A Concord Pastor Comments: 3/1/21

3/31/21

Pause for Prayer: HOLY THURSDAY 4/1

Our Humble God by Howard Banks

A song, a prayer for Holy Thursday

On Holy Thursday night at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, we hear in the gospel how Jesus washed the feet of his friends and commanded them to do likewise:

If Ia, therefore, the master and teacher,
have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you,
you should also do.

Today's Pause for Prayer offers three versions of Where Charity and Love Prevail, a hymn sung every year at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.

Where charity and love prevail,
there God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
by love are we thus bound.

With grateful joy and holy fear
His charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
now love him in return.

Forgive we now each other’s faults
as we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
in Christian holiness.

Let strife among us be unknown,
let all contention cease;
Be his the glory that we seek,
be ours his holy peace.

Let us recall that in our midst
dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of his body joined,
we are in Christ made one.

No race or creed can love exclude,
if honored be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
whose Father is the same.

A remarkable choral setting with the composer at the keyboard:

And another musical setting, in Latin, from Taize:

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
(Where there are charity and love, there is God)

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The Paschal Triduum begins...

This link will go live around 6:45 p.m. on Thursday, April 1

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NIGHT PRAYER: Wednesday 3/31

Late have I loved you, Lord...

- St. Augustine

Well, Lord, Lent ends at sundown tomorrow

when Holy Thursday ushers in the the Triduum,

the holiest days of all the days of the year:

Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday

and Easter Sunday...

Not sure I've done a great job with Lent, Lord.

I had good intentions and high hopes back on Ash Wednesday

but maybe I promised you (and myself) too much.

Maybe I should have been more honest about where I was

before making pledges about getting to where I wanted to be...

Maybe I was trying to impress you (or myself)
with promises too big to keep.

If I'd been more modest in my goals and ambition

I might be looking at a better Lenten record today.
If I'd depended more on you and less on me,
I might have been more faithful to my Lenten plans...

But there's no grace in stewing in my failures

and I know you, Lord:
I know you're the God of second chances,

the Lord of new beginnings...

I could just feel bad about the time I wasted and lost
or I can look ahead with resolve
and make the best of the time that's left.

And what's left, Lord?

Well, there's less than hours left in Lent

but then new days of special prayer and grace,

preparing for and celebrating Easter..

So, here's my plan, Lord.

1) I'm going to spend some time

remembering how much I need your mercy...

2) I'm going to spend some time on each of the days ahead,

some time in a quiet place, alone with you,

some time to talk, to pray, just to be with you...

3) I'm going to reflect on "giving up something"

that fills but doesn't feed me

and looking for those things

that nourish my soul and satisfy my heart...

4) And I'm going to find a way in the week ahead

to reach out to those in need

and to give generously

from all you've given me, Lord...

5) And to make the most of the time left to me

between now and Easter

I'm going to join the church in prayer

on each of these most holy days...

Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake

and watch over me while I sleep

that awake, I might keep watch with you

and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.

(Tonight's song is Kathleen Deignan's beautiful setting of

Saint Augustine's prayer, "Late have I loved you, Lord..."

We're never too late to pray, never too late to begin Lent,

we're never too late for God...)

Sero Te Amvi by Kathleen Deignan

(The first three lines in Latin are translated in in the fourth and fifth.)

Sero te amavi,
pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova.
Sero te amavi!
Late have I loved thee,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.

I was searching all around me; you were all within.

I grasped at your beauty everywhere
and longed to have and hold what can but be beheld.
Sero te amavi!

You attracted, I, distracted, did not see
the Giver of all gifts was gracing me.

Sero te amavi,
pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova.
Sero te amavi!
Late have I loved thee,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.

You called, you shouted – piercing through my deafness;
You flashed, you shone – dispelling all my blindness.
Sero te amavi!

You breathed your fragrance on me,
I drew my breath and now I am breathless for thee.
I tasted your sweetness and now I am famished for you –
you touched me; now I'm burning for your peace.
Late have I loved thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new!
I was searching all around me; you were all within.

Sero te amavi! Vero te amavi…
(Late have I loved Thee! Truly have I loved thee...)

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Pause for Prayer: SPY WEDNESDAY 3/31

Just about everyone, believer and non-believer alike, identifies Judas with betrayal. Wednesday of Holy Week is called Spy Wednesday because on this day at mass we hear the story of Judas traitorous scheming.

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over... On the evening of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.”

Betrayal is an ugly word...

Have I ever been betrayed?

Have I betrayed another?

What wound, what scars

has betrayal left in my life

and in the lives of those whom I've betrayed?

Fr. Aidan Kavanagh spoke of Holy Thursday as

the night in which Jesus was betrayed

- by the worst in us all...

That's a discomforting perspective on Judas' betrayal.

It's easy to point an accusing finger at Judas,

not so easy to accuse ourselves...

On the night Jesus was betrayed, Judas stood in for all of us

who have betrayed God and our neighbor.

Then Jesus, innocent and without sin,

carried on his shoulders

and suffered in his wounds

the burden of our infidelities, our sins,

our betrayals...

On the Cross,

Jesus is the Lamb of God

who takes away the sins of the world...

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:

have mercy on us!

