Indigenous Prayer After Communion

 Prayer After Communion                             from the Liturgy of St. John’s, Red Lake, MN

Presider      Let us pray. 

All              Jesus Christ, our Leader, our Brother, 

YOU are Son of the Creator.

Today we became your children; 

today we became your grandchildren. 

We will live as you have taught us. 

We will follow your commandments. 

Watch over us. 

Speak to us from the trees, from the grass and herbs, from the breeze, from the passing rain, from the passing thunder and the deep waters. 

Before us there is beauty, behind us there is beauty. 

Allow us to walk a long life in happiness completed in beauty. AMEN.

-- from the liturgy of St. John's Red Lake, MN, found in A Liturgy for the National Indigenous Day of Prayer from the Anglican Church of Canada, found at  https://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/nidp-liturgy.pdf 

Iroquois Eucharistic Prayer Source Material (Roman Catholic)

To Our Creator for all of Creation, I give thanks

Our God is with you.
And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We have lifted them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right and just.

We give thanks, Our loving God, to the people, our brothers and sisters, with goodness and health;
We give thanks to Earth, our Mother, who supports the people,
To the plants, our medicines, which grow on Earth;
To the waters that flow with life blood and nourish the plants and people;
To the air, especially the winds, that allow us to breathe;
To the trees that purify the air;
To the animals, our four-legged brothers and sisters, who also sustain us;
To the birds, our winged brothers and sisters, who sing to the Creator;
To the sun, our elder brother, who warms Earth and provides light;
To the moon, our grandmother, who guides the people and the cycles of life;
To the stars who provide us direction at night.
To all of creation we give thanks.

And to You, O God, Who gives them all to us, Who abides in them all, And who sustains us all through them. May we forever remember the interconnectedness and equality of all creation And our place in the Great Cycle of Life.

With gentleness and unity in body, mind and spirit, becoming one in harmony and balance with the universe, we give You thanks as we pray…

-- adapted from an Iroquois prayer, found at https://www.dominicancenter.org/indigenous-peoples-day-liturgy/

Image: Flag of the Iroquois Confederacy

Easter

Remembering his ancient heritage
Of broken flowers and winter's way with them,
The Wind moves with a sound of faint rage
Through leaf and lily stem.

Remembering the voices that are stilled,
The heads that shone like jonquils in the sun,
The eager hands that long with dust are filled,
We wake and know that the months of cold are done.

O Eucharist of promise unrevealed,
Hope yearly slain and hunger never fed!
Out of our hearts by the new sun unsealed,
Now troop the rising dead.

They reach their pleading hands to the shining crowd,
And years of sleep blow like a mist around them.
Pale and humble are they who were happy and proud,
They are gone in a mist, they are lost before we have found them.

--Jessica Nelson North (1891-1988), poet, novelist, children's book author, and editor.

The Last Supper

They are assembled, astonished and disturbed

round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,
and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,
leaving and passing by them like a stranger.
The loneliness of old comes over him
which helped mature him for his deepest acts;
now will he once again walk through the olive grove,
and those who love him still will flee before his sight.

To this last supper he has summoned them,
and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)
their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves
upon his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter, frightened, round the supper table
searching for an escape. But he is present
everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour.

Here they are gathered, wondering and deranged,
Round Him, who wisely doth Himself inclose,
And who now takes Himself away, estranged,
From those who owned Him once, and past them flows.
He feels the ancient loneliness to-day
That taught Him all His deepest acts of love;
Now in the olive groves He soon will rove,
And these who love Him all will flee away.

To the last supper table He hath led.
As birds are frightened from a garden-bed
By shots, so He their hands forth from the bread
Doth frighten by His word: to Him they flee;
Then flutter round the table in their fright
And seek a passage from the hall. But He
Is everywhere, like dusk at fall of night.


--Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Austrian poet and novelist

Image: The Last Supper, by Vladimir Zuzurin

Lenten Communion Invitation from Iona

Like a tent in the wilderness 

the table of God stands open and ready 

as a place of sanctuary and safety, 

of hospitality and healing. 

