Maundy Thursday
Virtual Vigil 2021
There is a part of the soul that stirs at night, in the dark and soundless times of day, when our defenses are down and our daylight distractions no longer serve to protect us from ourselves. It's then, in the still of life, when we least expect it, that questions emerge from the damp murkiness of our inner underworld...These questions do not call for the discovery of data; they call for the contemplation of possibility.
Joan Chittister
TONIGHT’S VIRTUAL VIGIL
Zoom Link: http://bit.ly/ASCandSTGLCMaundyThursdayVigil2021 Zoom Password: 04012021
This handout is listed in chronological order.
Tonight, we begin in the virtual chapel at 9pm Pacific Time. At every hour, from 9pm to 6am on Good Friday, we will do a scripture reading, poem, or reflection. At every hour at the 15 minute mark, we will listen or sing along to a Taizé hymn. At every hour at the 30 minute mark, we will recite either an Traditional or an Anglican rosary, as stated in this bulletin.
Please feel free to bring your prayer beads and other prayer resources to the virtual chapel.
Additional prayers are at the end of this handout.
It’s a long night. Grab some tea or snacks if you need sustenance.
This event is hosted by members of All Saints Pasadena, Saint George La Canada, and students of Bexley Seabury seminary.
A Prayer for the Evening
In the quiet of this place, in the dark of the night, we wait and we watch. In the stillness of the soul and from its fathomless depths, the senses of our hearts are awake to you. For Fresh soundings of life, for new showings of light, we search in the silence of your Spirit, O God.
9:00 pm
Matthew 26:31-46
Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written:
“‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Pause
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
9:15pm
We will listen and sing and pray to hymns sung in the style of Taizé in the virtual chapel.
The worship tradition of Taizé began shortly after WWII in the French countryside, at a monastic community called Taizé. It was born out of the tears and blood of the war and grew in the sunlight of reconciliation and ecumenical unity. It is a quiet service of meditation, reflection, readings, and music. The experience finds its true meaning in the active participation of all assembled by focusing and deepening our faith through the power of prayer. Everyone is encouraged to participate as the Spirit moves them, whether that be in song, prayer, or silent meditation. Though the format of the liturgy that developed in Taizé is primarily for the worship of God, it is also meant to quiet the soul. The quietness does not happen immediately, but gradually throughout the night. The repetition in the words of the music and the repetition of the periods of silence make room for deep quiet to grow in our hearts. In that stillness, we can be at peace and feel the presence of God.
Please join us in song and silent prayer.
My Soul Yearns for You My soul yearns for you in the night, O God. My spirit within my longs for you.
9:30pm
We will say the Anglican rosary together in the virtual chapel. Please see the “Anglican Rosary” handout.
10:00 pm
Prayer to End the Death Penalty By Sister Helen Prejean
You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust. Expand and deepen our hearts so that we may love as You love, even those among us who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.
For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance as we fill up death row and kill the killers in the name of justice, in the name of peace.
Jesus, our brother, you suffered execution at the hands of the state but you did not let hatred overcome you Help us to reach out to victims of violence so that our enduring love may help them heal.
Holy Spirit of God, You strengthen us in the struggle for justice, Help us to work tirelessly for the abolition of state-sanctioned death and to renew our society in its very heart so that violence will be no more.
Amen.
10:15pm
Stay With Me Stay with me, remain here with me. Watch and Pray.
10:30pm
We will say the traditional rosary together in the virtual chapel. Please see the “Traditional Rosary” handout. It will be prayed in English and Spanish. We start with the Joyful Mysteries.
11:00pm
From “Beauty: The Invisible Embrace” By John O’Donohue
Human identity is complex. Nothing is ever given simply or immediately. Even the simplest act of perception has many layers…Time and memory often reveal things later that were staring us in the eye, but we never noticed them. The quest for the truth of things is never ending. To be human is to be ambivalent. Every experience is open to countless readings and interpretations. We never see a thing completely. In sure anticipation, our eyes have always already altered what awaits our gaze.The search for truth is difficult and uncomfortable. Because the mystery is too much for us, we may opt to settle for the surface of things. Comfort becomes more important than true presence. This is precisely why we need to hear the discerning voice.
Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice. This voice distrusts the status quo. It sounds out the falsity in things and encourages dissent from the images things tend to assume. It underlines the secret crevices where the surface has become strained. It advises distance and opens up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning of a situation might emerge…Its intention is to keep the heart clean and clear. This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside..Yet much depends on that small voice. The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor and egoism, kindness and chaos. In extreme situations, which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness, that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty and love. That whisper brings forgotten nobility into an arena where violence has traduced everything. This faithful voice can illuminate the dark lands of despair. It becomes both the sign and presence of a transcendence that no force or horror can extinguish. Each day in the world, in the prisons, hospitals and killing fields, against all the odds, this still, small voice continues to echo the beauty of the human being. In haunted places this voice carries the light of beauty like a magical lantern to transform desolation, to remind us that regardless of what may be wrenched from us, there is a dignity and hope that we do not have to lose. This voice brings us directly into contact with the inalienable presence of beauty in the soul.
11:15pm
Salvatore Mundi Salvatore mundi salva nos. (Savior of the world, save us)
11:30pm
We will say the Anglican rosary together in the virtual chapel. Please see the “Anglican Rosary” handout.
12:00am Midnight
From “The Four Loves” By CS Lewis
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket— safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
12:15am
Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord whose day is near. Wait for the Lord. Keep watch. Take heart.
12:30am
We will say the traditional rosary together in the virtual chapel. Please see the “Traditional Rosary” handout. It will be prayed in English and Spanish. We continue with the Sorrowful Mysteries.
1:00 am
From “Eager to Love” By Richard Rohr, OFM
One must fully recognize that mystics like Francis and Clare lived from a place of conscious, chosen, and loving union with God; such union was realized by surrendering to it, not by achieving it. Surrender to Another, participation with Another, and divine union are finally the same thing. Once we have experienced this union, we look out at reality from a much fuller Reality that now has eyes beyond and larger than our own. This is precisely what it means to “live in Christ” (en Christo), to pray “through Christ,” or to do anything “in the name of God,” phrases with which Christians are quite familiar.
Such a letting go of our own small vantage point is the core of what we mean by conversion, but also what we mean by Franciscan “poverty.” Poverty is not just a life of simplicity, humility, restraint, or even lack. Poverty is when we recognize that myself—by itself—is powerless and ineffective. John’s Gospel puts it quite strongly when it says that a branch that does not abide in Jesus “is withered and useless” (John 15:6). The transformed self, living in union, no longer lives in shame or denial of its weakness, but even lives with rejoicing because it does not need to pretend that it is any more than it actually is.
1:15am
Within Our Deepest Night Within our deepest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away
1:30am
We will say the Anglican rosary together in the chapel. Please see the “Anglican Rosary” handout.
2:00 am
From “No Man Is An Island” By Thomas Merton
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.
…
God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.
2:15am
Stay With Me Stay with me, remain here with me. Watch and Pray.
2:30am
We will say the traditional rosary together in the chapel. Please see the “Traditional Rosary” handout. It will be prayed in English and Spanish. We continue with the Luminous Mysteries.
3:00 am Defeat By Kahlil Gibran
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.
Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.
Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, In your eyes I have read That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, And to be understood is to be leveled down, And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.
Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.
Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous.
3:15am
Salvatore Mundi Salvatore mundi salva nos. (Savior of the world, save us)
3:30am
We will say the Anglican rosary together in the chapel. Please see the “Anglican Rosary” handout.
4:00 am
From “Revelations of Divine Love” By Julian of Norwich
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.
In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”
4:15am
Wait for the Lord Wait for the Lord whose day is near. Wait for the Lord. Keep watch. Take heart.
4:30am
We will say the traditional rosary together in the chapel. Please see the “Traditional Rosary” handout. It will be prayed in English and Spanish. We end the rosary cycle with the Glorious Mysteries.
5:00 am
“What I Have Learned So Far” from “New and Selected Poems Vol. 2” By Mary Oliver
Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world? Because, properly attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion. Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so. All summations have a beginning, all effect has a story, all kindness begins with the sown seed. Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action. Be ignited, or be gone.
