Day of Pentecost (Year A): Litany for Holy Spirit Fire

I'll mostly let Frederick Buechner do the commenting this week. Except to say, the Lectionary is never the wrong thing for the moment.  And to say: Rest in peace George Floyd, who was murdered in a racist act of police brutality earlier this week.

“Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: "Can I believe it all again today?" No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read The New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and. . . great laughter.”

― Frederick Buechner

God, our world is rife with violence and evil
With cruelty, injustice, and materialism.
We need Holy Spirit’s fire
To burn away our unjust systems…

Easter 7 (Year A, Ascension Sunday): Litany for the In-Between

This litany follows the Lectionary readings for the last Sunday before Pentecost, Year A; in particular the account of Christ’s ascension in Acts 1 and his promise of the Spirit as Comforter and Guide. As we live inside this liminal space of Now and Not Yet, of Christ-has-come-and-is-coming from within us, we pray...

Christ, we imagine those first moments after your ascension into heaven
Leaving the disciples behind.
We can imagine and feel their confusion, their sense of loss -
Their loneliness (1).