine;
Open my eyes and my life wide.
Illumine me, O Spirit Divine;
Cast over me your light,
Illumine me.
CLOSING BLESSING
Holy Traveller,
bless our sacred yes to the call you have whispered to us,
whether a call to new adventure or the call that arises out of loss,
we know you journey with us, guiding us on the way of imagination to new paths.
May we travel with intention, being conscious of encountering you in each step,
in each stranger, in each moment of disorientation.
We ask you to bless our feet, that they carry us forward in this season to new possibilities.
Bless our hands, that they might help us give form to our creative visions.
Bless our hearts, that we stay open to wonder and numinous moments
Bless our throats, that we gain courage to speak truth.
Bless our lips, that we take in what is most nourishing.
Bless our third eyes, that our intuition and the wisdom of dreams
be close companions on the way, guiding us through the darkness.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
CREDITS
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Song of Brigid by Laura Ash from the album Singing with Monks and Mystics
First Reading: Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk, Harmony Books, 2006, New York, NY. page 12.
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Translation: Wilda C. Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church © 2021 Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY 10016, used by permission. (Year W) page 5
Second Reading: Genesis 3:23-24. Scripture quotation is from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Prayers of Concern: Written by Claudia Love Mair
Sung Response: Tune by Betsey Beckman, lyrics by Christine Valters Paintner and Simon de Voil, sung by Simon de Voil and Alexa Sunshine Rose
Closing Song: Illumine Me by Trish Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Earth, Our Original Monastery: Singing Our Way to the Sacred
Closing Blessing: Written by Christine Valters Paintner to companion her book The Soul of a Pilgrim (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
OPENING PRAYER
Journeying God, be with us at the end of this day of deep listening. Like Mary, we too have been summoned by you to offer our holy yes and co-create a more beautiful and just world. Let us continue to keep our hearts open and attuned to your sacred presence.
OPENING SONG
Hail Mary
Her heart beat in time with my wings.
Her heart beat in time with my wings.
Hail Mary, full of grace!
The Lord is with you.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Love, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 144:3-4, 12-15
WOMB OF LIFE, what is humanity that you even know them,
or the woman-born that you think of them?
Humanity is like a breath;
whose days are like a passing shadow.
Our sons in their youth
are like plants full grown,
our daughters are like cornerstones,
cut for the building of a place.
Our barns are full,
from produce of every kind;
our sheep have increased by thousands,
many thousands in our surroundings.
Our cattle are heavy,
there is no breach in the walls, no exile,
and no cry of distress in our surroundings.
Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall;
happy are the people whose God is the WOMB OF LIFE.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
READING OF THE NIGHT: Alan Jones
Isn’t it time that your drifting was consecrated into pilgrimage? You have a mission. You are needed. The road that leads to nowhere has to be abandoned. . . It is a road for joyful pilgrims intent on the recovery of passion.
CLOSING POEM
Following an Ancient Call
What if we could listen
like the great salmon
who goes about its ordinary life
when suddenly something shifts.
It does not come as a thunderous
revelation, but a quiet knowing
you have been preparing all
your life to trust.
The path lived until now no longer
satisfies but the path ahead
seems thousands of miles
long, and your womb is heavy.
There is no refusing this ancient call,
and to know ourselves as not alone,
but part of generations before us who,
like the salmon, share in this inheritance.
You now hear only the rush of energy
that comes with starting the long
return home and the pull in the
blood which cannot be ignored.
I like to imagine the salmon
swimming across the ocean
(as if that weren’t daunting enough)
and after that endless voyage
it must face the mouth of the mighty river.
Does she hesitate, even for a moment?
Does he want to turn back to less turbulent waters?
But there is something ripening in their bellies.
Perhaps your list of pressing tasks is still long.
Leave it there fluttering in the breeze,
uncrossed, undone, unfinished,
to do the only thing you can do
which is to swim,
to be carried by the waves and tide
and to know when to let the current carry you
and when to fight it with all your strength,
and to know even this yes will
demand more than you were willing
to give: your life for the new birth,
what you think you know for
the ancient call home.
CLOSING SONG
Oscail Mo Chroí
Oscail mo chroí
Oscail mo chroí
(Open my heart)
Credits
CREDITS
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Hail Mary by Alana Levandoski from the album Birthing the Holy: Singing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Translation: Wilda C. Gafney, A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church © 2021 Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY 10016, (Year W) page 232.
Reading of the Night: Alan Jones, Passion for Pilgrimage: Notes for the Journey Home, Moorehouse Publishing, 2000. page 39.
Closing Poem: “Following An Ancient Call.” Excerpted from The Soul of a Pilgrim, copyright ©2015 by Christine Valters Paintner. Used with permission of the publisher, Sorin Books®, an imprint of Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, www.avemariapress.com.
Closing Song: Oscail Mo Chroí by Deirdre Ní Chinnéide from the album The Soul’s Slow Ripening: Songs for Celtic Seekers
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.
