Revd Tess Ward's Eucharistic Prayer
Written for the ordination (sub-conditione) of Revd Mark Townsend.
We are approaching the long day
The day for brightness, for lightness, for
life-giving renewal
When the sun burnishes at full strength
Rays flaring like the mane of a lion
With courage and energy at its heart.
On this day we will
raise the bread of Christ
like a monstrance of
life death and new life
drawing us into the
power and transformation of God’s Spirit in the world.
This is the day between Pentecost and the Summer
Solstice
when the warm earth is bursting with joy
This is the day for
rejoicing and being with friends
for fruitfulness and
creativity
for celebrating the fire
in our spirits
and finding our
compasses set at true
as we venture on in our
journeys.
But the longest day is a day that must pass
It is the day that looks toward the shortest day
It is the day when the sun will begin to wane
And we are reminded that
light belongs with shadow
flourishing with diminishment.
So as the sun draws all to its zenith,
we embrace with love all that must fade.
In silence, let us remember all that is broken in our
world at this time……
Those whom we know who need our prayers and holding in
the light…….
And let us place ourselves in the divine rhythm of
life death and new life
as we come to this table now……..
For Christ was born in the
milk and moon of earth
pushed from the dark soupy
waters
into a wall-less world.
We saw him with our own eyes
Touched him with our hands
We saw road-dust on his feet, smelt sea-salt in his
hair,
Toil behind his finger nails
And gathered round a table
with those whose faces are like ours
Planted in a particular time
and a place
He took a loaf in his hands
and blessed it
He broke it open and said
“Take eat, this is my body broken for all that is broken.
Share it to remember me”.
He took a pitcher of wine and poured it into a cup.
He blessed it and said “Drink from this for
compassion’s sake for it is my blood poured on this earth so love may flow and
heal this troubled world. Share it to remember me.”
And here with the song of the
birds
and the abundance of the
fruits and flowers
Amongst the orchards and the
river and the gentle curve of land
Here amidst the fiery forces of nature
He hung alone upon a tree
rooted in the humus and soil of all that lives.
He gathered all the silence
of the mountain times to himself
And let the darkness come
upon him.
He plunged down and down and darkly down
through emptiness and chaos, through formless void.
He plunged so deeply and so violently that he touched
bottom
And the Spirit hovered over
the face of the deep
and shone in the dazzling
darkness
and the heavy mass of all
that is unhealed was rolled away.
And love carved a space inside the centre
into which a voice might speak
an echo of the first and
deepest sound ever made
longing for union
a word issuing forth from the womb of the eternal
a cry so natural it calls us to come to our senses.
For as it was then so now and
here
Spirit from the beginning,
breathing through all,
through flame and wave
through land and pore
in the hills and on the shore
and the dear flesh of every
one we ever loved.
Come brood over these earthly things
That they may become for us the body and blood of
Christ
Breathe peace through the
struggle and the striving
Breathe joy through root and star
Breathe love down to the skin
and the sinew,
the blood and the bone,
For you are the lived life.
Together:
You dwell within us and among
us.
You are here.
You are there.
You are one.