Prayer Cycle / The Love of Thousands / Day 5
Day 5: Grieving Our Losses & Ancestral Pilgrimage
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer: Grieving Our Losses
Video podcast coming in Fall 2024
OPENING PRAYER
We greet this morning remembering all those we have lost, allowing grief to become a witness to the ways we have loved lavishly and freely. We make space for the deep cries of the heart, our fierce and tender lament knowing God holds these with us, gathering our tears in a sacred vial.
OPENING SONG: Weep with Me
Weep with me for darkness I have been.
Weep with me for darkness I have seen.
Weep with me for all that I have known,
For when the heart’s divided it wanders far from home.
A mhuire na ngrás
A mhaithir Mhic Dé
Go gloise tú sa dorchadas mé.
(Hail Mary, Full of Grace.
Hail, Mother of God.
Hear me in the Darkness.)
A mhuire na ngrás
A mhaithir Mhic Dé
Go sabhála tú me
Go sabhála tú mé.
(Hail Mary, Full of Grace,
Hail, Mother of God.
Heal Me)
Hold me in your arms
Hold me in your arms
Hold me
See me in your eyes
See me in your eyes
See me.
Know me in your heart
Know me in your heart
Know me.
For all can be,
Earth, sky and sea.
Turas numinous don chroí.
(Sacred journey of the heart.)
FIRST READING: Henri Nouwen
As we grow older, we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life. Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 13: How Long
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long, how long, O Lord?
Will you hide your face away from me
How long, how long, O Lord?
How long must I bear the anguish of my soul?
How long, how long, O Lord?
And have sorrow in my heart through all of my days?
How long, how long, O Lord?
Consider and answer, O Lord my God
How long, how long, O Lord?
Give light to my eyes, or I’ll sleep as in death
How long, how long, O Lord?
But I trust in your love, and my heart shall one day rejoice
How long, how long, O Lord?
I will sing to the Lord, who is gracious and loving
How long, how long, O Lord?
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
SECOND READING: Jeremiah 31:15
A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
Comforting One, grief often feels too heavy a burden to shoulder alone. Be our Simon of Cyrene and help us bear the heavy crosses of our losses. We know we are not alone in our mourning, but sometimes it feels like we are. You sent your Spirit like a dove to Jesus at his baptism. It feels as though we’ve been baptized in a river of our tears. Please send your Spirit of Love and Comfort to console us, and even in our pain we will remember to thank you.
Sung Response O God of Love, hold us in our mourning.
One Who Hears, there are days that we, too, raise our voices in bitter lamentation, like Rachel in Ramah, weeping for our lost loved ones, refusing to be consoled, because they are no more. In these times, when no promise of a resurrection or far-off heaven brings relief, hear our cries. Listen to our keening and moaning. Steady us as we thrash in the endless nights, then cradle us, each one, as you would a very small child, rocking us tenderly until we fall asleep.
Sung Response O God of Love, hold us in our mourning.
Breath of Spirit, sometimes it is enough just to breathe. Help us to do this right now, and as often as needed. Help us to pause. Take a few moments to sit with you, with all our pain. Nothing more to do than breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Nothing we must feel. Or not feel. Just be. With You. Breathing in. And out.
Sung Response O God of Love, hold us in our mourning.
Please add the prayers you are longing to express.
Sung Response O God of Love, hold us in our mourning.
CLOSING SONG: We Remember Them
We remember them in the rising moon.
We remember them in the mourning dove.
When the waters rush upon the shore
We remember them singing ever more.
And they too shall live
As they are woven into us.
I remember you singing ever more.
CLOSING BLESSING
Blessing for Grief
This blessing sits with you in the ache
and dark cave of loss.
Let your voice ring out into the hollow space
of stone and bone,
a wail, a cry, a lament.
Call on wise ones to surround you,
Michael the Archangel,
Mary, Our Lady of Sorrow,
Sister Death,
and any other ancient ones
whose presence would be steadying.
You do not have to be consoled,
you do not have to hold back the river of tears
you do not have to hold it all together.
Rest your spine back against the soft rock
and feel yourself held by Earth,
by the saints and ancestors
who knew their own landscape of loss.
Give yourself over to this holy time of grief
a witness to the expanse of your love
And when the heaviness is too much to bear
ask the mountains and the oceans
to carry the weight in their enormous arms.
