Easter 3: Table Blessing

April 18, 2026

Image: EmmausImage: Emmaus
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Easter 3, Year A: Luke 24:13-35

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
—Luke 24:31

I am thinking about the Emmaus story that comes to us on the third Sunday in this season of resurrection. I am so grateful for how Christ meets us in the breaking of bread, and how, even (and sometimes especially) in our deepest losses, a table can become a holy place that invites us to recognize him in each other. So today, in whatever hope or hurt or hunger you carry, this blessing is for you.

Table Blessing

To your table
you bid us come.
You have set the places;
you have poured the wine;
and there is always room,
you say,
for one more.

And so we come.
From the streets
and from the alleys
we come.

From the deserts
and from the hills
we come.

From the ravages of poverty
and from the palaces of privilege
we come.

Running,
limping,
carried,
we come.

We are bloodied with our wars;
we are wearied with our wounds;
we carry our dead within us,
and we reckon with their ghosts.

We hold the seeds of healing;
we dream of a new creation;
we know the things
that make for peace,
and we struggle
to give them wings.

And yet, to your table
we come.
Hungering for your bread,
we come;
thirsting for your wine,
we come;
singing your song
in every language,
speaking your name
in every tongue,
in conflict and in communion,
in discord and in desire,
we come,
O God of Wisdom,
we come.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Emmaus, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Easter, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, Ordinary Time | 1 Comment »

Easter Sunday: In the Garden of Resurrection

April 5, 2026

Image: In the Garden of ResurrectionImage: In the Garden of Resurrection
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Easter Sunday, Year A:
John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Jesus asked Mary Magdalene when he met her outside the tomb where she had expected to find his body. As Easter arrives, I am thinking about emptiness that comes as an astonishing grace and a discombobulating joy, calling us into a world we can barely begin to imagine but that we receive a glimpse of on this day.

On this Easter Sunday, beloved ones, I am sending so many blessings for you.

Seen
A Blessing 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 roots itself
beneath your heart:

how the emptiness
will bear forth
a new world
that 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.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

_____________________


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image In the Garden of Resurrection, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Easter, lectionary, sacred time | 2 Comments »

Holy Saturday: To Hold Our Anguish and Hope in the Same Hand

April 4, 2026

Image: The Sixth & Seven Words: It Is Finished/Into Your HandsImage: The Sixth & Seven Words: It Is Finished/Into Your Hands
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Holy Saturday:
Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

They took the body of Jesus.
—John 19:40

This is the day that calls us to breathe.

This is the day that invites us to make a space within the weariness, the fear, the ache.

This is the day that calls us to hold our anguish and our hope in the same hand.

This is the day that beckons us to turn toward one another and to remember we do not breathe alone.

In the Breath, Another Breathing
A Blessing for Holy Saturday

Let it be
that on this day
we will expect
no more of ourselves
than to keep
breathing
with the bewildered
cadence
of lungs that will not
give up the ghost.

Let it be
we will expect
little but
the beating of
our heart,
stubborn in
its repeating rhythm
that will not
cease to sound.

Let it be
we will
still ourselves
enough to hear
what may yet
come to echo:
as if in the breath,
another breathing;
as if in the heartbeat,
another heart.

Let it be
we will not
try to fathom
what comes
to meet us
in the stillness
but simply open
to the approach
of a mystery
we hardly dared
to dream.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

_____________________


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image The Sixth & Seven Words: It Is Finished/Into Your Hands, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

 

Posted in art, blessings, lectionary, Lent, sacred time | 2 Comments »

Good Friday: Let All Stand Still

April 3, 2026

Image: The CrucifixionImage: The Crucifixion
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Good Friday: John 18:1-19:42

There they crucified him.
—John 18:18

All too quickly the breaking of the bread becomes the breaking of the flesh.

All too soon the cup offered at the table becomes the life poured out at the cross.

After the rending, after the emptying: an impossible stillness, an aching silence, an incomprehensible hollow for which no word will ever be adequate.

On this day that asks us to bear witness to what is breaking, may we not turn away.

Still
A Blessing 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.

Let it weep
as it receives
what it thinks
it will not
give up.

Let it groan
as it gathers
the One
who was thought
forever stilled.

Time
be still.

Watch
and wait.

Still.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

_____________________


Also for Good Friday . . .

