Cantica Gaudia

Advent: Thursday Compline

Confession: God forgives and heals us. We need your healing, merciful God: give us true repentance. Some sins are plain to us; some escape us; some we cannot face. Forgive us; set us free to to hear your word to us; set us free to serve you.

God forgives us. Forgive others. Forgive ourselves.

Canticle:  Because it was a woman
Who build a house for death
A shining girl tore it down
So now
When  you ask for blessings
Seek the supreme one
In the form of a woman
Surpassing all that God made,
Since in her
(O tender!  O blessed!)
He became one of us.

Reading: Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her
That she has served her term,
That her penalty is paid,
That she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
And every mountain and hill made low;
The uneven ground shall become level,
And the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all people shall see it together,
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Lord’s Prayer:

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and for ever.  Amen.

Prayer: For the darkness of waiting
Of not knowing what is to come
Of staying ready and quiet and attentive,
We praise you O God:

For the darkness and the light
Are both alike to you

For the darkness of hoping
In a world which longs for you,
For the wrestling and the laboring of all creation
For wholeness and justice and freedom,
We praise you O God:

For the darkness and the light
Are both alike to you.

Going Forth: Let us go forth into our dreams, rejoicing in the love of God. Amen.