Lent 2 2024

Blessed is the Lord who forgiveth all our sin.

God's mercy endureth forever.

Let us give thanks to God for all the gifts freely bestowed upon us, for the beauty and wonder of your creation in earth and sky and sea.

We thank you, Lord, for all that is gracious in the lives of women and men revealing the image of Christ.

We thank you, Lord, for daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends.

We thank you, Lord, for minds to think and hearts to love and hands to serve.

We thank you, Lord, for health and strength to work and leisure to rest and play.

We thank you, Lord, for the brave and courageous who are patient and suffering and faithful in adversity.

We thank you, Lord, for all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice.

We thank you, Lord, for the communion of saints in all times and places.

We thank you, Lord.

Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To you be praise and glory, with you, O Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.

Let's continue to pray together.

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

This is the first and the greatest commitment.

And the second is like unto it.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commitments hang all the law and the prophets.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

O God whose glory it is always to have mercy.

Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word, Jesus Christ, your Son, who with you in the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God forever and ever.

Amen.

A person who is faithful has abundant blessings, while one is in a hurry to be rich will not go unpunished.

The one who shows favoritism is no good.

Over a piece of bread will a woman or man do wrong.

The person with a covetous eye hastens towards riches and does not know want is on the way.

The woman or man who rebukes another person will find favour afterward, more than one who flatters with the tongue.

Anyone who robs a mother or father and says, That is no transgression, is a companion to a vandal.

A greedy person stirs up strife, while a woman or man who trusts in the God who provides will be well provisioned.

The word of the Lord.

Neither is the Lord's face hidden from them.

My praise is of God in the great assembly.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek the Lord shall give praise.

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to God.

For sovereignty belongs to the Lord.

To the Lord alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship.

My soul shall live for God, my descendants shall serve the Lord.

They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn.

Honor widows who are really widows.

If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show devotion to their own family and make repayment to their parents, for this is pleasing in God's sight.

And whoever does not provide for their own, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The word of the Lord.

And they saw some of Jesus' disciples were eating bread with common hands, meaning unwashed.

For the Pharisees and all Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands as fists, observing the tradition of the elders.

Also, in coming from the market without washing, they do not eat anything.

And there are also many other traditions that they have taken on, washing cups, pots, and bronze kettles, and beds.

Now the Pharisees and the biblical scholars asked Jesus, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with common hands?

And Jesus said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And in vain do they worship me, teaching human teaching as commandments, abandoning the commandment of God and taking on human tradition.

Then Jesus said to them, Well, do you all spurn the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition?

For Moses said, Honor your father, honor your mother and your father, and the one who curses mother or father will certainly be put to death.

But you all say that if anyone tells mother or father Corbin, an offering to God is whatever of mine that would have supported you, then you all no longer permit doing anything for a mother or father, making void the word of God through your tradition you've handed on, and you do many things like this.

Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

There is nothing outside a woman or man that by going into them has the power to defile.

Rather, what comes out of a person is what defiles a person.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own flock, a shape of your own fold, a center of your own redeeming.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Okay, so Lent is traditionally colored purple, right?

Does anybody know the older color than purple?

The older color is burlap, right?

Burlap being a symbol of fasting.

So it's actually older than purple.

Now, where does red fit in?

Actually, nowhere.

But I would like you to know that the prayer book actually does not have rubrics for the seasons.

That's human tradition.

So why am I wearing red today?

The same reason many of you are that it is Heart Awareness Day.

That was on Friday, and our D-OK is inviting us to that today.

And again, red may not fit the season, but it actually fits the scripture relatively well.

So just a word about heart awareness first from the gospel.

Jesus calls the biblical scholars hypocrites.

Now, we have a strong understanding of hypocrisy that actually comes out of French from the 12th century, that hypocrisy is about feigning valor or feigning some sort of piety, false piety, in order to attract social approval or in order to advance in esteem.

That's not what I meant at the time of Jesus, though.

A hypocrite was somebody who wore a mask.

That is, any stage actor was a hypocrite.

And it's interesting to think about heart awareness just for one second, as hypocrisy, is that many of us don't even realize we are wearing a mask of an unhealthy heart.

So here's your public service announcement.

I'm an ultra-long distance athlete and I have heart disease.

Being vegan didn't fix it.

I'm on a statin at the age of 40, started one at the age of 43 because I have more plaque in my heart than 90% of men my age as an ultra-endurance athlete.

So, PSA, check on your heart health.

Because our body can mask a lot that's going on.

