Voices Found: Ash Wednesday WLWC; RCL Year C VF 72, 73, 98
Ash Wednesday
Tear your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Holy One, your God,
for God is gracious and loves as a mother,
slow to anger, and abundant in steadfast love,
and reluctant to impose harm. (Joel 2:13, tr. Gafney)
Voices Found #71 and #72
Mothering God you gave me birth
In the bright morning of this earth.
Creator, source of every breath,
You are my rain, my wind, my sun.
Mothering Christ, you took my form,
Offering me your food of light,
Grain of life, and grape of love,
Your very body for my peace.
Mothering Spirit, nurturing one,
In arms of patience hold me close,
so that in faith I root and grow
Until I flower, until I know.
Words: Jean Wiebe Janzen, after Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342-ca. 1416)
Joel 2:1, 12-17, 21-22; Psalm 90:1-10, 12 are appointed for Ash Wednesday in the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year C
Mother of the mountains , you have been our refuge
from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were born,
or you writhed the land and the earth into birth,
from age to age you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2, tr. Gafney)
Joel and the Psalmist offer visions of God as Mother, a welcome comfort as we ponder sin and mortality. In her notes to the WLWC lessons appointed in the Hebrew Scriptures, Gafney points out that Joel's words were a call to solemn assembly in fasting and repentance in response to a locust infestation resulting in economic loss, understood by his people as divine punishment. His message of Divine motherly love in the midst of disaster is echoed later in the Psalmist's image of Mother God birthing Creation.
Jean Wiebe Janzen wrote the hymn "Mothering God," based on Julian of Norwich's understanding of God as Mother Creator, and of Jesus, our tender Mothering Christ. Voices Found includes two musical settings of Julian's text. Ana Hernandez wrote a tune based on a familiar French melody from the 17th Century, an easy melody for congregations to sing. A more elaborate setting by Sharon Marion Hershy is also published with a choral descant; it can be used as a simple anthem for a small choir.
Meditation
The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty;
yet the sum of them is labor and sorrow,
for they pass quickly and we are gone.
So teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts of Wisdom.
(Psalm 90:10-12, tr. Gafney)
Prayer:
Voices Found # 98
O teach me Lord, that I may teach the
precious things thou dost impart;
and wing my words, that they may reach
the hidden depths of many a heart.
Words: Frances R. Havergal (1836-1879)
Music: Canonbury, adapt. Robert A. Schuman (1810-1856)
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