Proper 7, Year B: Litany for Hearts Wide Open

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Here is my previous litany from 2018, Year B, Proper 7: Litany for the Desperate

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we are remembering. Re-membering. Putting the body of knowledge back together again. Becoming conscious members once again of a Community. We forget that we are part of the body of God. We forget that our true selves are “hidden with Christ in God.” And that DOESN’T MEAN that our true selves are hidden from us or inaccessible to us. It means we are enfolded in God, God being all around everywhere available. Waiting to be remembered.

(I’m using words to try to express a fairly profound spiritual truth, which is always tricky business.)

My point is: I’m thinking (and learning from many spiritual teachers) that it is our work here to re-member ourselves as parts of Christ/God on earth. And then to live out that essential truth in our thoughts, words, and actions.

And then Saint Paul speaks so beautifully about the paradoxes we are muddling through here on earth, and how we are learning to recognize our true selves among all this contrast. He says: “Our hearts are wide open.” Which I take as a shorthand way of expressing that our hearts are mirroring God’s heart as part of God’s heart. We assume the wide-open-hearted posture of God toward all beings, toward ourselves, toward each other. When we can do this, we’ve come home to our true nature and the world will reverberate with our home-coming.

God, we are here in this realm of contrast, relativity, and duality,
Learning to recognize ourselves -
You in us, us in you.
You flung open your heart to us!

Litany for What Ails Us

This litany follows along with the week's Lectionary passages from Mark 4, Psalms 30 & 130, and Lamentations 3.

God, thank you for showing us over and over, in myriad ways,
That you care for us.

Even as Christ walked the earth in human form,
He healed ailments (1),
Brought life where death seemed imminent (2),
Cured diseases,
Welcomed little children,
Offered food for body and soul.

We are afflicted by so many sorrows and discomforts,
But you know them all.
We are brought low by various circumstances and particulars,
But you care about them all.

We suffer most when we distance ourselves from you.
We suffer most when we forget you.
Out of the depths we cry to you, God. (3)
Nothing about us goes unnoticed by you.

The steadfast love of God never ceases,
Your mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness. (4)

You have taken off our sackcloth and clothed us with joy;
You have turned our mourning into dancing,
So that our souls may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD our God, we will give thanks to you forever. (5)

Amen

 

  1. Mark 5:29,30

  2. Mark 5:41

  3. Psalm 130:1

  4. Lamentations 3:22,23

  5. Psalm 30:11,12