holy week, tuesday

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
By your cross O Lord, you show the extravagance of your love for us.  Love than knows no limits…no boundaries.  Love that pours down upon us from every wound of your beloved Son.  More love than we could ever ask for or imagine.  When we are tempted to doubt the depths of your heart for us, let our eyes immediately look to Jesus crucified—and may all doubt be taken away.  In His name.  Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 22

Scripture for the Day: John 12:20-26

Reading for Reflection:

Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ.  Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nails driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when the thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts.  Consider that if one thorn pierced Christ you deserve a hundred thousand.

                                                                              ~Martin Luther

 

The more we lack everything the more we resemble Jesus crucified.  The more we cling to the cross, the closer do we embrace Jesus who is nailed to it.  Every cross is a gain, for every cross unites us to Jesus. (Meditations of a Hermit by Charles de Foucauld)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Lift Up Thy Bleeding Hand

When wounded sore, the stricken heart
Lies bleeding and unbound,
One only hand, a pierced hand,
Can salve the sinner's wound.

When sorrow swells the laden breast,
And tears of anguish flow,
One only heart, a broken heart,
Can feel the sinner's woe.

Chorus:
Lift up Thy bleeding hand, O Lord,
Unseal that cleansing tide;
We have no shelter from our sin
But in Thy wounded side.

When penitential grief has wept
O'er some foul dark spot,
One only stream, a stream of blood,
Can wash away the blot.

'Tis Jesus' blood that washes white,
His hand that brings relief,
His heart that's touched with all our joys,
And feels for all our grief.
Chorus

Closing Prayer:

Our God and Father,

     We thank You that You have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and brought us into the kingdom of Your Son: Grant we pray that, by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joy.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. (adapted from Venite by Robert Benson)