Prayers for Peace
May 27, 2020
As we conclude the celebration of the Risen Christ with Pentecost this weekend, we will end our 'Prayers for Peace' on Wednesday evenings. Please access all of our Taizé/Prayers for Peace recordings on our website here. We will resume Taizé for Advent on Wednesday, December 2--and hopefully all will be able to join us in church and online.
As we celebrate the Risen Christ, we invite you to join us as we pray for peace in our world, in our homes and in our hearts.
If you couldn't join us live, no worries. The link to view it 'on demand' it here. Taizé is also wonderful to listen to when you're working or reading . . . wherever and whenever you want!
With music, prayer, silence and reflection, Taizé (pronounced ‘tay-zay’) will bring calm to your soul and provide you strength for the days ahead. Find a quiet place in your home. Bring a few candles with you. Then open your heart and your mind. Read one of the meditations at the beginning of each silent moment. Follow along with the readings and the song lyrics here and participate more fully with us.
And we begin . . .
As we gather in silence, please light your candle(s). Let the light that each of us catches from this time of waiting, bring peace to our hearts and to our suffering world.
We thank you for sharing your faith journey with us in this peaceful hour of reflection. Meditation is a key that can open many doors along the path to God. We tend to be so outer-focused that we lose track of the real path, which is the inner journey to a personal relationship with our Lord.
In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence,
God will speak to you.
- from ‘No Greater Love’ by Mother Teresa
Be Still and Know
Sing 5 times:
Be Still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Reading (Psalms 42:2-11)
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to
the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the
land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and
breakers have swept over me.
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go
about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day
long, “Where is your God?”
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
The Word of the Lord.
Resp: Thanks be to God.
Meditation Reflection
Silent Meditation is the inner prayer of the heart where we are simply being with God. In silence we humbly accept that God knows our needs, we trust in his love which created us, and persevere with the knowledge that his love will eventually complete us.
Adoramus
Sing 5 times:
Adorámus, adorámus,
et benedícimus te, Christe.
(Christ, we adore you and we bless you.)
Reading (Matthew 6:25-34)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Resp: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Meditation Reflection
The conscious mind, with its worrying and negative beliefs, is the cause of our material predicament. Inside and behind this worrying process, the perfection and abundance of the divine realm is persistently trying to press itself into our minds and lives. If we still this mind, then we get out of the way and allow the grandeur of God to enter our existence.
Like a Child Rests
Sing 5 times:
Like a child rests in its mother's arms, so will I rest in you.
Like a child rests in its mother's arms, so will I rest in you.
Meditation Reflection
Our agitated mind is constantly dwelling on the past, reacting to some event in our world or preoccupied with fears and concerns about the future. Stilling the mind allows our little self, our worries and concerns, to take a break. If this little self can get quiet, our true Self can emerge. God can express Himself in our world.
Sacred Creation
Sing 5 times:
Sacred the land, sacred the water, sacred the sky, holy and true.
Sacred all life, sacred each other;
all reflect God who is good.
Meditation Reflection
Worries and concerns of our fearful self, like wind on a lake, keep things stirred up and keep us removed from our peaceful self. Anxiety, fear and anger are unproductive protective mechanisms that keep peace at a distance in our world. Taking a break from these primitive defenses is possible. We just have to allow it.
Intercessions
Hear the prayers that rise up like incense before you.
Hear our prayer, hear our prayer, God of compassion, listen to our prayer.
Meditation Reflection
Understood in this way,
we can see that silence – or being still – is a type of prayer,
an active acknowledgment of God, Spirit.
The divine power of Spirit that can be felt during silent prayer
helps us feel the healing and protecting presence of our Father in heaven.
Go In Peace
Sing 5 times:
Go in peace, and may God's Word light your way.
Go in peace, and know that for you we pray.
Go in peace, to follow Christ day by day.
The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.
-Exodus 14:14