Proper 14 (Year B 2021): Litany for Re-Training Ourselves

August 4, 2021 Fran Pratt

The bulk of my work can be accessed via Patreon
Patreon helps me make this work sustainable.
Thanks for reading and subscribing.
You can find archived litanies here, and purchase my book here.
Attribution guidelines are here.

In the First Testament readings, we glimpse Elijah and David in unique moments of deep grief. David weeps for the loss of his son Absalom. Elijah is in despair, such that he longs for death, and running for his life into the wilderness, where receives miraculous provision: bread.

In this week’s gospel text from John 6, Jesus continues his thoughts on being bread. I’m particularly struck (again) by him saying: “whoever believes has eternal life.” It’s so radical! It’s not “whoever behaves.” It’s not “whoever gives assent to this list of theological doctrines.” It’s whoever believes. In other words, whoever is willing to assume the consciousness of eternal life, eternity, the eternal NOW… whoever is convinced that God’s Community (Kingdom, Kin-dom) is right now. Whoever can perceive their own self in light of Love. Whoever knows in their bones that they have, they ARE, the bread!

The whole gamut of human emotions is present in this week’s texts, and here is Jesus saying (my paraphrase, obviously): Don’t complain. I’m the living bread and so are you. Be satisfied and live as though it is so. Live in this eternal satisfaction.

It's safe to say I get pretty jazzed about this. It’s safe to say my understanding of these kinds of statements made by The Christ has come a LONG way. Here is Jesus understanding his own true identity: God in flesh, the character of God made tangible here in 3D; and offering that shared identity, inheritance, belonging, to anyone willing to take it on too.

The text from Ephesians gives us a glimpse into how Paul imagines people who have taken on this consciousness might behave: truthful, able to be angry yet self-controlled, kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, focused on and magnetizing beauty rather than evil. It’s a really lovely vision of how to live that we get here from him.

What if we could re-train how we think about ourselves? What if we could learn to live as though we have access to everything that Christ has access to? I think the world would inevitably be different and better. I think we would come into spiritual power that would spill over into all aspects of our lives. We would start to live Saint Paul’s glorious and lovely description of us as “imitators of God.”

God, we want so much to be able to shift our consciousness
Into the consciousness that Christ shares:
But our beliefs about ourselves so often hold us back.
We have trouble remembering Christ in us….

get the full litany

Proper 8 (Year B): Litany for Absolute Love

June 21, 2021 Fran Pratt

Here is my litany for Proper 8, Year B from 2018: Litany for What Ails Us

The First Testament reading in this week’s Lectionary is David’s lament for the passing of Saul and Jonathan. In David’s relationship with Jonathan, he experiences something new to him, a new frontier of love. He says of Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Blowing past what he’d previously experienced. Hm.

The Psalms and Lamentations texts are meditations on the “steadfast love” of God, even in the midst of life’s most difficult experiences. St. Paul extols the generous nature of Christ’s Love in the epistle. And Christ himself epitomizes the healing and restorative nature of Love in the gospel text.

We might read these texts with questions in mind: what is Love? What is the nature of Love? Where is Love found? Where does Love come from?

It is such a big idea that it is unsayable. Unwriteable. But we get these hints: relationality, restoration, healing, generosity, unceasing, steadfast, eternal, abundant.

And this: whatever we *think* love is, it is more.

I have more hunches about Love: that it is the sum of everything. That it is the “ground of being.” That it’s that elusive thing our physicists dance around when they’re trying to figure out dark matter and dark energy. Anyway, that’s why I’m still writing prayers about it - because as trite as it might sound, I think it’s the most important thing, and in fact, it’s everything. It’s God. It’s us. It’s life. I’ll never be done writing and thinking about it.

God, we are learning about Love,
Setting aside all our old assumptions about it,
Practicing and playing with it,
And re-imagining ourselves in light of it.

get the full litany

Litany for What Ails Us

June 25, 2018 Fran Pratt

This litany follows along with the week's Lectionary passages from Mark 4, Psalms 30 & 130, and Lamentations 3.

God, thank you for showing us over and over, in myriad ways,
That you care for us.

Even as Christ walked the earth in human form,
He healed ailments (1),
Brought life where death seemed imminent (2),
Cured diseases,
Welcomed little children,
Offered food for body and soul.

We are afflicted by so many sorrows and discomforts,
But you know them all.
We are brought low by various circumstances and particulars,
But you care about them all.

We suffer most when we distance ourselves from you.
We suffer most when we forget you.
Out of the depths we cry to you, God. (3)
Nothing about us goes unnoticed by you.

The steadfast love of God never ceases,
Your mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness. (4)

You have taken off our sackcloth and clothed us with joy;
You have turned our mourning into dancing,
So that our souls may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD our God, we will give thanks to you forever. (5)

Amen

Mark 5:29,30
Mark 5:41
Psalm 130:1
Lamentations 3:22,23
Psalm 30:11,12