1. God’s Gifts of Love and Mercy
Welcome!

2. God’s Gifts of Love and Mercy Holy Week: Contemplating the Gifts

3. Palm Sunday

4. The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher,
From Isaiah 50: 4-7
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens —   wakens my ear 
to listen as those who are taught. 

5. To ponder… How does God speak to you each morning—each day?
How do you act on what you hear?

6. whose heart was always awake to hear the voice of God.
Lord Jesus,
you are the Servant
whose heart was always awake
to hear the voice of God.
Your life was filled with a love
beyond anything we can comprehend.

7. Your words raised up the weak and the lowly –
and challenged the strong and the powerful.
Give me ears to hear my God—
and a heart and hands and will
to live it out each day.

8. ©“Last Supper” by Bohdan Piasecki
Holy Thursday
©“Last Supper” by Bohdan Piasecki

9. you were steeped in the stories of your people
Lord Jesus,
you were steeped in the stories of your people
and the mighty deeds God had done for them.
On this night, help us to focus on the story of love
at the heart of our scriptures.

10. A love that came into the world and lived at one with it;
a love that faced the fear of suffering and death
and was not overcome;

11. a love that poured out in water and perfume
over the hot and tired feet of disciples;

12. the wine becoming your Blood… a new and eternal covenant of love
a love that gave new meaning to the gifts of bread and wine—the bread becoming your Body—
the wine becoming your Blood…
a new and eternal covenant of love
with your beloved humanity.

13. Good Friday

14. in your last hours and moments,
Lord Jesus,
in your last hours and moments,
we see the power and the depths of the Father’s love.

15. Open our hearts to receive such a love—
a love that flows through the universe—
and poured from a human heart.

16. Open our beings to receive such mercy—
a mercy that believes in the best in us
while knowing the worst.

17. to reach out in love and mercy,
Open our hands—
help us — like you —
to reach out in love and mercy,
to heal the hurts of our wounded world.

18. Holy Saturday

19. there was no place in anywhere that was created
Lord Jesus,
there was no place in anywhere that was created
that you could not go.

20. Your dying took you into the shadowlands of death
to find those who had died before you—
who could not access heaven
until your death opened up the way of life for them.

21. Reach into the shadowlands of our lives and call us forth—
beloved children of God—
to live lives filled with the promise
of all that is to come…

22. And make our lives witness to that for others so that, through us,
you reach out into their shadows and darkness
and give to them your gifts of love and mercy.