Reading from the Gospels, Easter Sunday (April 24):
John 20.1-18 or Matthew 28.1-10

Easter Blessing

If you are looking
for a blessing,
do not linger
here.

Here
is only
emptiness,
a hollow,
a husk
where a blessing
used to be.

This blessing
was not content
in its confinement.

It could not abide
its isolation,
the unrelenting silence,
the pressing stench
of death.

So if it is
a blessing
that you seek,
open your own
mouth.

Fill your lungs
with the air
that this new
morning brings

and then
release it
with a cry.

Hear how the blessing
breaks forth
in your own voice

how your own lips
form every word
you never dreamed
to say.

See how the blessing
circles back again
wanting you to
repeat it
but louder

how it draws you
pulls you
sends you
to proclaim
its only word:

risen
risen
risen.

P.S. For a previous reflection on Easter Sunday, see Easter Sunday: Out of the Garden. I am also offering daily reflections throughout Holy Week at the Sanctuary of Women blog and would be delighted to have your company there as well. And if you haven’t seen the videos that Garrison Doles and I recently released for Lent and Easter, I welcome you to check them out here: Listening at the Cross and The Hours of Mary Magdalene. Know that I’m holding you in prayer throughout this Holy Week, and I wish you a joyous Easter!

[To use the "Easter II" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Reading from the Gospels, Holy Saturday (April 23):
Matthew 27.57-66 or John 19.38-42

Blessing for Holy Saturday

This blessing
can wait as long
as you can.

Longer.

This blessing
began eons ago
and knows the art
of enduring.

This blessing
has passed
through ages
and generations,
witnessed the turning
of centuries,
weathered the spiraling
of history.

This blessing
is in no rush.

This blessing
will plant itself
by your door.

This blessing
will keep vigil
and chant prayers.

This blessing
will bring a friend
for company.

This blessing
will pack a lunch
and a thermos
of coffee.

This blessing
will bide
its sweet time

until it hears
the beginning
of breath,
the stirring of
of limbs,
the stretching
reaching
rising

of what had lain
dead within you
and is ready
to return.

P.S. For a previous reflection on Holy Saturday, see Holy Saturday: A Day Between. I’m also offering daily reflections throughout Holy Week at the Sanctuary of Women blog.

[To use the "Holy Saturday II" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Reading from the Gospels, Good Friday (April 22): John 18.1-19.42

Blessing for Good Friday

You will know
this blessing
by how it
does not stay still,
by the way it
refuses to rest
in one place.

You will recognize it
by how it takes
first one form,
then another:

now running down
the face of the mother
who watches the breaking
of the child
she had borne,

now in the stance
of the woman
who followed him here
and will not leave him
bereft.

Now it twists in anguish
on the mouth of the friend
whom he loved;

now it bares itself
in the wound,
the cry,
the finishing and
final breath.

This blessing
is not in any one
of these alone.

It is what
binds them
together.

It is what dwells
in the space
between them,
though it be torn
and gaping.

It is what abides
in the tear
the rending makes.

P.S. For a previous reflection on Good Friday, see Good Friday: In Which We Get Nailed. And blogging daily throughout Holy Week at the Sanctuary of Women blog.

[To use the "Good Friday II" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Reading from the Gospels, Holy/Maundy Thursday  (April 21): John 13.1-17, 31b-35

The story is told of St. Brigid, the beloved Celtic saint and leader of the early church in Ireland, that a man with leprosy came to her one day. Knowing the saint’s reputation for hospitality, the man says to Brigid, “For God’s sake, Brigid, give me a cow.” Brigid’s response suggests this man may have made a habit of such requests; though normally lavish with her generosity, Brigid tells the man to leave her alone. He persists.

Brigid asks the man how it might be if they prayed that God would heal him of his leprosy. “No,” the man tells her, “I get more this way than if I were clean.” Brigid, in her turn, persists with him, urging him to “take a blessing and be cleansed.” The man acknowledges he is indeed in much pain; he gives in and accepts the blessing and the gift of healing it brings. So great is his gratitude to Brigid—and to God—that he vows his devotion to Brigid and pledges to be her servant and woodman.

Sometimes it can be daunting to receive a blessing. As this man with leprosy recognized, a blessing requires something of us. It does not leave us unchanged. A blessing offers us a glimpse of the wholeness that God desires for us and for the world, and it beckons us to move in the direction of this wholeness. It calls us to let go of what hinders us, to cease clinging to the habits and ways of being that may have become comfortable but that keep us less than whole.

This can take some work.

