10/14/2022
O God of All Comfort,
Lead us humbly into this place of heartbreak.
O Spirit Who Moves
in the Midst of Our Sorrows, Fill us with a right compassion.
Fill us with a right compassion that we would not cross this threshold armed with easy answers,
but would enter instead
bearing the balm of a divine tenderness best expressed in honest affirmations and small acts of service.
Teach us even in this hour, O Lord, how better to mourn
with those who mourn,
that their burden
might in some way
be made more bearable by our sharing in it.
O Lord, in this place of holy sorrows make us quick to listen, and slow to speak,
reminding us how the only true comfort
Job received from his friends
came not from their many words
but from a willingness to sit with him in a silent sympathy of weeping.
So let any spoken comforts we offer
be the fruits of a real and costly fellowship with those who grieve.
A LITURGY BEFORE
Mourning with Those Who Mourn
FROM THE BOOK EVERY MOMENT HOLY, VOL 2: DEATH, GRIEF, & HOPE
COPYRIGHT © 2020 DOUGLAS MCKELVEY
The sharing of such sorrows is indeed
a good and holy work, O Lord.
For you also, Jesus, willingly entered the wounds of this world and wept with your creatures in their brokenness. And you have promised us
that wherever your children gather
in your name, you will be present as well.
So be present with us now
in this wounded space,
O Spirit of God.
Let our presence be sensed as a token of your presence.
Let our concern bear unspoken witness to the redemption your love
will one day work, even unto
the utter and unimaginably glorious reversal of this loss.
Now speak, act, and comfort, O Christ. Shepherd us into the sharing
of this sorrow.
May our hearts be as your heart here,
our voices as your voice,
our hands as your hands,
our tears as your tears. Amen. (Every Moment Holy vol. 2)