Spring Sectional Prayer – 2014

Opening Prayer

Leader:Let us place ourselves in the presence of God.

(pause for silent prayer.)

SongGather Us, O GodMonica Brown

Sing or ListenGather us, oh God, body, spirit, soul and mind.

and reflectGather us, oh God, one in union now with you.

ReadingMark 14:3-9

Litany Excerpted from August 2012 LCWR Prayer Vigil in St. Louis

Leader:Eve, mother of all the living…Sarah, mother of the Hebrew nation…Miriam, who liberated her people from Pharoah…Ruth and Naomi, models of sisterly love and solidarity…Esther, the queen who intervened for her people…

Response:All you holy women pray with us.

Leader:Hildegard of Bingen, musician, healer, theologian, placed under interdict for resisting abusive Episcopal power…Catherine of Siena, mystic and church reformer who admonished two Popes…Clare of Assisi, Franciscan founder who resisted Vatican attempts to change her egalitarian order… Therese of Lisieux, founder of the “little way” of total love of God and called to priesthood…

Response:All you holy women pray with us.

Leader:Mary of Nazareth, mother of Jesus and mother of the Church…Mary of Magdala, Apostle to the Apostles and first witness to the Resurrection…Mary of Bethany, friend of Jesus, believer and student of the Torah…Anointing woman, whose prophetic, extravagant love comforted jesus before his passion…Canaanite woman, whose fierce love convinced Jesus to heal her daughter…

Response:All you holy women pray with us.

Leader:Dorothy Day, single working mother, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement and “the conscience of American Catholicism”…Thea Bowman, African-American “sister of everybody” who prophetically challenged the U.S. Bishops Conference about racism in the Church…Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, martyred for the church of the poor in El Salvador…

Response:All you holy women pray with us.

Sharing of the Heart

How am I inspired by the anointing woman of today's Scripture and the holy

women invoked in our prayer, and how do I live this inspiration?

Closing Prayer

All:Loving God, as we remember and celebrate the history of women leaders in our contemporary church, we see you great faithfulness to them even through agonizing times, suffering and trial. Please give us and LCWR leaders courage and confidence that just as your Holy Spirit has faithfully called forth and accompanied women leaders in every age of church history, so that same Wisdom Spirit is accompanying and guiding them and the entire People of God today. We ask this prayer in the name of your Son, Jesus, who is with us always.

Amen.

Facilitator Guide

Prayer CopiesCopies for each person in your Sectional are needed. You can make copies for everyone.

Or ask those in your sectional to download and print her/his own prayer to bring to the Sectional.

Environment:a simple candle, colorful cloth and bible and/or perhaps a symbol or symbols of women witnesses of the Gospel can be placed in the center of the prayer space.

Or use spring flowers andimage(s)or symbols that represent the personalities and spirituality of your particular Sectional..

Music:A CD has been provided with.

You can have your Sectional sing along or just listen to it.

You will need a CD Player. Older CD players sometimes do not accept CDs that have been copied. Try it on your player sometime before the Sectional to make sure it will work. If it does not, you may want to have someone bring a newer CD player that can play CD-R discs.

Or you may want to substitute it with a song that you have in your own collection that you think is more appropriate for your group.

Sharing:The sharing time is for the Sharing of the Heart.Take ample time for Sharing of the Heart.

ReadingMark 14:3-9

When he was in Bethany reclining at table

in the house of Simon the leper,

a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil,

costly genuine spikenard.

She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.

There were some who were indignant.

“Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?

It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.”

They were infuriated with her.

Jesus said, “Let her alone.

Why do you make trouble for her?

She has done a good thing for me.

The poor you will always have with you,

and whenever you wish you can do good to them,

but you will not always have me.

She has done what she could.

She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.

Amen, I say to you,

wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world,

what she has done will be told in memory of her.”