So come, 

all you who are tired and travel-stained, 

footsore and famished; 

come with your fellow travellers 

and find companionship and comfort; 

for here, Jesus – 

who knows what it is to wander, watch and wrestle 

in desert places – 

waits to meet us and welcome us in, 

offering us rest and restoration, 

solace and strength, 

for the journey still to come.

-- Pat Bennet, from Walking the Wilderness: A Communion Liturgy for the Season of Lent (pdf purchased from Wild Goose Publications)

Guests, Not Hosts

In the beginning, 

our very first story about ourselves ends 
with the reminder we were born hungry,
body and soul:

On the day before God rested, at the dawn 
of time, God granted the newborn humanity
every herb and fruit tree for our food,
sprung from the same soil
as we were. God invites us all
to a seat at the wedding table of creation-
creation we are bound to
creation we are bound to care for,
into which we ourselves are woven
as a part of the whole. There is
one table, and it is the altar
and sacred precincts
of life itself, insisting on our unity
in shared need for nourishment.

And so it is that we are reminded
in our body’s hunger, and by our food,
from the juiciest boredom-plucked berry
and truffles worth their weight in gold,
to bologna with spelled-out first and second names,
that all the sustenance we receive
is provided from this fragile planet
by God’s tender loving-kindness.

And so it is the soul’s hunger
draws us around God’s holy table
for a foretaste of heaven,
bearing our offerings from God’s creation
formed by human hands, yes,
but sacrament at the invocation
of the finger of God in our midst.
It’s a wonder
our hair doesn’t stand on end.

We are fed 
not through our words
but by holy gift
that calls us into God’s own unity.

You can have communion,
or you can have competition,
but not both. 
We share with each other
what is not ours to give 
or take away.

There can be no jostling or jockeying
for the best place at this table, just rejoicing
that all are invited,
that there is room to spare,
that we are guests, not hosts.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire. This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 25, 2022. 

A Found Poem

Like everybody else, I bowed my head
during the consecration of the bread and wine
lifted my eyes to the raised host and raised chalice,
believed (whatever it means) that a change occurred.
I went to the altar rails and received the mystery
on my tongue, returned to my place, shut my eyes fast, made
an act of thanksgiving, opened my eyes and felt
time starting up again.
There was never a scene
when I had it out with myself or with an other.
The loss of faith occurred off stage. Yet I cannot
disrespect words like ‘thanksgiving’ or ‘host’
or even ‘communion wafer.’ They have an undying
pallor and draw, like well water far down.

– Seamus Heaney (1939- 2013) Northern Irish poet, Nobel Prize winner, Oxford Professor of Poetry, and one of the pre-eminent poets of the 20th century 

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
This brown paper bag of peaches
We bought from the boy
At the bend in the road where we turned toward 

Signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
From sweet fellowship in the bins, 

Comes nectar at the roadside, succulent 

Peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
Comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
To carry within us an orchard, to eat
Not only the skin, but the shade,
Not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
The fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into 

The round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
As if death were nowhere
In the background; from joy
To joy to joy, from wing to wing,
From blossom to blossom to
Impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

-- Li-Young Lee, from Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor

The Paradox of the Cross and the Eucharist

The cultic division between the religious and the profane is potentially abolished in faith in the Christ who was profaned by crucifixion. Thus the Eucharist, like the meals held by Jesus with “sinners and publicans,” must also be celebrated with the unrighteous, those who have no rights and the godless from the “highways and hedges” of society, in all their profanity, and should no longer be limited, as a religious sacrifice, to the inner circle of the devout, to those who are members of the same denomination.  

The Christian Church can reintroduce the divisions between the religious and the profane and between those who are within an those are without, only at the price of losing its own identity as the Church of the crucified Christ …. 

