Cantica Gaudia

Season of Lent: Monday Compline

Confession: We confess to you our selfishness and lack of love:
fill us with your Spirit.
Lord, have mercy.
We confess to you our fear and failure in sharing our faith:
fill us with your Spirit.
Christ, have mercy.
We confess to you our stubbornness and lack of trust:
fill us with your Spirit.
Lord, have mercy.

Psalm: Because I call
You answer
For you are fitting
Because I am small
You enlarge me
For you are gracious
You hear my song

How long will the others
Darken my light
How long will they
Live in uselessness
Lies and seduction
Knowing you set aside
The good for your own
And answer me when I call

People, tremble
And be upright
Commune with your hearts
In the deep of night
Awake on your beds

Be still:
Offer that
For it is fitting
Trust in
For it is the rightness
Of all that is

People say
Who will bring us
What we need?
Who will beam
Heaven’s light
On us?

But already
My heart has more joy
Than full granaries
And wineries
Could provide

And I will lie down
To sleep
With a deep peace
For in you
I find my completion

Reading: I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
So that what no one has dared to wish for

May for once spring clear
Without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
But this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
No forcing and no holding back,
The way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing current,
These deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

Streaming through widening channels into the open sea.

The Lord’s Prayer: Seed and source,
Far in the distance and in our souls,
You are holy and make us whole.
May we perceive your divine will
That loved us into being
Help us to join your creative force
And let it prosper here.
Give us what we need to survive,
And release us from our transgressions
As we release others from theirs.
Keep us away from paths of destruction
And from those who would ruin what you have made,
For you are the matrix of life, love and wisdom,
Now and forever.  Amen.

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, it’s good to know
that you lived in the flesh,
walked where we walk, felt what we feel,
got tired, had sore and dirty feet,
needed to eat, and to think about
where the next meal was coming from.
But it’s even better to know
that you enjoyed your food,
the feel of perfume on your skin,
the wind on your face, a child in your arms,
and the good wine at the wedding.
You didn’t mind when people touched you,
even those who were thought of as unclean.
You kissed people with diseases
Ad laid your head on your friend’s shoulder.
Thank you for understanding our bodily pains and pleasures
and for valuing them.

Going forth: Engulf us in your sea of dreams, Holy Spirit, that we may arise full of praise and visions of God's kingdom.