Renewing Our Gathering – It’s a Start!

As we protest and/or witness against the Church we have, I like to keep before us the Church we want: one, needless to say, with a multi-gendered approach to ministry and new possibilities for reaching people. I would like to start “small” by describing one way our small Eucharistic community does just this. This particular community, by the way, supplements traditional church for some and substitutes for it for others, but all of us love the freedom it gives us to experiment with worship while still staying within, or close to, the framework of Catholic liturgy. As an example, I start with some ways we have used a multi-gendered approach at the Gathering portion of the Mass. One option is:

A Poem of Welcome by Amy Lowell

Hold your soul open for my welcoming

Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me

With its clear and rippled coolness,

That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest,

Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.

Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,

That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,

The life and joy of tongues of flame,

And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,

I may rouse the blear-eyed world,

And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.

and/or…

A Reflection from The Sabbath byRabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

All our life should be a pilgrimage to the seventh day; the thought and appreciation of what this day may bring to us should be ever present in our minds. For the Sabbath is the counterpoint of living; the melody sustained throughout all the agitations and vicissitudes which menace our conscience; our awareness of God’s presence in the world.

…and/or…

A Prayer for Vision and Courage

Come Holy Spirit, Divine Breath

Open us to your presence

 

Refresh and give life to what is exhausted

Drive away fear from our hearts

 

Come Holy Spirit, Wind Divine