It is the godless, forced out by the church, who recognized the inner distinction between the reality of the cross on Golgotha and its cultic representation within the church. Thus for the faith which believe believes in and celebrates the representation of the crucified Christ as a reality in the sacrifice of the mass, it is also indispensable to be aware once again of this inner distinction. 

 

--Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 44-45. 

Gloria

The whole world is full of glory:

Here is the glory of created things,
the earth and the sky,
the sun and the moon,
the stars and the vast expanses:

Here is the fellowship
with all that was created,
the air and the wind,
cloud and rain,
sunshine and snow:

All life like the bubbling of a flowing river
and the dark currents of the depths of the sea
is full of glory.

The white waves of the breath of peace
on the mountains,
and the light striding
in the distances of the sea.

The explosion of the dawn wood-pigeons
and the fie of the sunset doves,
sheep and cattle at their grazing,
the joy of countless creeping things
as they blossom,
spider and ant
of nimble disposition
proclaim the riches of goodness.

The curse of life is to err.

The meadows and the yellow corn,
the slopes of the grape clusters,
the sweetness of the apple tree's fruit:

The provision on the tray
of the warm comely seasons
a part of each hard beginning:

The discretion that insists on respect
for all our partners —
all the creatures of our day
and our life in the world for ever.

Every land, every language,
became bread and wine:

Every labour,
railway stations,
bus stops
at the beginning of journeys,
every aviation:

Every art
under its own fig tree —
the vision of a man and a maid.
Lest treating
the misunderstanding between man
and his world, becomes
a giving way to meaninglessness:

And perchance we shall see the dancing
in the halls of the atoms
and the meddling with their temperament
as an art of the soul.

The coal in the bowels of the vale,
the clear water of the valleys
and the energy of machines' atmosphere:

The secret of fresh airs —
old meanings a cold well:

The delicate breeze
like the sun on the seagull's belly
awakening wings

All beneficiaries
(unless we spit the original terror of sin on it all)
resounded the Gloria of praise.

--Euros Bowen (1904-1988), Welsh poet and Anglican priest, translated from the Welsh by Cynthia and Saunders Davies.

Thanksgiving With No Thought of Ourselves

"Above all, at the Holy Communion let us not only seek blessings, but rise on the wings of worship to the throne of the eternal God. It is a thousand pities that our reformers put the Prayer of Humble Access where they did. No doubt it expresses the humiliation which must follow on the vision of God to which we are summoned in the Sanctus; but it cuts short the moment of exultation and brings us to the Act of Consecration in the mood of suppliants rather than in exultant adoration of our Holy Father, the Almighty and Everlasting God. But there the great words are; let us take care to mean them with profound intention and revel in their praise. Let us rise again to the sublimity of the Gloria in Excelsis. Most of our thanksgivings are for mercies bestowed on us; but here is a thanksgiving with no thought of ourselves at all: “We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.” 


-- William Temple, 110th Archbishop of Canterbury, whose feast day is today, from Fellowship With God, chapter 5, "The Eternal God," 1920.

Angels in the Air

The whole air about us is filled with angels. 

-- St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Church Father, Archbishop of Constantinople, preacher, and saint, speaking of what happens during the Eucharist.

His Divine Liturgy can be found here.

Easter Communion

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), English Jesuit poet and priest

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?

The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from the priest's hand,
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

Bread of Heaven (based on John 6)

O Bread of heaven,
come down.
Come down and fill us with your Spirit—
for your Spirit satisfies like no other.
We hunger and thirst for you this morning
and long to be nurtured
in your love and forgiveness.
So we come to this sacred time and place,
where our hungers are finally and fully satisfied
as only your bread can do.
We will wait and listen
for your leading in this hour.

Amen.

--Adapted from The Abingdon Worship Annual 2009, © 2008 Abingdon Press.

Gathering Prayer

Gathered round a table
is where Jesus so often met people...

... gathered round the table of Matthew,
the table of Zacchaeus,
the table of Simon,
the table of Peter,
the table of Lazarus and Martha and Mary,
the tables of Joanna and Susannah...