Here's a very contemporary setting of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) by Rufus Wainwright. The opening sounds drill into our hearts and the depths of our betrayals: right where God's mercy meets us: right in our sinfulness, where we most need his healing love and the gift of his peace. This song might help us image Judas plotting against Jesus and help us look more honestly at our own betrayals. But the wrenching music doesn't leave us in Judas' despair or our own remorse - it moves us beyond to the consolation of the One who takes our sins away, and finally, the music resolves in great peace: dona nobis pacem...

And Samuel Barber's much gentler setting of the same text,
performed by King's College Choir

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:
have mercy on us.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:

have mercy on us.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:
grant us peace.

PAUSE for PRAYER...

With the light of your truth, Lord, open my heart

and help me be honest in seeing how I've betrayed you:

how I've betrayed your love...

how I've taken you and your mercy for granted...

how I've presumed upon your forgiveness...

how I've betrayed you in thought, word and deed,

out of loyalty to the crowd, the fad, myself...

With the light of your truth, Lord, open my heart

and help me be honest in seeing:

how I've betrayed my family, my friends, my colleagues...

how I've betrayed those around me
at work, at school, in my parish, in my community...

how I've betrayed my neighbor with gossip and half-truths...

how I've betrayed the poor and hungry
with my greedy and wasteful ways...

how I've betrayed the truth with my lies and cheating...

With the light of your truth, Lord, open my heart

and help me be honest in seeing how I've betrayed myself:

how I've been dishonest with and about
the person you made me to be...

how I've betrayed my given word, the promises I've made...

how I've betrayed the best in me
by choosing the cheap and tawdry...

how I've betrayed your image within me,

the divine image in which you created me...

With the light of your truth, Lord, open my heart

and help me be honest in seeing how, with Judas,

I betray and hand you over

for money, for prestige,

   in fear, out of pride,
   in selfishness and presumption,
    and in my vain, self-serving efforts
      to win the praise of others...

Forgive me my betrayals, Lord,

and help me forgive those who have betrayed me...

Help me stand in the light of your truth, Lord,

and show me my need for your mercy and pardon...

Amen.

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3/30/21

NIGHT PRAYER: Tuesday 3/30

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

- Psalm 86

I know you forgive sinners, Lord,
and I know how slow I can be

to admit to my sins,

to acknowledge that I'm a sinner,

a sinner in need of your mercy and pardon...

And I know you're a judge, Lord, a just judge,
a merciful judge, a kind judge,

an insightful, wise and loving judge

- but a judge nonetheless...

And I know that all I say and do

and all I fail to say and do,
and all my thoughts and schemes and fantasies,
all these are subject to your judgment,

your just, merciful, wise, kind and loving judgment...

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

And I know, Lord, that I minimize my sins:

I make them smaller than they are
until they seem to disappear

or count as nothing worth the counting...

And I know I often blame the folks I've hurt,

the ones I've failed to love,
by pointing to their weaknesses and faults

- while ignoring all my own...

And I know I sometimes find ways to think and then believe

that for some reason, Lord,
your laws simply don't apply to me

- and so I give myself a pass,

a Get Out of Jail Free card...

And I know I sometimes convince myself that

why I do the wrong thing
somehow makes a wrong thing right and justifies my deed...

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

And I often presume upon your mercy, Lord,

assuming that it's there for me

without my ever even having said - "I'm sorry..."
without my taking time to count the times I've failed to love,

failed to listen to your word and to do what you ask of me,

failed to turn away from anything and everything

that turns my heart away from you...

And I so easily absolve myself of my failings
by comparing them to the greater sins of others,
forgetting that you judge me

- not in comparison with my neighbor, but only
by the measure of your command
that I love you above all things
and love my neighbor as myself...

In making light of my own faults, in pardoning myself,
I forget that you're my judge, Lord,

that my every word and deed
are subject to your word, your law and your call

that I live as one you love...

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

I know you forgive sinners, Lord,

but how will I know your mercy
if I don't name my need for it

and pray you look kindly on one like me
whose sins and pride cry out for your forgiveness?

Let me not presume upon your gift, your pardon, Lord,
a gift I don't deserve, a gift I cannot merit,
but a gift I so much need...

Have mercy on me, God, for you have promised
to be good and kind to all who call upon you...

Hear my prayer and help me face and name my sins

that I might open up my heart to your forgiveness
and in finding it, turn away from all the ways
that I've offended you and those around me...

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

In the quiet of my prayer tonight, Lord,

give me strength to stand in your light,
the light of truth that shines upon my sins...

In the quiet of my prayer tonight, Lord,

give me courage I need
to look squarely and honestly at my failings and my faults...

In the quiet of my prayer tonight, Lord,

help me call upon your name
to seek pardon of my sins and the mercy of your grace...

In the stillness of this evening, Lord,

help me find your goodness,
your forgiveness and your abounding kindness...

Let me see how the gift of your mercy

is the only path to peace...

Forgive me, Lord,

and make me quick to forgive others

- and grateful when they forgive me...

Have mercy on me, O God,

for you are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness

to all who call upon you...

Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake

and watch over me while I sleep

that awake, I might keep watch with you

and asleep, rest in your peace...

Create In Me by Jay Stocker