By the way, is it wrong to wear a mask?

Actually, it can be pretty fun, right?

I mean, we just got through with Marty Gras.

Many of you wore masks or on floats or went to a parade.

That's a lot of fun.

But here we hear Jesus actually calling out in the scripture today that some masks aren't always healthy.

Specifically, what's happening here?

Some biblical scholars are really concerned that Jesus' disciples are not observing their traditions.

And they say this really interestingly.

They say to Jesus, who's their rabbi, their teacher, their master, their judge, how come your people aren't following the traditions?

That's actually not a dig on them.

That's a dig against him.

If you were a better teacher, your students would act right.

Anybody in the room have kids?

Yeah, this is like one of the most vulnerable things that can happen as a parent.

This belief that if we were better parents, better parents, our kids would never make a mistake.

If we were better parents, our kids would have a slavish work ethic and they'd all go to MIT, if you like that school.

We all know M race better.

Anyway, we would all pick this particular school that would be the bulwark of success.

And if you've had kids, I mean, maybe that was your story.

It's just not been mine.

And of course, what we understand is that there's something really difficult about our kids not living up to social expectations.

And I can tell you something you already know.

Because parenting is so vulnerable, because the way our kids act in public, we've decided as a reflection on who we are.

There's very little incentive to be vulnerable about our struggles in parenting.

I'm not above this, but I'll tell you, I've got a difficult kid.

And I remember sharing with folks semi-openly, because I just couldn't help myself.

I mean, parenting is a desert in the teenage years.

Sometimes younger, it starts, talking about a struggle with my kid.

And somebody replied to me in a very sweet way, oh, our son was difficult too.

You know, back in high school, he was making a C in a class, but he turned around and got an A.

And I thought, C, that would be a gift.

A C would be a gift from God.

Right?

And these are things that we sometimes do, not because we're evil, low-down, dirty hypocrites, but because sometimes we're afraid not to have the mask on.

The truth is, we give our kids roots and we give them wings, and I find this helpful, we give them wings so they can fly away, right?

This is really important, but we give them we give them roots as well, and we all know this that our kids are not us.

So why we've decided to act like their equivalences, I don't know.

And why we've decided that when somebody says, I'm having a hard time with my child, we should critique them or give them strategies that frankly made our own children miserable, I have no idea.

You ever find yourself doing that?

Solving somebody else's parenting problems because you know better and your own kid didn't respond to it.

If we're honest, I put that mask on sometimes.

I put that mask on sometimes.

The question is, when we do that, when we get up on the stage of parenting or how to tell somebody else how to take care of their elderly parents, it's not that we're evil, it's just that we're on stage and not in community with each other.

I don't know, uh, you know, again, I say I've had a difficult kid, and because of where I get to sit, sometimes people tell me in confidentiality things about their own kids, and I'll tell you there's more than 11 of them right now in the room.

And you'd never know who they are.

I I get to.

I get to because people have told me.

And what an opportunity for our community to say, oh, me too.

Me too.

Or, hey, my kid looks really put together.

I know that.

I bit my nails for 15 years.

I mean, I don't know why we're afraid to do that as a resurrected community.

Except I know what happens when we do it outside the doors and we get judged.

So I think one of our opportunities about Lent is giving up some of the masks that we wear.

Some of the masks that we wear.

Again, not all of us are called to be parents, but probably all of us have had to think about what to do with our elderly parents or siblings.

I mean, I'm old enough that I've been involved in those decisions.

And sometimes because those decisions are so difficult and stressful, we'd like to act like we've made the perfect one outwardly, but inside removing life support from your parent, deciding that memory care is the most viable option.

These are not easy decisions.

They're not easy.

And I'd like you to know this, because I didn't grow up hearing this in church.

Neither is being married.

And these are things that we don't always err well.

We sometimes say, this is the gospel, so it's easy and right.

And I have actually never found the gospel to be easy.

Not once.

In fact, I found the gospel to be harder than social expectation.

I found it to be more right.

But I've also found it to be more difficult.

And so here is perhaps an opportunity we have before us, whether we're talking about how we care for our parents or our kids or the difficulties we find in our marriage, not to air all our problems on the table, but also not to put a quick mask on when somebody else chooses to.

The narrative that marriage is a gift from God and therefore will be the most delightful thing you've ever had, that lasts two years.

If that long.

Two years.

I didn't grow up in church hearing that marriage is really difficult.

I didn't.

Did you all know that marriage is really difficult?

