Women Led-Prayer

November 24th 10:00 am

Threatened with Resurrection

Celebrating Latin American Women- Struggling Together for Life 

Opening Song:  We are walking in the light of God

Introductions 

Opening Prayer: 

God of life, breathe your resurrecting Spirit through lands wounded by violence and death. 

Fill the vessels of our hearts,

O God, that we may sing with the hope of healing and new life. 

Reading 1:  Ezekiel 37: 1-14 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Reading 2:  God is Hope by Ivonne Gebara From:  Longing for Running Water

    God is our hope because our wager in this fragile life is a wager against all hope.  God is our hope because we want to go beyond terror, violence, and fear that crush us.  God is our hope because we often have no visible hope, because often the haze of fear that envelops us and all things seems terrifying.  God is our hope as the ultimate cry for justice: a “no” to unjust killing, to arms and armies, and a yes to a dignified life.  God is our hope in our despair in the presence of a dying child- of a loss that constitutes a “piece” being torn from oneself- of the companion who has left us, of the soldier who remains, of destruction, and of the fragments of a quilt that needs to be re-stitched.

      To go on hoping for some way out in life, even though it is not the way we had hoped for, is in a certain sense to continue to affirm that God is our hope.  But it is from within the abyss itself that I live in myself, and it is from within the very terror that assails me in the face of machine guns and tanks that I continue to cry out for the Greatest of Mysteries.  Therefore it cries out in me as a power that is both within me and outside me, as a last hope even when I perceive there is no hope.  This is “hoping against all hope.”

      This apparent contradiction dethrones humanity from its anthropocentrism and relocated us, on the basis of our very fragility, within the welcoming Mystery that envelops us and makes up the being of all beings. 

      For this reason, within the mystery of our lives, God is our hope.

Reading 3: I am not Afraid of Death by Julia Esquivel

Julia Esquivel is an advocate for human rights who lived in Guatemala during the 30 years of military dictatorships which followed the CIA sponsored overthrow of the democratic government in Guatemala in 1954.  Julia ran a magazine, Dialogo, which had articles dealing with Guatemalan life from social and theological perspectives.  Julia was abducted due to her critique of the oppressive government.  She was released and lived in exile continuing to write and speak about her homeland and the struggles there.   

I am no longer afraid of death

I know well

Its dark and cold corridors

Leading to life. 

I am afraid rather of that life

Which does not come out of death,

Which cramps our hands

And slows our march. 

I am afraid of my fear

And even more of the fear of others,

Who do not know where they are going,

Who continue clinging

To what they think is life

Which we know to be death! 

I live each day to kill death;

I die each day to give birth to life,

And in this death of death,

I die a thousand times

And am reborn another thousand

Through that love

From my People

Which nourishes hope!

--From Threatened with Resurrection 
 

Homily 

Sharing: What frightens you?  What nourishes hope within you?   

After sharing light your candle and place around the cross. 
 

Sign of Peace: 

Closing Prayer: 

Resolution by Julia Esquivel

Presider:    If when you shed light on the lies. They hurt you- 

Presider 2:    Then you feel the pain!  You will not die!

Presider:   If when you spea kthe truth they kill you-

Presider 2:   die then!  You will rise again!

Presider:    If when you fall they trample you and crush you-

Presider 2:   stand up then.  You shall walk! 

Presider:   If all is over and you cannot even draw another breath,

Presider 2:   Return and begin again! 

From The Certainty of Spring 

All:  Go in peace, blessed to be a blessing. 

May the God of hope, the Savior of the oppressed, and the spirit of justice work within you,

that you may be a bearer of warmth and love in the corridors that lead to life. 
 
 

Closing Song: City of God