Cantica Gaudia

Ordinary Time, Early Morning: Friday Morning Prayer

Opening: Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

Canticle:If you accept my words and treasure my commandments,
And make your ear attentive to wisdom;

If you incline your heart to truth,
And you indeed cry out for insight,
Raising your voice for understanding;

If you seek wisdom like silver
And search for it as for hidden treasures,

Then you will understand the awe of the Holy One
And find the knowledge of God.

For God gives wisdom,
And from God’s mouth come knowledge and discernment.

Psalm: Your thought of earth
Is the gathering of her waters
The enriching of her soils
Your brook runs with water
And so you prepare the harvest
That feeds life

Saturating her furrows
Smoothing her ridges
Softening her with showers
Murmuring the blessings of her growing

Your crown is the ample unfolding of the years
Your body the presence in physical places
The pastures of the wilderness distill it
The hills of the settlements disperse its joy
The meadows are clothed with flocks
The valleys mantled with grain
The people give voice to it with words
They murmur it, shout it, sing it out

Glory to God, Source of all being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.  Amen.

Reading: From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
And the power and the glory,
For ever and ever.  Amen.

Prayer:  Creator of fire and water, 
Your burning bush has turned into a bubbling brook
And I have taken off my shoes
having heard you call my name.

You do not speak in fire only, Lord.
In water you have sung your songs
And you are singing still.
Today you chant a memory-song to my grown-up heart.

You are washing my anxiety away
You are reminding me of days of old when I had time to play.
I stand barefoot upon the stones the rushing water, 
lapping at my heels.
The sharp stones pierce my grown-up soles
My tough child-feet have worn away as I grew up, 
forgetting to play.

Creator of the rocks and streams,
I'm growing up once more
I'm taking off my shoes and remembering to adore.
My feet are getting tough again
My heart is getting young.

Collect: Come now, spirit of integrity, of tenderness, judgement and dance; touch our speechlessness, kindle our longing, reach into our silence, and fire our words with your truth; that each of us may hear in her own language the mighty works of God. Amen.

Going Forth: The Lord gives what is needed from day to day. The Lord feeds us with light and bread. The Lord comes into our midst whenever we call. We move with joy into the coming days, for Christ is with us.