Once upon a time, Gary and I created a video that intertwines my Seven Last Words art series with his exquisite song “This Crown of Thorns.” I would love to share it with you. [For my email subscribers: if you don’t see the video below, click here to go to The Painted Prayerbook site, where you can view it in this post.]

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image The Crucifixion, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, lectionary, Lent, sacred time | 2 Comments »

Holy Thursday: The Final Word Is Love

April 2, 2026

Image: The Last SupperImage: The Last Supper
© Jan Richardson

Readings for Holy Thursday/Maundy Thursday:
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19;
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

It is Holy Thursday, and we are invited to the table with Jesus and the disciples as he speaks his final words on this side of his dying. What he speaks of the most at that table is love. Thirty-one times he uses the word. He enacts this love, too, as he washes the disciples’ feet and shares the bread and the cup one more time.

The love that Jesus enacts and speaks this night is an extraordinary grace. But, as the disciples will hear him say at the table, such a grace is not reserved only for them. They are to pass the gift along: to enact this love, to live this love, to give flesh to this love in this world.

On this day, beloveds, this blessing is for you.

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.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

_____________________


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image The Last Supper, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, lectionary, Lent, sacred time | 4 Comments »

Lent 1: What a Desert Is For

February 21, 2026

Image: Gift of the WildernessImage: Gift of the Wilderness
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Lent 1, Year A: Matthew 4:1-11

As Lent has begun, I’ve been thinking about different kinds of deserts. 

There are deserts we have chosen, and ones that we have not. There are deserts that seem devoid of life and sustenance, and ones that hold hidden wellsprings and remarkable beauty. There are deserts where we might feel completely alone, and ones where, to our surprise, help and company come to us in forms we did not expect.

Sometimes these are all the same desert, and we are the ones who become different as we travel deeper into it, able to perceive and know more clearly what the desert holds than we did when we first entered into it.

Always a desert changes us, if we allow it. And this is what Lent offers to us. This season provides a landscape that welcomes our own inner terrain: our fear, pain, and grief; our joy, solace, and hope; and the wild space within us where all of this lives together. Lent tells us that everything we carry in us—everything we carry in us—is met, held, and transformed in Love.

As we move into this season, this is a blessing for you.

Where the Breath Begins

Dry
and dry
and dry
in each direction.

Dust dry.
Desert dry.
Bone dry.

And here
in your own heart:
dry,
the center of your chest
a bare valley
stretching out
every way you turn.

Did you think
this was where
you had come to die?

It’s true that
you may need
to do some crumbling,
yes.
That some things
you have protected
may want to be
laid bare,
yes.
That you will be asked
to let go
and let go,
yes.

But listen.
This is what
a desert is for.

If you have come here
desolate,
if you have come here
deflated,
then thank your lucky stars
the desert is where
you have landed—
here where it is hard
to hide,
here where it is unwise
to rely on your own devices,
here where you will
have to look
and look again
and look close
to find what refreshment waits
to reveal itself to you.

I tell you,
though it may be hard
to see it now,
this is where
your greatest blessing
will find you.

I tell you,
this is where
you will receive
your life again.

I tell you,
this is where
the breath begins.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons


P.S. I want to let you know about this online event happening soon with Nazareth Retreat Center:

A CONVERSATION WITH JAN RICHARDSON
Virtual Retreat Hosted by Nazareth Retreat Center
Saturday, February 28, 2026, 2-4 pm (ET)

I am so looking forward to this online event offered by Nazareth Retreat Center on February 28! As we enter into Lent, we will explore how to notice God’s presence in the unexpected, to find grace in the quiet and in the chaos, and to embrace the unfolding mystery of life. We would love for you to join us from wherever you are!

Info & registration: https://nazarethretreatcenterky.org/programs/1939/a-conversation-with-jan-richardson.

If you have any questions, please contact Nazareth, and they will be glad to help.

_____________________


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Gift of the Wilderness, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, lectionary, Lent, poetry | Leave a Comment »

Ash Wednesday: To Ask Where Love Will Lead Us

February 17, 2026

Image: Ash Wednesday CrossImage: Ash Wednesday Cross
© Jan Richardson

Readings for Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Life will continually lay us bare, sometimes with astonishing severity. In the midst of this, the season of Lent invites us to see what is most elemental in us, what endures: the love that creates and animates, the love that cannot be destroyed, the love that is most basic to who we are. This season inspires us to ask where this love will lead us, what it will create in and through us, what God will do with it in both our brokenness and our joy.

