The Painted Prayerbook

Image: 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

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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.

Image: 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.

Image: 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.