... gathered round a table
where he could see people face to face,
listen to their stories, share their laughter.

And here,
we are gathered around a table
because this is the place where Jesus has promised to be
for those who want to meet him.

So accept his invitation
and feel welcome at this table.
Jesus Christ,
who here offers us a foretaste of eternal life,
invites us to be his guests.

-- from "A Liturgy for Holy Communion" in A Wee Worship Book, Fifth Incarnation, by John L. Bell and Graham Maule for the Iona Community, 2015

After Communion

Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?
    Why should I call Thee Friend, Who art my Love?
    Or King, who art my very spouse above?
Or call Thy Sceptre upon my heart Thy Rod?
    Lo now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod;
For Thou has lit Thy flame in me a clod,
    Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
    What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now has called me friend? how will it be
    When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
    Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast;
How ill it be with me in time of love?

--Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), English poet and supporter of the Oxford Movement, from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, 1994

The Altar

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears, 

Made of a heart and cemented with tears; 

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame; 

No workman's tool hath touch'd the same. 

A HEART alone 

Is such a stone, 

As nothing but 

Thy pow'r doth cut. 

Wherefore each part 

Of my hard heart 

Meets in this frame 

To praise thy name. 

That if I chance to hold my peace, 

These stones to praise thee may not cease. 

Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine, 

And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine. 

-- George Herbert (1593-1633), Anglican poet and priest

Crossing

My right hand--
when I cross myself--
patterns me with Presence
--Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost--
here in my head, my heart
(where I need it most),
my left side and my right.
Thus crossed before the cross,
I am signed both with
death and life,
the intersection of
darkness with light.

But with that crossing
in whatever holy place,
my dextrous right hallows
its sinister fellows
Through Grace
rather than competing,
the agile blesses
the awkward part,
the strong (the one
that feeds me when I'm eating)
exalts the weak.

At Eucharist, or at table
for any sustaining meal,
the food I manage with
my right hand also feeds
the part less able
on its own to spoon or speak
for its own needs
So here I kneel,
left hand cupped under right,
taking for both enough bread
for the journey,
for each enough strength
for the week.

--Luci Shaw (1928-), American poet and Episcopal layperson, from What the Light Was Like, 2006

Conversion account, from "The Everlasting Mercy"

"The water's going out to sea
And there's a great moon calling me;
But there's a great sun calls the moon,
And all God's bells will carol soon
For joy and glory and delight
Of someone coming home to-night."
Out into darkness, out to night,
My flaring heart gave plenty light,
So wild it was there was no knowing
Whether the clouds or stars were blowing;
Blown chimney pots and folk blown blind,
And puddles glimmering in my mind,
And chinking glass from windows banging,
And inn signs swung like people hanging,
And in my heart the drink unpriced,
The burning cataracts of Christ.

I did not think, I did not strive,
The deep peace burnt my me alive;
The bolted door had broken in,
I knew that I had done with sin.
I knew that Christ had given me birth
To brother all the souls on earth,
And every bird and every beast
Should share the crumbs broke at the feast.

O glory of the lighted mind.
How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind
 The station brook, to my new eyes,
Was babbling out of Paradise,
The waters rushing from the rain
Were singing Christ has risen again.
I thought all earthly creatures knelt
From rapture of the joy I felt.
The narrow station-wall's brick ledge,
The wild hop withering in the hedge,
The lights in huntsmans' upper storey
Were parts of an eternal glory,
Were God's eternal garden flowers.
I stood in bliss at this for hours.

O glory of the lighted soul.
The dawn came up on Bradlow Knoll,
The dawn with glittering on the grasses,
The dawn which pass and never passes.
"It's dawn," I said, "And chimney's smoking,
And all the blessed fields are soaking.'
It's dawn, and there's an engine shunting;
And hounds, for huntsman's going hunting.
It's dawn, and I must wander north
Along the road Christ led me forth."

-- John Masefield (1878-1967), English poet and poet laureate, from "The Everlasting Mercy" (1911)