We certainly have a busy week ahead but I am super excited about experiencing Holy Week and the Triduum in Ireland for the first time!
Our community is extremely blessed to have some truly gifted spiritual writers. As I believe we mentioned in a previous post, Jessica wrote the Stations of the Cross that we have been using at the parish throughout the entirety of Lent. They are BEAUTIFUL, rich with moving reflections that draw on both the personal and communal significance of those last precious moments of Jesus’s life. We’re hoping she gets them published so hopefully you will be able to pray them in their entirety from a published source someday!
For now, here are the opening and closing prayers written by our very own Jessica Mannen. Many thanks to Jess for letting me post them here! I’ve also included two of my favorite images from the collection titled The Folly of God by Sieger Köder. The parish has been projecting the images from this collection throughout Lent as a way for us to focus our attention during the service. Below are the paintings from the second and eighth stations. Tonight we will pray these as a parish community for the last time this Lent. As always, we invite you to pray with us.
"Carrying his own cross, he went out to the Place of the Skull or as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha." John 19:17
Opening Prayer
In this Lenten season, we follow you, Christ, through the desert. As you fasted and prayed for forty days, we spend forty days fasting and praying. As the time you spent with God in prayer compelled you to begin a life of service to others, we spend these forty days finding new ways to serve each other. Now, we follow you also to Calvary. We recall the suffering you endured for our salvation, and we reflect on how our own sufferings might bring us closer to you. Help us to see in your story that God can make meaning come from even the most terrible pain. Help us to know that you are with us in our journeys of weakness, and help us join our weakness to yours so that we might be made strong with you. As we listen to your story, move us to compassion for your pain and the pain of others. Fill our hearts with your grace so that we might bring your life to all the world. We ask this in your name, and through the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Closing Prayer
"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." Luke 27:28
Lord Jesus Christ, even as we call to mind your suffering and death, help our hearts rest in the truth of the Resurrection. Give us courage to continue on the journey of this life, even when it brings us pain. Help us to know that you are always at our side, helping us to carry our own crosses. Increase our faith so that we may trust that death is not the end of our journey, for you have shattered its power and brought us to a new life in you. Fill our hearts with your grace, and through our Lenten works of prayer, fasting, and service, may our hearts become big enough to receive the fullness of life that you offer. We ask all this in your name, and through the Holy Spirit. Amen.