Because there's this other person that you so often think they must think like me, and then they surprise you every day that they don't.

And not always in good ways.

This is what hypocrisy is often like.

Not that we wear a mask for evil, but that we choose to mask who we are.

Now, the Pharisees and biblical scholars, they talk to this stuff about traditions.

And look, we all know the traditions are pretty nice.

It's nice to have manners, like please and think you are really lovely, and don't eat with a knife in your hand, right?

Because in the Middle Ages that meant you might kill the person across the street from you at the dinner table, right?

So we have manners, and here's Jesus reminding folks hey, manners are about social minimums, but they don't result in community maximums.

And he calls these particular people out.

In fact, all the scriptures call people out today for observing manners and not treating their own family well.

So that word korbin, it means an offering.

In Hebrew, it actually sort of means to draw near to.

So it's hard to say whether it means, the rabbis are split on this, when we give offerings is when we draw near to God.

Or offerings are like nice things that encourage God to draw near to us.

And in this particular passage, and this is, by the way, this doesn't map to what we're doing, but I'm going to say that clearly in just a second.

There's a tradition that's happening where people keep in mind their parents live in the home with them more often than not.

It's not like today when you move for work.

So we have a totally different social structure now, is that it's really important to hear that.

If your elderly parents do not live in your home, that's because culture has changed.

But that's not a dig against you.

In this story, people say, look, I've got$20,000 to take care of dad.

I'm going to give it to the temple.

And good luck, dad.

And whose money was that?

It was probably dad's, anyway.

So they're giving their parents' long-term care insurance to the church to make a modern bridge and saying, hope you enjoy life on your own debt.

And they're doing that as an offering to God, and Jesus is saying, God is not attracted to that.

But it's not enticing that God will draw close to you because you're not taking care of your own family.

Nor are you drawing close to God by abandoning your family.

This starts to get really tricky if you have a family member that's an alcoholic or a drug addict.

Because I will tell you there's a point when no, I will not continue to subsidize you, is an offering to God.

If you have a family member in this position, you probably have some understanding of this.

And it's hard because sometimes we hear the scripture and say, well, I gave up on my drug addict brother, and now the scripture's telling me I have to continue to bankroll them.

That's not what the scriptures say.

So we just want to be really clear.

There's a lot of nuance here.

And putting your parents in a memory care unit is not this, because you're paying for that.

This is about neglecting to take care of your parents in any way, and then claiming that that's an offering to God.

I don't have a modern-day equivalent of that.

I don't.

What I do have a thought about is that often we do have conventions socially about traditions and manners and offerings being pleasing to God when in fact we're abandoning our own family members.

So look, I'm just going to share with you a couple of these.

In the Anglican prayer book, we call this the Lord's table.

This is good to know.

In the Anglican Rite, this is the Lord's table where you draw close for nourishment for your spiritual journey.

That's the rite from our Anglican heritage.

Sometimes we call it an altar.

In fact, in our prayer book, it's often called an altar, mainly because we didn't use the Anglican Rite.

We used the Scottish Rite, which is why there's an X on the flag.

In the Scottish Rite, don't just think of people with green turbans riding around in cars.

The Scottish Rite is very much more of the Catholic, Anglo-Catholic tradition.

So it's an altar on which a sacrifice is made.

That being Jesus, right, to restore you from a state of sin.

Again, in the Anglican heritage, it's a table that God wants to nourish you from.

I'm not saying one's right and the other's wrong.

I just want us to be aware of this.

Many of you Episcopalians from birth don't have the baggage I have.

Part of the baggage I have from a young person in the evangelical traditions is if somebody is not doing the right thing, sacrifice your relationship on the altar to God.

So if you have a friend who all of a sudden comes out and is gay, you should cut ties with them.

Because they might try to corrupt.

This is so funny, right?

As if somebody can make you gay.

But this is how we learned growing up.

So-and-so is gay, they're going to try to convert you to be gay.

So that means you should walk away.

Put them on the altar to God and leave them behind.

If you have a friend that's a woman and thinks she's called the ministry, let's sweet and I'll put her on the altar to God.

Walk away because she might corrupt you.

Because if you let women be ministers, what would you do next?

I'm trying to pick the easy ones.

But hopefully, we're also aware that this happens very much at the partisan level as well.

If you're a Christian, you most must vote blue or red.

Why?

Usually because of one single issue.

I don't know if you know this, that was a strategy that was calculated in the late 60s and 70s and it worked.

We've turned politics into a single issue discussion.