Part of the challenge involved with a blessing is that receiving it actually places us for a time in the position of doing no work—of simply allowing it to come. For those who are accustomed to constantly doing and giving and serving, being asked to stop and receive can cause great discomfort. To receive a blessing, we have to give up some of our control. We cannot direct how the blessing will come, and we cannot define where the blessing will take us. We have to let it do its own work in us, beyond our ability to chart its course.

On the night that Jesus takes up his basin and towel and begins to wash the feet of his disciples, Simon Peter learns how difficult and how wondrous it can be to “take a blessing,” as Brigid put it. He resists, then allows himself to receive, the grace of it dripping from his toes.

This blessing will indeed require something of Simon Peter and of his fellow disciples. When Jesus has finished the washing, put on his robe, put away his towel and bowl, he turns to them and says, “Do you know what I have done to you?…If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus continues, “servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

You are blessed if you do them.

A blessing is not finished until we let it do its work within us and then pass it along, an offering grounded in the love that Jesus goes on to speak of this night. Yet we cannot do this—as the disciples could not do this—until we first allow ourselves to simply receive the blessing as it is offered: as gift, as promise, as sign of a world made whole.

During this Holy Week, I am offering a series of blessings for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. As we move through these days, may these blessings come as gift, as grace. In this week, may you take a blessing, and become one in turn.

Blessing for Holy Thursday

As if you could
stop this blessing
from washing
over you.

As if you could
turn it back,
could return it
from your body
to the bowl,
from the bowl
to the pitcher,
from the pitcher
to the hand
that set this blessing
on its way.

As if you could
change the course
by which this blessing
flows.

As if you could
control how it
pours over you,
unbidden
unsought
unasked

yet startling
in the way
it matches the need
you did not know
you had.

As if you could
become undrenched.

As if you could
resist gathering it up
in your two hands
and letting your body
follow the arc
this blessing makes.

P.S. For an earlier reflection for Holy Thursday, visit Holy Thursday: Feet and Food. I am also offering daily reflections at the Sanctuary of Women blog, where this week we’re traveling in the company of the women of Holy Week and Easter.

[To use the "Holy Thursday II" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Just in time for Holy Week, Gary and I have released a new video today that we’re excited to share with you. The Hours of Mary Magdalene features images from my mixed media series of the same name, combined with Gary’s enchanting song “Mary Magdalena” from his CD House of Prayer. The video draws from the life Mary Magdalene, whose story is so intertwined with the dying and rising of Christ. Called by Christ to be the first to proclaim the news of his resurrection, Mary Magdalene became known in the Middle Ages as the “apostle to the apostles.”

The video draws also from the fascinating body of legends about the Magdalene—stories that may be slim on facts but convey something of our centuries-old fascination with this woman who played a distinctive role as a follower of Christ. As a preacher chick, I’m especially fond of the legend in which Mary Magdalene moves to France and becomes a famous preacher. (I like to imagine her going for a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant after holding forth.) She is also said to have released prisoners from a French jail. In the video you’ll find glimpses of these and other legends, including one that tells that she spent her final years as a hermit in the wilderness, clad only in her long hair; at the canonical hours, angels would come and whoosh her up to heaven for the liturgy, then would whoosh her back down again.

The Magdalene series found much inspiration in Books of Hours, those exquisite illuminated prayerbooks that became so popular among medieval folk as a companion for prayer. You can find out more about the original series and the influences and legends behind it on the Magdalene page in my online gallery.

We have launched the video at the splendid Vimeo site; if you click the Vimeo logo in the player embedded above, it will take you directly to a larger version of the video. We have also released the video on YouTube, where you can view it here. To share the video in worship and related settings, you can find a high-resolution version by visiting The Hours of Mary Magdalene on the Jan Richardson Images website. As always, using the Jan Richardson Images site helps make possible the ministry that I offer at The Painted Prayerbook and beyond. And downloading the video will support Gary’s ministry as well!

As Holy Week approaches, Gary and I hope you will enjoy a few moments in the contemplative company of the Magdalene, and that she may inspire us all to tell forth the words we are called to speak. Blessings!

Reading from the Gospels, Palm Sunday (April 17): Matthew 21.1-11

What is the difference between a sacred procession and a violent mob? The answer lies somewhere between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. As we enter this stretch of the season, we might do well to linger long with this turning of the tale. In this time when it has grown so difficult to discern the truth among the multiplicity of messages and to resist being manipulated by those who do the telling, the ancient story of Christ’s journey to the cross has something to teach us about whose voice we listen to, and what parade we choose to join.

But for today, we turn our ears toward the sound of rejoicing. Today we join our voices with the cries that sing praise to the one who comes in the name of the Lord. And we pray for wisdom, that we may see the Christ who enters again into our midst, and rejoice when we recognize him, and follow in the way that he goes.