—Jan Richardson, from Ash Wednesday: What God Can Do with Dust
The Painted Prayerbook, February 2018

_____________________


In a time when so much is crumbling, is burning, I don’t want to romanticize the ashes that come with destruction and devastation. As we approach Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I do want to keep asking what the Holy One can do with dust, and to keep looking for how I can be part of that. So many blessings to you, beloved ones, as the new season arrives.

Blessing the Dust

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons


Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Ash Wednesday Cross, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Lent, mystery, poetry | Leave a Comment »

Blessing for the Brokenhearted

February 14, 2026

Image: Heart That Works for Repair
© Jan Richardson

I’m not sure I have words yet for all that I was thinking as I created this artwork. I can say, though, that it had to do with fragility and rending, with grace and with hope, and with the heart’s astonishing capacity to keep beating, to keep growing larger, to keep working for repair. I thought about the art of visible mending and how our wounds become part of the wholeness of our story. I thought also, as always, about those whose hearts have newly broken since this time last year, as well as those who have lived in and with and through the brokenness for a long time. For all who love and ache and love still, this blessing is for you. Every single day.

Blessing for the Brokenhearted

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
—Henry David Thoreau

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

P.S. For reflections for Transfiguration Sunday, visit Transfiguration Sunday: When Glory.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, mystery, poetry | 6 Comments »

To Be Salt and Light

February 6, 2026

Image: Blessing of Salt, Blessing of Light
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Epiphany 5, Year A: Matthew 5.13-20

Jesus’ words this week are meant to wake us, to remind us of what we carry in our bones: the living presence of the God who bids us be salt in this world in all our savory particularity; to be light in the way that only we can blaze.

—Jan Richardson, from Epiphany 5: Blessing of Salt, Blessing of Light
The Painted Prayerbook, January 2011

_____________________


You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world, Jesus tells us in the gospel passage for this week. So this is a blessing for you, for this time, with such gratitude for you who are salt and light in this world.

Blessing of Salt, Blessing of Light

By the time you come
to the end of this blessing,
these words will be barely enough
to fit in the palm of your hand.

But fold your fingers around them
and take them
as an offering,
a sacrament,
a sign.

Touch the words
to your tongue
and taste how
they have traveled
through marrow and bone
to reach you,
how they have passed
through each chamber
of your heart,
how they have come
through the layers
that make up your soul—
the strata of stories
and questions,
longings and
dreams.

Savor the way the words
are not mere residue
or dross,
the bitter leavings
from the refining.

By their taste,
you will know instead
they are the essence,
they are the core,
they are what has come
through the burning,

holding still
the memory of fire
and the imprint of light,
holding the clarity that comes
when all that is not needful
passes away.

So take these words
as a blessing;
touch them
to your mouth
(may you taste)
your eyes
(may you see)
your ears
(may you hear)

and then let them go;
let them fall to earth
where all salt finally returns.

See the path they make
for you,
the path that blazes
inside of you,
lighting the way
ahead of you
that only you
can go.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image “Blessing of Salt, Blessing of Light,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Epiphany, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, poetry | 2 Comments »

Holding the Light: Feast of Saint Brigid & Candlemas Day

February 1, 2026

Image: A New Constellation
© Jan Richardson

The outset of February meets us with back-to-back days of celebration that I love. Today, February 1, holds the Feast of Saint Brigid (the remarkable and beloved holy woman who was a pivotal figure in early Christianity in Ireland), along with the more ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc. February 2 (aside from being Groundhog Day!) is the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus, also known as Candlemas Day.

The stories that are part of these celebrations hold rich images of light, of fire, of threshold crossings and new beginnings. Weeks after the Christmas season has ended, these days offer their own sort of festival of lights. In all that is happening around us, they invite us to notice and celebrate light that is present, light that is hoped for, light that is carried deep in us and that we are called to bring forth for such a time as this. In these days and beyond, this blessing is for you.

THOSE STARS THAT TURN IN US

I do not know
how to keep it all together
or by what patterns
this world might
finally hold.

What I know is
our hearts are bigger
than this sky
that wheels above us

and what shines
through all this darkness
shines through us,
setting every shattered thing
into a new constellation,

and we can turn
our faces
to that light,
to the grace of
those stars
that turn in us.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings


Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Celtic, mystery, sacred time | 6 Comments »

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