Friday evening May 13
Saturday evening
Thursday evening
Preparation
Opening response
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Send your Holy Spirit upon us,
and clothe us with power from on high. Alleluia.
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,
to you be glory and praise forever.
Raised to your right hand on high
the ascended Christ shows the prints of love
and bestows on us the gifts of grace.
As your Spirit renews the face of the earth,
may we bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
and reveal your glory in all the world.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.
Hymn
My soul and all its powers
Charles Wesley
My soul and all its powers
Thine, wholly thine, shall be;
All, all my happy hours
I consecrate to thee:
Me to thine image now restore,
And I shall praise thee evermore.
Long as I live beneath,
To thee O let me live;
To thee my every breath
In thanks and praises give:
Whatever I have, whatever I am
Shall magnify my maker’s name.
I wait thy will to do,
As angels do in heaven;
In Christ a creature new,
Most graciously forgiven;
I wait thy perfect will to prove,
All sanctified by spotless love.
Confession of sin
The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
very patient, and full of faithful love.
He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
or repay us according to our wrongdoing.
Because as high as heaven is above the earth,
that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
Silence is kept for reflection.
Holy God,
Holy and strong,
Holy and immortal,
have mercy upon us.
As far as east is from west—
that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
that’s how the Lord feels compassion for those who honor him.
Let my whole being bless the Lord.
Let everything inside me bless his holy name.
Let my whole being bless the Lord,
and never forget all his good deeds.
The Word of God
Psalm 147
Refrain:
Our Lord is great and so strong!
Praise the Lord!
Because it is good to sing praise to our God!
Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!
The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles.
God heals the brokenhearted
and bandages their wounds.
God counts the stars by number,
giving each one a name.
Our Lord is great and so strong!
God’s knowledge can’t be grasped!
The Lord helps the poor,
but throws the wicked down on the dirt!
Sing to the Lord with thanks;
sing praises to our God with a lyre!
God covers the skies with clouds;
God makes rain for the earth;
God makes the mountains sprout green grass.
God gives food to the animals—
even to the baby ravens when they cry out.
God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse;
God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner.
No. The Lord treasures the people
who honor him,
the people who wait for his faithful love.
Worship the Lord, Jerusalem!
Praise your God, Zion!
Because God secures the bars on your gates,
God blesses the children you have there.
God establishes your borders peacefully.
God fills you full with the very best wheat.
God issues his command to the earth—
God’s word speeds off fast!
God spreads snow like it was wool;
God scatters frost like it was ashes;
God throws his hail down like crumbs—
who can endure God’s freezing cold?
Then God issues his word and melts it all away!
God makes his winds blow;
the water flows again.
God proclaims his word to Jacob;
his statutes and rules to Israel.
God hasn’t done that with any other nation;
those nations have no knowledge of God’s rules.
Praise the Lord!
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
Our Lord is great and so strong!
Psalm prayer
Compassionate God,
as you know each star you have created,
so you know the secrets of every heart;
in your loving mercy bring to your table
all who are fearful and broken,
all who are wounded and needy,
that our hungers may be satisfied
in the city of your peace;
through Christ who is our peace.
Old Testament reading
Deuteronomy 33
This is the blessing that Moses the man of God gave the Israelites before he died. He said:
The Lord came from Sinai:
from Seir he shone like the dawn on us,
from Paran Mountain he beamed down.
Thousands of holy ones were with him;
his warriors were next to him, ready.
Yes, those who love the nations—
all his holy ones—were at your command;
they followed your footsteps;
they got moving when you said so.
Moses gave the Instruction to us—
it’s the prized possession of Jacob’s assembly.
A king came to rule in Jeshurun,
when the people’s leaders gathered together,
when Israel’s tribes were one.
“I pray that Reuben lives, doesn’t die,
though his numbers are so few.”
Moses said this to Judah:
“Lord, listen to Judah’s voice!
Bring him back to his own people,
strengthen his hands;
be his help against every enemy.”