I have reflected previously on this passage and invite you to visit Palm Sunday: Where the Way Leads. As we accompany Christ, who draws ever closer to the cross this week, what voices are you listening to? What messages are coming your way—from the media, from friends and family, from the community around you, from your own soul and mind? What are you hearing, and how do you sift and sort it? To whom are you listening these days, and why? Where and how do you choose to lift your own voice?

Blessing of Palms

This blessing
can be heard coming
from a long way off.

This blessing
is making
its steady way
up the road
toward you.

This blessing
blooms in the throats
of women
springs from the hearts
of men
tumbles from the mouths
of children.

This blessing
is stitched into
the seams
of the cloaks
that line the road,
etched into
the branches
that trace the path,
echoes in the
breathing of the willing colt,
the click of the donkey’s hoof
against the stones.

Something is rising
beneath this blessing.
Something will try
to drown it out.

But this blessing
cannot be turned back,
cannot be made
to still its voice,
cannot cease
to sing its praise
of the one who comes
along the way
it makes.

[To use the "Palm Sunday" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Resources for the season: Looking toward Lent

And blogging daily at Sanctuary of Women during Lent…

Reading from the Gospels, Lent 5 (April 10): John 11.1-45

He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11.43).

I wonder if it gave him pause. I wonder if Lazarus, stirring in his four-day tomb and beginning to feel the grave clothes weighing on his waking skin, had to take a moment to consider. When he heard that cry from beyond the threshold of his tomb; when he awoke to that voice, beloved but already growing strange to ears that had begun to settle into the silence; when that command came and challenged the dead calm of the grave, did Lazarus give a thought to staying put? It cannot have been easy, feeling the pulse of life tickle at the flesh already loosening from his limbs. Was he tempted to simply roll over and turn his face toward the wall so that he could continue his slide into decay?

Nobody goes into the tomb to pull Lazarus out; no one crosses into his realm to haul him to this side of living. Lazarus has to choose whether he will loose himself from the hold of the grave: its hold on him, his hold on it.

Only when Lazarus takes a deep and deciding breath, rises, returns back across the boundary between the living and the dead: only then does Jesus say to the crowd, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Not until Lazarus makes his choice does the unwinding of the shroud begin, and the grave clothes fall away.

I have written about this passage—a favorite of mine—on other occasions and invite you to visit Lent 5: Unbinding Words and Unbinding Words: Part 2. As we move deeper into the Lenten path, what might you need to let go of, to loose yourself from, so that you can move with freedom into the life to which Christ calls you?

Here is a blessing for your journey ahead. Peace to you in your waking, rising, living days.

Lazarus Blessing

The secret
of this blessing
is that it is written
on the back
of what binds you.

To read
this blessing,
you must take hold
of the end
of what
confines you,
must begin to tug
at the edge
of what wraps
you round.

It may take long
and long
for its length
to fall away,
for the words
of this blessing
to unwind
in folds
about your feet.

By then
you will no longer
need them.

By then this blessing
will have pressed itself
into your waking flesh,
will have passed
into your bones,
will have traveled
every vein

until it comes to rest
inside the chambers
of your heart
that beats to
the rhythm
of benediction

and the cadence
of release.

Bonus round: For a song that will bless your ears and your soul, click the player below to hear the wondrous “O Lazarus” by my husband, Garrison Doles. It’s from his CD House of Prayer.

[To use the "Lazarus Blessing" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Resources for the season: Looking toward Lent

And blogging daily at Sanctuary of Women during Lent…

One of the things I love about having Garrison Doles in my life is getting to collaborate with him in a variety of venues, from retreats to worship to workshops and beyond. I’m delighted to announce our latest collaboration, this time in the digital realm. We have just released a new video titled Listening at the Cross: The Seven Last Words of Christ, which intertwines my artwork and Gary’s music.

The images in the video come from the series I created for the book Listening at Golgotha, Peter Storey’s series of reflections on Christ’s words from the cross. Peter is a friend whose ministry has included serving as the bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and as the chaplain to Nelson Mandela during his years in prison. As one might imagine, this pastor who spent much of his ministry engaged in the struggle against apartheid has some distinctive insights into the crucifixion of Christ—as well as his resurrection.

Gary’s haunting song “This Crown of Thorns,” from his CD Draw Us Closer, accompanies the images. As always, working with his words and music draws me deeper into my own creative work, and it is a delight to offer you this marriage of song and image in this Lenten season. We pray that in these days, Listening at the Cross will invite you into an evocative space of quiet and contemplation as we journey with Christ not only to the cross but also to what lies beyond it.

