Blessing the Bread, the Cup
For Holy Thursday
Let us bless the bread
that gives itself to us
with its terrible weight,
its infinite grace.
Let us bless the cup
poured out for us
with a love
that makes us anew.
Let us gather
around these gifts
simply given
and deeply blessed.
And then let us go
bearing the bread,
carrying the cup,
laying the table
within a hungering world.
Still
For Good Friday
This day
let all stand still
in silence,
in sorrow.
Sun and moon
be still.
Earth
be still.
Still
the waters.
Still
the wind.
Let the ground
gape in stunned lamentation.
Blessing for a Broken Vessel
For Holy Saturday
Do not despair.
You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.
It lives deep
in your bones.
It abides
in your heart
that has been torn
and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.
I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you
but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
that you have never imagined,
that you have never dared
to dream.
Seen
For Easter Day
You had not imagined
that something so empty
could fill you
to overflowing,
and now you carry
the knowledge
like an awful treasure
or like a child
that curls itself
within your heart:
how the emptiness
will bear forth
a new world
you cannot fathom
but on whose edge
you stand.
So why do you linger?
You have seen,
and so you are
already blessed.
You have been seen,
and so you are
the blessing.
There is no other word
you need.
There is simply
to go
and tell.
There is simply
to begin.
Blessings by Jan Richardson.