All Christians must vote pick your color.

If I'm honest, usually it's red.

In the tradition I grew up, you had to vote red.

And I'm just gonna say, in the tradition I grew up in, you had to vote red because of being pro-life.

It's an interesting phrase, isn't it?

Pro-life.

I hope you know that that was calculated.

Pro-life versus pro-choice.

There's a different frame, which is pro-women's ability to choose.

Women's inability to choose.

I don't want to tell you my position on that single issue, but what's very interesting in the partisan world is that folks have put forth candidates who don't embody any of their religious values because of one social issue.

What I appreciate about Episcopalians is we tend not to be single issue voters.

So I'm not telling us that we need to vote red or blue.

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying when we make a single issue candidate, I'm afraid we're doing exactly what Jesus is calling out today.

Particularly when we do this and say all of our hope is in human being X.

I don't know if you've read the scriptures.

Our hope is not in any particular human being except Jesus the Christ.

Our hope is in God working through people and being embodied in people even imperfectly.

That's what our Christian hope is about.

It's not in a particular candidate or in a particular election.

I will probably remind you of this as we get closer to November so that we don't despair.

Because boy, this doesn't look like a great year, does it?

I think when we get so behind a particular, one particular mask, whether that's a single issue in voting, or that's in a tradition that says everything in church must be pure and proper and silent in order to be holy.

Like kids shouldn't make noise and there shouldn't be service animals.

And hey, if the organ has a flat note, we should fire the organist.

And if the preacher keeps on going like he's doing right now, maybe we should get another one.

When we start to make things flat, I wonder if we don't fall under the same situation as these folks.

Whether you're an athlete or a parent or at your own job.

They tell people to take a leap of action.

Do the right thing whether you feel like it or not.

And the feelings may come later.

This is what they say.

The church I grew up in said, well, in order to not be a hypocrite, you'd better feel 100% right before you do the thing.

And if you don't feel 100% right, it didn't count.

Righteousness counts whether you feel like it or not.

This is really important.

Righteousness counts whether you feel like it or not.

And so this link, if you find yourself thinking, boy, I don't always feel in love with my kid.

Welcome to parenting.

Because love isn't born out in how we feel, it's born out in the commitments we follow through on.

I don't always feel in love with my spouse.

Admission, I don't always feel in love with my spouse.

The reason we're celebrating 20 years this year is because we said to hell with our feelings, we're in this together.

By the way, that gets the feelings to come back, right?

Because like year 10, there weren't a lot of feelings, to be honest.

Right?

Maybe it was year seventh for you.

I don't know.

But this is our reminder here.

Don't we don't need to feel guilty or ashamed that we don't always feel like doing the right thing.

We do it because it's right.

We do it because it's right.

And in the middle of things like traditions and manners, we sure could put our mask on, but I think instead it's much better to say, you know, I don't feel like doing this, but I'm committed to it.

Because you're my parent, because you're my kid.

Because I go to church with you.

Because I don't know you, but God does.

That's how we take care of our family.

So I don't think it's wrong to be a hypocrite.

I don't think it's wrong.

Sometimes we act our way into the right feelings.

I think the question is, which mask do we wear?

And why are we wearing it?

To get approval.

To say, oh, this is really hard, but at least my kid's not as bad as yours.

If you're a parent, you said that.

Right?

Is that why we're doing it when instead we could say, boy, your kid does seem to have a harder time than mine.

How can I help?

So let's not think about giving up masks.

Let's just think about evaluating the ones we wear and maybe making better choices about which ones we put on tomorrow.

Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.

We believe in one God, the Father, the All.

Help us set our minds on you.

Your world is aching for healing.

Make us good stewards of your creation, Lord.

Grant our president and our leaders in the courts and Congress compassion and wisdom.

Your church is reaching for you.

Help us to extend our reach to all whom you love.

Your people are being born, are ill, are both anxious and joyous.

They are hungry and cold and don't know where to turn.

They bend under the weight of their lives and rejoice in your life-giving love.

Enable us to bring them your healing and fullness of life.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have offended against thy holy laws.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Spare thou those who confess their faults.

And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life to the glory of thy holy name.

Amen.

God forgives you.

Forgive others.

Forgive yourself.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

A few announcements I'd like to offer.

You'll see most of these in the Wednesday e-news, but sometimes it's just nice to hear.

So just to follow up, last week we celebrated a lovely organ gala.

Thank you for your support, and we're also celebrating the number, which is more than$55,000 generated in that organ gala.