In addition to launching the video on YouTube, we are also releasing it at the very cool Vimeo site, where you can view it here. To share the video in worship and related settings, you can find a high-resolution version by visiting Listening at the Cross on the Jan Richardson Images website. As always, using the Jan Richardson Images site helps make possible the ministry that I offer at The Painted Prayerbook and beyond. And downloading the video will support Gary’s ministry as well!

Know that we are grateful to be on the path with you, and we wish you many blessings in these Lenten days.

Reading from the Gospels, Lent 4 (April 3): John 9.1-41

The season of Lent invites us to get up close to the things of the earth. Ash, wilderness, water, dirt, mud: these days impress upon us what an elemental fellow Jesus was. Throughout his ministry we see him touching the world around him, employing the things of earth to reveal the things of heaven.

In this week’s Gospel lection we see Jesus use earthly elements as he brings sight to a man who is blind. His acts of healing, of teaching, of preaching, of praying do not come from thin air: Jesus grounds these acts in, well, the ground. Although the Christian tradition, as it developed, would make sharp distinctions between matter and spirit, Jesus seems less inclined to do so.

I have dug into this muddy text previously and welcome you to take a look at Lent 4: Here’s Mud in Your Eye. In this Lenten week, how are you seeing? Is there anything you need to clear from your field of vision so that you can see more clearly? How grounded are you these days? Where do you perceive the presence of Christ in elemental, earthy things?

Here’s a blessing for this stretch of your Lenten path. Peace to you in this season.

Blessing of Mud

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dirt.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the earth
beneath our feet.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dust

like the dust
that God scooped up
at the beginning
and formed
with God’s
two hands
and breathed into
with God’s own
breath.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the spit.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mud.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mire,
the grime,
the muck.

Lest we think
that God
cannot reach
deep into the things
of earth,
cannot bring forth
the blessing
that shimmers
within the sludge,
cannot anoint us
with a tender
and grimy grace.

Lest we think
that God
will not use the ground
to create us
once again,
to cleanse us
of our unseeing,
to open our eyes upon
this ordinary
and stunning world.

[To use the "A Tender and Grimy Grace" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Resources for the season: Looking toward Lent

Blogging also at Sanctuary of Women during Lent…

Reading from the Gospels, Lent 3 (March 27): John 4.5-42

With this week’s Gospel passage, the lectionary continues to trace a watery way through the wilderness of Lent, calling us to be mindful of God’s provision even in the desert places. This text fairly drenches us as it draws us into the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus while making her daily visit to the well—Jacob’s well, as both the narrator and the woman point out; the well established by a man who knew about meeting God in the midst of one’s journey.

The encounter between Jesus and the unnamed woman offers something of an icon of the Lenten season and the invitation it extends to us. If we give ourselves to a daily practice, if we keep taking our vessel to the source even when we feel uninspired or the well seems empty or the journey is boring, if we walk with an openness to what might be waiting for us in the repetition and rhythm of our routines, we may suddenly find ourselves swimming in the grace and love of God that goes deeper than we ever imagined.

In his Gospel, John did not record the name of this woman who became the first evangelist. The Eastern Orthodox tradition, however, filled in that gap, naming her Photini or Photina (meaning “the enlightened one” or “resplendent”) and also designating her an apostle and a saint. For more about Saint Photini, visit Suzanne Guthrie’s reflection “The Well of Love” at her lovely blog Come to the Garden.

I have lingered at the well with the Samaritan woman and Jesus on another occasion and invite you to stop by Lent 3: The Way of Water for that reflection. As you travel through this season, what are you finding in the midst of your daily rhythms and routines? Are your habits and practices drawing you closer to the sustenance you need or pulling you farther away from it? What are you thirsty for?

As you continue on your Lenten way, here is a new blessing for the next leg of your journey. Peace to you.

Blessing of the Well

If you stand
at the edge
of this blessing
and call down
into it,
you will hear
your words
return to you.

If you lean in
and listen close,
you will hear
this blessing
give the story
of your life
back to you.

Quiet your voice
quiet your judgment
quiet the way
you always tell
your story
to yourself.

Quiet all these
and you will hear
the whole of it
and the hollows of it:
the spaces
in the telling,
the gaps
where you hesitate
to go.

Sit at the rim
of this blessing.
Press your ear
to its lip,
its sides,
its curves
that were carved out
long ago
by those whose thirst
drove them deep,
those who dug
into the layers
with only their hands
and hope.

Rest yourself
beside this blessing
and you will
begin to hear
the sound of water
entering the gaps.

Still yourself
and you will feel it
rising up within you,
filling every hollow,
springing forth
anew.

[To use the "Well Blessed" image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Resources for the season: Looking toward Lent

Blogging also at Sanctuary of Women during Lent…