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PRAY NOW: TODAY'S PRAYER
Humdrum Relationships - Peter and Dorcas
So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the
room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics
and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them.
Prayer
Into the community of the Resurrection,
Into the fabric of daily life,
Death has come.
Across the web of relationships,
A cold hand has brushed,
Tearing the fabric, sundering the weave.
The silver cord is cut.
Its power is brusque, violent, summary.
Death is real.
Her hands wove, and sewed, and stitched,
And her life was woven in with theirs.
Now they finger her work,
Remember her skill,
Touch what her hands had touched.
We do this, we of finite flesh and blood.
When death takes away, we cling to what we have left.
Into the torn web
Comes Resurrection.
Not at the edge or the end of life
But in its midst.
Gently mending what is torn and sundered,
Renewing, healing, consoling and transforming,
Reweaving, mending the fabric of belonging.
Its power is patient, intricate, painstaking.
Its power is love.
Whether we live, or whether we die,
We are the Lord's.
Knitted together by his love,
We are his living body.
We have no need to cling,
For we have been grasped,
And here, where death is real,
More real the life that conquers death,
That life we're called to live, each day.
Amen.
Readings
Psalm 90
Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
Ezekiel 37:1-14
1 Corinthians 15: esp. 19-23,35-43
Mark 5:22-43
Luke 24:36-53
John 11:17-37
Prayer activity
Eat a pleasant seeded fruit. Pick out a seed. Contemplate its packaged, inhibited life.
Relinquish it to the soil somewhere. Imagine the life that can spring from it.
Prayer for the Church
Those who bear witness to the Gospel of Christ in the midst of God's people, in Word
and Sacrament, those whose ministry as deacons assist people in living out the Gospel
in daily life, and those who recruit, educate and support them
especially the Ministries Council.
Blessing
While the patterns of daily life hold unchanged,
May the presence of Christ transfigure them;
When the patterns of life are torn and disrupted,
May the life of Christ mend and heal them,
Where the patterns of daily life, once shattered, are remade,
May the resurrection of Christ be glimpsed
In and through them.
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