Holy Week Prayers 20233/30/2023 Beginning Sunday April 2, followers of Christ will mark the holiest of seasons, with Palm Sunday and Easter celebrations at each end, days of penitence and sorrow in between.
For generations, believers have explored the meaning of this week with reflection, worship, ritual, and song. Week of Compassion offers these prayers for each day, that we might arrive at deeper faithfulness in a truly Holy Week. We will share each prayer daily via our social media and invite you to include these in worship, email, newsletters, and whatever ways best meet the prayerful connection of your congregation. Grace and peace, Disciples. May we be renewed and transformed, for the sake of the world God so loves, as we approach this Holy Week together.  Forty is a number used throughout scripture, a number matched with many sacred journeys.
Forty days and forty nights, Noah is at sea, his family wondering what’s going on, and two of every creature getting restless in the cargo hold. Forty years, Moses wanders the desert, leading people who don’t want to be led, listening to them tell him how he ought to be doing his job and how they were happier where they used to be. Forty days, Jesus draws away from the crowds, preparing for his ministry to begin. Forty days he endures temptation: to display his power; to take advantage of his unique and divine nature; to give in to an easy path instead of doing the hard work of God’s realm. In the early church, around the 4th century, Christians began to mark a season of forty days, too. Holy Week Prayers4/10/2022  From today until next Sunday, we hold to church tradition, marking this holiest of weeks with our reflection, worship, rituals, and song. Week of Compassion joins you in prayer, each day, that we might find renewed meaning and a truly Holy Week.
April 10 - Palm Sunday Humble One, you arrive today, amid cries of hosanna, with nothing fancier than donkeys, cloaks, and branches to mark your way. We join you on the path, praying for the meaning in this week, and for your strong, steady pace to rule our hearts. April 11 - Lasting God, we want to move from celebration to celebration, but you call us to deeper faithfulness - to sit among the discomfort and concern, to withstand the aching passion of this week, to wait with hope for the promise to come. April 12 - Holy One, embrace us in this moment. Reveal to us, and through us, your divine intent: wide welcome, generous compassion, deep relationship. Life renewed, mercy overflowing, promise revealed. May we be what you see in us. April 13 - Gracious Creator, we near the day of promise, that moment of newness and hope. It is slow going to get there, it is close-but-not-yet. We’ve come this far by faith, and so we remain dedicated to the work at hand - remembering, confessing, grieving, waiting. April 14 - Maundy Thursday Host, at your table, Lord, all who come and go. We come to remember, alongside everyone as lost as we are, everyone as arrogant as we can sometimes be. We go back into a challenging world, somehow different than when we came. Here, at your table, Lord, all enter in. April 15 - Good Friday Crucified Christ, your family, your friends, are too acquainted with grief. We know it well, too - global pandemic, unholy wars, racial injustice, climate change, unhealthy attachments. We pray forgiveness. We sit, we flail, we pray, we wail - at the foot of the cross, we lay every burden down, that you might know how desperate we are to draw near to you. April 16 - Holy Saturday Sacred Stillness, speak into our hearts - something only we will hear, something that is just for us to hold and know as our own. As we sit in this in-between - no longer at the cross, not yet to the empty tomb - we wait in this shadowed moment for your light to break forth. April 17 - Easter Sunday Risen Lord, revive us again! Our community’s pains cry out, and our compassion calls in response: Arise, shine, for Light has come! Our world needs to know, to see, to feel, to believe: Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, in deed! the work of Ash Wednesday3/2/2022  Today we are part of something very particular – perhaps peculiar – in the life of the church.
In this Ash Wednesday moment, we bless dirt. Ash and oil, mixed together and marked on our skin. We pray that somehow it becomes a blessing. We recall the very moments of creation – when God took the dust of the ground and formed a human vessel and breathed into its being the very breath of life. We remember that we are created from the dust, and to the dust we will return. We are divine creatures in human vessels. Prayer for Ukraine2/24/2022 On Thursday, Russia launched military attacks against Ukraine in more than a dozen locations across the country, including near the capital, Kyiv. Week of Compassion is in frequent contact with our partners in Europe, who are monitoring the rapidly developing situation and planning for the displacement of people and the humanitarian needs that are likely to come from this invasion. As we learn more, we will share updates about how Disciples will extend care and compassion to those affected. We join with you and with people around the world in praying for peace.
Ever Loving God, Today we are filled with many emotions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Humanity has once again chosen selfishness and death, when we know you to be the God of abundance and life. |
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