5:15am
My Soul Yearns for You My soul yearns for you in the night, O God. My spirit within my longs for you.
5:30am
We will say the Anglican rosary together in the chapel. Please see the “Anglican Rosary” handout.
6:00 am
Matthew 26:47-56
While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
- VIGIL ENDS -
Other Reflections
Take Me By Rumi
Oh Beloved, take me. Liberate my soul. Fill me with your love and release me from the two worlds. If I set my heart on anything but you let fire burn me from inside. Oh Beloved, take away what I want. Take away what I do. Take away what I need. Take away everything that takes me from you.
Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver
I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.
“For a New Beginning” From “To Bless the Space Between Us” By John O'Donohue
Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon. Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path. Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity. May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame. May anxiety never linger about you. May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul. Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul. May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
From a sermon “You are Accepted” By Paul Tillich
Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaninglessness and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we feel we have violated another life, a life which we have loved, or from which we were estranged… It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!
“I Wonder” from “Tell Me Again Lord, I Forget” By Ruth Harms Calkin
You know, Lord, how I serve you With great emotional fervor In the limelight. You know how eagerly I speak for You At a women’s club. You know how I effervesce when I promote A fellowship group. You know my genuine enthusiasm At a Bible study.
But how would I react, I wonder If You pointed to a basin of water And asked me to wash the calloused feet Of a bent and wrinkled old woman Day after day Month after month In a room where nobody saw And nobody knew.
“Fragrance” from “Tell Me Again Lord, I Forget” By Ruth Harms Calkin
Lord, If like a fragile flower Torn petal by petal My heart must continue to tear, Lord, let there be fragrance
Prayer By Maya Angelou
Father, Mother God, thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days. For then we have you to lean upon.
Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days, for then we can share that which we have with those who have less.
And thank you for your presence During the Holy Days, for then we are able to celebrate you and our families and friends.
For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.
For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.
For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.
For those who are lonely, we ask You to keep them company.
For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.
Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give all the world that which we need most -- Peace.
Prayer for Immigrants
Our God, you have given us in your word the stories of persons who needed to leave their homelands— Abraham, Sarah, Ruth, Moses.
Help us to remember that when we speak of immigrants and refugees, we speak of Christ.
In the One who had no place to lay his head, and in the least of his brothers and sisters, you come to us again, a stranger seeking refuge.
We confess that we often turn away.
You have chosen that the life of Jesus be filled with events of unplanned travel and flight from enemies.
You have shown us through the modeling of Jesus how we are called to relate to persons from different nations and cultures. You have called us to be teachers of your word.
We ask you, our God, to open our minds and hearts to the challenge and invitation to model your perfect example of love. Amen. Prayers for the Marginalized
For those deprived of their human needs, and their human rights: that they may be given the dignity which God confers on all his people; We pray to the Lord:
For all who are forgotten or thrown away, and especially for the poor, the sick and the aged: that God might change our hearts and move us to love them as the image of Christ; We pray to the Lord:
For all who are lonely or afraid, for teenagers on the street, old people in nursing homes, prisoners with no one to visit them, and all whom the world has forgotten: that Christ might lead us to them; We pray to the Lord:
For all who are forgotten or cast off: that we might value each human life, as a priceless gift from God; We pray to the Lord:
For those who are mentally challenged: that we might cherish the gifts God has given them, and in their lives hear the voice of our loving God; We pray to the Lord:
God’s Love Is
I have fallen off the edge of the world. I have traveled the far side of the moon. I have known sorrow and loss Wandering the back streets of hope.
But never have I been away from the love of God. It has followed me, sheltered me, protected me And kept me alive more than once.
No matter how hard your life may become, Please believe that you are not on your own, But watched over by eyes that Never look away and never close.
God’s love is constant. God’s mercy endures. And God will find you when you are lost, Even on the far side of the moon.
~ Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston
Upcoming Executions
The following people are scheduled to be executed in the season of Easter. The tears caused by state-sponsored death flow tonight.
April 8 TN Byron Black April 20 TX Ramiro Gonzales April 21 OH Elwood Jones May 19 TX Quinton Jones May 27 OH Gregory Lott
We pray for these people, the victims of their crimes and their families, and the state lawmakers who have the power to show mercy.