Notice all the places you still hold back
and soften, surrender, release.
Hear Jesus’s cry of abandonment from the cross
and know this mourning as part of your humanity.
Let this blessing carry you as well,
to the far distant shores of your longing.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
Credits: All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Weep with Me by Deirdre Ní Chinneíde from the album The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors
First Reading: Henri J. M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith HarperOne, 1997 (entry for August 29)
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Version: Tune: The Lament of the Three Marys/Coaineadh na dTrí Muire, Words: Kiran Young Wimberly © 2018, from the album Celtic Psalms: Rest in the Shelter
Second Reading: Jeremiah 31:15 (NRSV)
Prayers of Concern: Written by Claudia Love Mair
Sung Response: Words by Abbey Dream Team. Music by Betsey Beckman. Arranged and performed by Alexa Sunshine Rose and Simon de Voil © 2023
Closing Song: We Remember Them by Trish Bruxvoort Colligan from the album The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors
Closing Blessing: Written by Christine Valters Paintner to companion her book The Love of Thousands : How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness (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: Ancestral Pilgrimage
Video podcast coming in Fall 2024
OPENING PRAYER
As evening’s darkness spills from the sky, we remember the many places our ancestors are from, the lands they called home, the mountains and seas, rivers and meadows which shaped their imaginations. We know these landscapes shape our imagination as well and we journey to these ancient homelands in our heart to find a place of reconnection, to come home again in a new way.
OPENING SONG: The Spirits Are Here with Us
The Spirits are here with us
Healing Spirits
The Spirits are here with us
Loving Spirits
The Spirits are here with us
The Spirits are here with us
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 122: Peace Be With Jerusalem
I was glad when they said to me
Let us go to the house of God
Now we stand within your gates Jerusalem
Peace be with all people
Peace be with all nations
Let us seek the good of all
Let us dwell in peace
Peace be with Jerusalem
Peace be with you everyone
Peace be with my kindred
Peace be with all my dear friends
Peace be with all people
Peace be with all nations
Let us seek the good of all
Let us dwell in 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: Vincent Harding
The voice (of the ancestors) has entered so profoundly into me that I am flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, song of their song, pain of their pain, hope of their hope. . . I believe that ancient rivers of our people flow in them. I hear their voices, and I know what it means. It means I am called to be father, rock, and strength, encourager for the struggles of tomorrow, baptizer in the rivers of their past.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
CLOSING SONG: In My Heart is the Road
In my heart is the road and I will not be hurried.
In my heart is the road; bless my feet on the journey,
to Jerusalem. To Jerusalem.
CLOSING BLESSING
Blessing for Ancestral Lands
Even if you never make the physical journey
to the lands of your ancestors
those lands journey in you:
The rivers flow through your blood,
the mineral and stone in your bones,
the echo of the breezes in each breath,
the storms and sunshine radiating in your heart,
the rise and fall of tides with each pump,
a deep knowing of your original indigenous self.
Close your eyes and feel yourself arriving home
to remember your inheritance
as a child of the land.
And if your travels have brought you
on ancestral pilgrimage,
you know the courage and endurance demanded,
a dance between belonging and being adrift,
you know these weren’t a mere passing through,
but an offering, a reaching into the past,
a carrying of treasure into the future.
Let this blessing open a door
into memory, pause and listen
to the language, the rumblings of earth,
the lulling of lakes, the way stone feels beneath your feet.
Find nourishment in the fruits of the table
the grains kneaded into bread.
Give gratitude for this bit of ground
from which your ancestors emerged.
know its contours as the shape of your dreams
and your most sacred imagination.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
Credits: All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: The Spirits Are Here with Us by Soyinka Rahim from the album The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Version: Tune: A Fig for a Kiss, Words: Kiran Young Wimberly © 2022, from the forthcoming album May We Rise.
Reading of the Night: Vincent Harding, “I Hear Them. . . Calling,” in Callings, ed. James Y. Holloway and Will D. Campbell (New York: Paulist Press, 1974), 31-39. Page 39.
Closing Song: In My Heart is the Road by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Soul’s Slow Ripening: Songs for Celtic Seekers
Closing Blessing: Written by Christine Valters Paintner to companion her book The Love of Thousands : How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness (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.