It's just super lovely.

Yeah.

As I mentioned, there's too many people to thank, including those of you who attended and sponsored, but the organizers were very deep.

As a follow-up to that, uh we had a crew of Hal Snapp, Herb Meyer, Rob Puckett, John Leedy, Bob Ketchum, and Lewis Delgado, who came here yesterday to help prepare the organ chambers.

Part of what we're doing is changing out the insulation.

And so all of the old batting had to come out, and a team is coming within the next two weeks to spray the foam insulation on top.

And then from there we'll be building the chambers.

We have money in the bank for that thanks to this Gala.

And fingers crossed on that grant I mentioned to you a few years ago, a few weeks ago, which is actually from the city of Nassau Bay's hotel occupancy tax.

So I mean, we don't pray that God will give us a grant, but we sure hope so, uh, because uh we're we're getting really close, and and this is an item the city council is very interested in.

Okay, a couple opportunities.

First, reminder that we have this uh Linton series that's continued about holy living and holy dying.

The topic this morning will be a journey of forgiveness.

Uh, Nanette Berry will be presenting this in Kristal and uh sort of at 9.15 right after this service.

Um, tomorrow night, Father Thomas Caliandro, the Greek Orthodox priest uh on Galveston Island, is coming up here at 6 p.m.

He'll be here from 6 to 7 in our sanctuary to talk to us about the Orthodox tradition.

As I mentioned to you last week as a teaser, in the Orthodox tradition, they don't believe there was a fall in the Garden of Eden.

And that has led them to some really different theologies about what happened there and how God perceives us.

The Orthodox tradition, as you know, also has icons, not sculptures.

Uh so that's that's another sort of difference.

Um, Father Kalyandro is going to talk to us about not only some of the history of the Divergent, but some of the practices.

Now, it's true that if you go to the Greek Orthodox Church, it's like a two-hour service in Greek, but he'll be speaking English with us.

So if you're interested in the Orthodox traditions at all, right, there's Greek and Syrian and Antiochan and Serbian and Russian, right?

Uh Father Kalyandro will be here tomorrow to field your questions, and questions are very much encouraged.

So 6 to 7 p.m.

here in the sanctuary tomorrow night.

Um that may be enough for today.

I think so.

So continue to walk in love.

As Christ, no, I know Tim told me I need to tell you this.

Tim Brown reminded me, you know, normally during the Lent, I send you an email every day that, you know, if you're feeling like you really need to do some penance, you read it.

Um it's it's a reflection this year on the Gospel of Matthew.

And in order not to flood your inboxes, um, I'm not doing that anymore.

Instead, I've moved that to something called Substack.

Uh it's a free platform.

There's no charge to do it.

If you subscribe to it, you just get that same email every day.

Instead of it coming through the MailChimp that we normally send the e-news, it's sort of a special sign-up and you get it.

Like I said, there's no cost to it.

Um, this is not because I'm out to do anything tricky just to not flood your inbox, because not everybody wants to read it.

So I just want to remind you, that's on Substack if you're interested.

You'll see that in the e-news.

It was there last week.

Um, and the last couple of days there's been here's a scripture passage, and if you want to read the thoughts on it, then you subscribe to Substack.

So just want to say that out loud, and um, if that is a benefit to you, great.

If you ever don't like it, there's a chat function, and you can say, like, I hated this and you're wrong, and that's okay, right?

The the goal is that we think, not that we all agree.

Um, so so Substack is the way to get that.

Okay, now continue to walk in love.

As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.

This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.

He invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page 340 of your red prayer book.

Page 340.

The Lord be with you.

Lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

It is very meet right in our bounded duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, who dost bid thy faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, with fervent in prayer and works of mercy, and renewed by thy word and sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which thou hast prepared for those who love thee.

And therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image.

And of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.

He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy gospel command us to continue in perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when he'd given thanks to thee, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he'd given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sin.

Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.

Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

We most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.

Grant we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom and with whom and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

Amen.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

These are the gifts of God, and we are the people of God.

Almighty and ever living God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people, and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom.

And we humbly beseech thee, O Heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, world without an end.

Amen.

If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are.

Beloved, name by the one who has traveled this path before you.

Do not go without letting it echo in your ears, and if you find it is hard to let into your heart, do not despair.

That is what the journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this, and fly to meet us bearing comfort and strength, that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear, and with their curious insistence whisper our name.

Beloved.

Beloved.

Beloved.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.

Thanks be to God.