Click here for CVB YouTube channel
Adapted from Iona Community Morning Worship
Opening responses
The world belongs to God,
The earth and all its people.
How good it is, how wonderful,
To live together in unity.
Love and faith come together,
Justice and peace join hands.
If Christ’s disciples keep silent
These stones would shout aloud.
Open our lips, O God,
And our mouths shall proclaim your praise.
Confession
Holy God,Maker of all
Have mercy on us.
Jesus Christ, Servant of the poor
Have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, Breath of life
Have mercy on us.
Let us in silence confess our faults and admit our frailty.
Before God, with the people of God, I confess to my brokenness:
to the ways I wound my life,
the lives of others,
and the life of the world.
May god forgive you, Christ renew you, And the spirit enable you to grow in love. Amen.
Before god, with the people of god,
We confess to our brokenness:
To the ways we wound our lives,
The lives of others,
And the life of the world.
May God forgive you, Christ renew you, and the Spirit enable you to grow in love. Amen.
1
Prayer for God’s help
Move among us, O God; give us life:
Let your people rejoice in you.
Make our hearts clean within us:
Renew us in mind and in spirit.
Give us again the joy of your help:
With your spirit of freedom sustain us.
And now, as Jesus taught us, we say:
Our father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven, Give us today our daily bread,
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us, Save us in the time of trial
And deliver us from evil,
For the kingdom, the power
And the glory are yours,
Now and for ever. Amen.
Affirmation
With the whole church
We affirm
That we are made in god’s image,
Befriended by Christ, empowered by the spirit. With people everywhere
We affirm
God’s goodness at the heart of humanity, Planted more deeply than all that is wrong.
With all creation
We celebrate
The miracle and wonder of life;
The unfolding purposes of god,
Forever at work in ourselves and the world.
2
Psalm 19
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.
13 Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.
Reading 1 Corinthians 1, 18 †25
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Reflection
3
Collect
Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen
Intercessions, concluding with:
O God, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust.
Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe.
We ask it for your own name’s sake.
Amen
Closing responses
This is the day that God has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
We will not offer to God
Offerings that cost us nothing.
Go in peace to love and to serve;
We will seek peace and pursue it.
In the name of the Trinity of Love,
God in community, holy and one.
Into your hands we commit ourselves –
our souls, our bodies, our minds, our futures – for all things come from you
and are best kept in your care.
Amen
The Blessing
© The Iona Community
from The Iona Abbey Worship Book, published by Wild Goose Publications, Iona Community
“I cannot tell” from “Celtic seasons of worship”
4