Then he told Levi:
“Give your Thummim to Levi,
your Urim to your faithful one—
the one you tested at Massah,
the one you challenged by Meribah’s waters;
the one who said of his own mother and father:
‘I don’t consider them as such’;
of their siblings: ‘I don’t recognize them’;
of their own children, ‘I don’t know them’—
but who obeyed your words
and who guarded your covenant!
They teach your case laws to Jacob,
your Instruction to Israel.
They hold sweet incense to your nose;
put the entirely burned offering on your altar.
I pray that the Lord blesses Levi’s strength,
favors his hard work,
and crushes the insides of his enemies
so that those who hate him can’t fight anymore.”
He said to Benjamin:
“The Lord’s dearest one
rests safely on him.
The Lord always shields him;
he rests on God’s chest.”
Then he told Joseph:
“I pray that his land is blessed by God:
with heaven’s gifts from above,
with the deep waters stretching out underneath;
with the gifts produced by the sun,
with the gifts generated by the moon;
with the best fruit from ancient mountains,
with the gifts of eternal hills;
with the gifts of the earth and all that fills it,
and the favor of the one who lives on Sinai.
I pray that all these rest on Joseph’s head,
on the crown of that prince among brothers.
A firstborn bull—that’s how majestic he is!
A wild ox’s horns—those are his horns!
With them he gores all peoples
completely, to the far ends of the earth!
His horns are Ephraim’s tens of thousands.
His horns are Manasseh’s thousands.”
Then he told Zebulun:
“Zebulun: celebrate when you are out and about;
Issachar: celebrate when you are at home in your tents!
They call all sorts of people to the mountain,
where they offer right sacrifices.
It’s true: They’re nourished on the sea’s abundance;
they are nourished on buried treasures in the sand.”
Then he told Gad:
“May Gad’s broad lands be blessed!
He lives like a lion:
he rips an arm, even a head!
He chose the best part for himself
because there, where the commander’s portion was,
the leaders of the people gathered together.
Gad executed the Lord’s justice
and the Lord’s judgments for Israel.”
Then he told Dan:
“Dan is a lion cub.
He jumps up from Bashan.”
Then he told Naphtali:
“Naphtali—you are full of favor,
overflowing with the Lord’s blessing—
go possess the west and the south!”
Finally, he told Asher:
“Asher is the most blessed of sons.
I pray that he’s his brothers’ favorite—
one who dips his foot in fine oil.
I pray that your dead bolts are iron and copper,
and that your strength lasts all your days.”
Jeshurun! No one compares to God!
He rides through heaven to help you,
rides majestically through the clouds.
The most ancient God is a place of safety;
the eternal arms are a support.
He drove out the enemy before you.
He commanded: “Destroy them!”
So Israel now lives in safety—
Jacob’s residence is secure—
in a land full of grain and wine,
where the heavens drip dew.
Happy are you, Israel! Who is like you?
You are a people saved by the Lord!
He’s the shield that helps you,
your majestic sword!
Your enemies will come crawling on their knees to you,
but you will stomp on their backs!
Silence may be kept.
New Testament reading
1 John 4:7-21
Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.
Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world. If any of us confess that Jesus is God’s Son, God remains in us and we remain in God. We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. We love because God first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates a brother or sister, he is a liar, because the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister who can be seen can’t love God, who can’t be seen. This commandment we have from him: Those who claim to love God ought to love their brother and sister also.
Silence may be kept.
Gospel canticle
The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)
Refrain:
How excellent is your name in all the world; you have set your glory above the heavens. Alleluia.
With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next,
who honors him as God.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy,
just as he promised to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.
Luke 1:46-55
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
How excellent is your name in all the world; you have set your glory above the heavens. Alleluia.
Brief silence
The Apostle’s Creed
Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Prayers
Thanksgiving and intercession
Thanksgiving may be made for the day.
Intercessions are offered
for peace
for individuals and their needs
Response
Lord, hear your people
and answer our prayers.
Silence may be kept.
Collect of the day
O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Savior Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Being made one by the power of the Spirit,
as our Savior taught us, so we pray
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.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.
Conclusion
May the Spirit kindle in us the fire of God’s love.
Amen.