RISE Worship Element Archive
Parting Blessings
~A Franciscan Blessing of Anger
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears, to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen.
~Traditional Irish Blessing
May good luck be with you wherever you go
and your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow.
May your days be many and your troubles be few,
May all God's blessings descend upon you.
May peace be within you, may your heart be strong,
May you find what you're seeking wherever you roam.
May it be!
~Mother Teresa
Faith in action is love,
and love in action is service.
By transforming that faith into living acts of love,
we put ourselves in contact with God Himself,
with Jesus our Lord.
May it be so - Amen!
~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
~Nadia Bolz-Weber
“It happens to all of us. God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.”
~Rachel Held Evans
“This is what God’s Kingdom is like:
a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table,
not because they are rich or worthy or good,
but because they are hungry,
because they said yes.
And there's always room for more.”
~Rachel Held Evans
“We could not become like God, so God became like us.
God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more.
When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, God got up.”
An excerpt from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
“...I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
“The Eighth Day”
~Doris Good
After God had rested,
He looked about Him
and sighed.
His diamond creation showed a flaw.
He saw the friction of
man to man
was marring
its brilliance,
For only the hardness
of a heart
could scratch
its surface.
God pondered.
A new force was needed
in the universe.
A leveling force
A cohesive force
Which babe to aged could
Recognize
Claim
Cherish
Clutch and give.
A force that could melt two into one,
That could make self and others
indistinguishable.
So God created LOVE
And placed a measure
in each heart.
And behold…
It is good.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
~Adapted from Thomas Turner, Everyday Liturgy
May the God of goodness and mercy,
The God of gentleness and kindness,
The God of righteousness and faithfulness:
be the light of our salvation and sustain our souls.
May we offer to the comfort of the Spirit:
The busyness and tasks that fill our days
And the hopes and the fears that consume our minds
For we accomplish nothing without your grace.
May we submit to the way of Jesus
Loving you with our everything
and loving our neighbors - and even our enemies - as ourselves.
And may we count well the cost:
Of following the way of Jesus,
Of being being part of this beautiful mess we call the church,
Knowing that we shall be renewed
and transformed
by the steadfast love of God
into the people of God.
May it be so!
~Adapted from Kate Barclay Wilkinson, “Laughter, Silence & Shouting: An Anthology of Women's Prayers”
May the mind of Christ our Savior
live in us from day to day,
By his love and power controlling
all we do or say.
May the Word of God dwell richly
in our hearts from hour to hour,
So that all may see we triumph
only through God's power.
May the love of Jesus fill us
as the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self-embracing --
This is victory.
May we run the race before us,
strong and brave to face the foe,
looking only unto Jesus
as we onward go.
Amen.
~Homiletics, adapted
Because of Jesus,
and those who believed and put their trust in him before us,
We can now go forth
To think more clearly,
Feel more deeply,
Speak more truthfully,
Love more extravagantly,
Risk more boldly,
Serve more creatively,
Give more lavishly,
And live more abundantly.
May it be so!
May light always shine in our darkness.
May love always beat in our hearts.
May our ears hear nothing but encouragement.
And as we part from one another,
may the living bread of Jesus be comfort and strength along our way.
May grace upon grace be ours - today and tomorrow, now and forever.
Amen.