Passcode: YywEH@5P
You are welcome here…come and worship!
Focus: Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy…As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you. Isaiah 66
Threshold Moment: A Time for Centering
Gathering Music: A Mother’s Love (by Amy Jill Jordan/Steve Mackinnon)
-Michelle Currie
Welcome:
Responsive Call to Worship:
L: We gather together this morning to worship our loving, nurturing God,
All: Who, like a mother, knows us intimately and loves us unconditionally,
L: Who teaches us the way we should go, and comforts us in times of need.
All: Praise God, the Source and Sustainer of life.
Opening Hymn: All Creatures of Our God and King
Invocation: Together, let us pray…
Come, Mother God, come as an enfolding nurturing presence, come
as steadfast love to hold us.
Come, Mother God, come as an enabling strengthening force, come
as love that allows us to find our pathways in life.
Come, Mother God, come as friend and comforter healing our wounds,
walking our way, come as wounded healer to make us whole.
(by Kate McIlhagga)
Lord’s Prayer:
Awakening: The Rose (by Amanda McBroom) -Michelle Currie
Scripture: For Mother, John O’Donohue,
What I learned from My Mother by Julia Kasdorf – Cris Hudson
Sermon: Joy That Lasts Rev. Paula Norbert
Sermon Response: Meditative Instrumental ~ Ave Maria -Michelle Currie
Musical call to Prayer: (two times) Hush now in quiet peace, be still your mind at ease. The Spirit brings re-lease, so wait upon the Lord.
Prayers of the People:
Silent Prayers Pastoral Prayer
Closing Hymn: A Mother’s Prayer (by Keith and Kristin Getty) -Michelle Currie
Benediction “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13)
Go now in the comfort and peace of the One who gave birth to us. Go to give comfort and peace to others. Divine Wisdom guide us as we go forth on Your paths of peace. Amen! Alleluia!
Recessional: Go in Peace
Go in peace and the peace of God be with you this day.
Go in peace and the peace of God be with you always.
celebrate and share the joy. Celebrate new life.
Go in peace and the peace of God be with you always.
Blessing for Mother from John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between us
Mother,
Your voice learning to soothe
Your new child
Was the first home-sound
We hear before we could see.
Your young eyes
Gazing on us
Was the first mirror
Where we glimpsed
What to be seen
Could mean.
Mother,
Your nearness tilled the air,
An umbilical garden for the seeds
Of thought that stirred in our infant hearts.
You nurtured and fostered this space
To root all our quietly gathering intensity
That could grow nowhere else.
Mother,
Formed from the depths beneath your heart,
You know us from the inside out.
No deeds or seas or others
Could ever erase that.
Amen.
What I Learned From My Mother
BY JULIA KASDORF
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
Proverbs 31:15, 17, 20, 25-28
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks
She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her: