Tag: holy Saturday

Walking the Holy Week Walk


God
I am
so angry
I could
Curse out
all the Fig
Trees
That are poisoning
The land

I am so
angry
I could
Flip
the tables
of all those
Who are
Tricking the
Public
with Slight of
Hand
Money
Changing
Pretend
“Money
Saving”
Tricks

God I am so
Angry
That there is
Not actually
A Cursing God
Tuesday

There is not
and actually
Justice Making
Monday

There is not
An
Actually
Action-Making
Stay up all Night
Until things Change
Sunday

We play through
The Emotions
of Holy Week
And all I end up
with is another
Statement
From my Denomination

Don’t get me wrong
I am a Writer
In Love with Words
Grounded in
The Good News
I love Verbal Processing
As much
as the Next Person

And I think
That Art
feeds the Soul
of Movements

But we have to figure
Out how To
Stop our
Senators from
Posting
Mealy Mouth
Social Media
Statements

And Move from
The Theater
To actually
Tearing Down
The things that
Don’t work

Before the
Fig Trees
Are Replanted
Before the Temple
was rebuilt
Before the Table
Was put back together

Things had to be
cursed out
Deconstructed
Torn Apart
Destroyed

There is no
resurrection
Without Death

How do we
Kill Racism
Nazism
Homophobia
Isolationism
Christian Fascism

So that we can finally

Figure out
Liberation
Equity
Justice
and Extravagant Grace

Lord,
Teach us
to be a Resurrection
People
we Pray

Amen

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “Katyandtheword”

Lent: Holy Saturday Lord Teach Me to Pray/Give Yourself to God

Holy Saturday: Un-Prayer/Silent Prayer
https://katyandtheword.com/2023/04/08/prayer-for-holy-saturday/

Prayer Activity: Create a Black Out Prayer Similar to Black out Poetry https://writers.com/what-is-blackout-poetry-examples-and-inspiration, Step by Step instructions https://arapahoelibraries.org/blogs/post/how-to-blackout-poetry/

Taize Option: Wait for the Lord 

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Empty hands reaching up

Un-Prayer for Holy Saturday

I’m so sorry for your Loss
…………………………(silence)……………………
They are in a better place
This really sucks
God needed another angel
…………………………(silence)……………………
Call me if you need anything
::Sitting and crying together::
They were too good to live
…………………………(silence)……………………
You did everything you could
Oh God
You can always have another child/You have other children
…………………………(silence)……………………
They had a good life
…………………………(silence)……………………
…………………………(silence)……………………
…………………………(silence)……………………
…………………………(silence)……………………

Feel free to share/adapt/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Stone Cave Tomb, Stone in front of it, black background, made on Canva, free to use

Good Friday/Empty Saturday Prayer

Jesus
Tonight is when you
We’re so human
You experienced
Godlessness
You hit rock bottom
You died
And knew what it was to be
Abandoned, forgotten
& unloved.

Because all of these feelings
All of these experiences
Each of these realities
Are part of being human.

Jesus, you truly
Utterly
Emptied
Yourself for us
In a Friday that
Wasn’t good!

(Yet)

And Jesus
Even without you there—
You invite us
To sit in that emptiness
All of Empty Saturday.

(How do you even do that?)

Thank you
For the emptying
And the emptiness
Jesus.

Thank you for being that human.

Amen

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

If you enjoy my work please consider supporting my D. Min In Creative Writing in public Theology from Pittsburgh Seminary: https://gofund.me/aaeb4910

Holy Week/Easter Prayers

Ashes: A Holy Week Prayer

Holy Week: Praying Our Way Through (Also good for Palm Sunday)

Palm Sunday: Waiting for the Stones

Maundy Thursday: Washing the Dust, Existential Crises: Love One Another?, Broken for You

At the Table: Not I, Lord

In the Garden of Gethsemane: A Socially Distanced Prayer

Good Friday: Friday is not “Good,” Essential Workers at the Cross, Denial and Grace in Crises,

Holy Saturday: Pausing for Grief (Slides Version here) , Living in the In Between, Holy Saturday: A Confession (I didn’t really want more time to do nothing)

Easter: Masks a Prayer, Can You Hear Easter (the Good News), Say Nothing Easter, My God is the God of Emptiness (Empty Tombs)

Masks (are Holy): Ending with Easter

Pentecost: Stuck in a Room

Narrative Lectionary: Luke Lent Cycle Prayers and Resources

Please feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Holy Saturday: Pausing for Grief

God, what was it like to take the Holy Pause of Saturday? Did you practice Sabbath while Jesus, your only son, had died?

Did you sit in a comfortable corner and let yourself cry?

Did you practice breathing, slowly, in and out, trying to find ways to regulate once again?

Did you embrace despondency?

Did it feel like the world had stopped? Did you feel slammed by the bad news–even though you knew it was coming? Did you have to sit for a minute to take in the fullness of its meaning?

Did you simply, actually, pause the world for a few so you could keep your rainbow promises?

Did you feel frustrated that after all you had done, and tried, that Jesus died anyway?

Did you take comfort in sitting with the disciples and Mary, and Mary and Martha as they moaned?

Did you make yourself useful, keeping busy helping all the humans who were in pain, so you could better process your own?

Did you just sleep all day, and try to forget the world existed?

Lord God, I have a sneaking suspicion that Saturday is Holy because it legitimizes our pain, our loss, our anger at injustices, our impatience with the waiting for peace, our heartbrokenness with the state of the world, our feeling of helplessness to be of help to anyone or anything.

And yet, You give us permission to take the time to sit with the pain. You give us the space we need to do absolutely nothing (at first) in response to the evil in the world. You do not barge in with good news or toxic positivity. You let resurrection sneak into our hearts, little by little.

Thank you God for this time and space.

Thank you for being a God who fully experiences the range of emotions and reactions we have.

Thank you for being our God and sitting with us.

Let us sit together a little longer………………………………

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

I hate waiting (Saturday)

Lord,

I’ve never been good at waiting. I am impatient and like to keep my hands busy.

Were the women keeping their hands busy when they mixed the spices on Holy Saturday for God? Didn’t they know that Joseph of Arimathea, along with Zaccheus? The high falutin politicians had already moved and covered Jesus with spices?

Was it common to do it more than once? Did the women decide to do it anyway to make sure it was done right?

Did they just need to see & touch dead Jesus with their own hands?

Or were they just keeping their hands busy, choosing and blending the spices, grinding them up with olive oil. Putting them into vessels suitable to journey to Jesus.

Or were they plotting to steal the body of Jesus? Ready to run the risk of the wrath of Herod to make Jesus’ resurrection real in their own way?

If I were them I would not have slept much, I would go at dawn because once I figured out what I was going to do I’d work all night doing it, planning to leave at first light.

I’ve never been good at waiting Lord, and my bet is neither were Mary and Mary Magdalene.

How am I going to keep busy this Saturday?

Help God, help me to do what needs to be done, so that I can do the waiting that needs to be waited, I pray. Amen.

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More Pandemic Prayers

Holy Saturday

Why is it called Holy Saturday?

 

I know many people pass the time on Holy Saturday by holding a vigil and reading through scripture.

But the truth is, when the disciples where waiting on Saturday, they were doing nothing. Holed up in their house they were hiding from the Empire.

They were awaiting their own death. Probably wondering out loud why Jesus had to die, wondering why he had to die a heretic, laid upon a cross that meant your were destined for hell.

It was a room that smelled of fear and death. It was a place where the disciples took cold comfort with one another, no doubt trying to ignore Peter’s pleas that he didn’t meant to deny Jesus. No doubt wondering if they were supposed to steal the body.

Women were sent. They were thought to be harmless. Women prepared Jesus for the tomb with the wrappings and the spices to hide the bad smell. They moved him to the cavern in the garden, where the guards watched to make certain no mischief was done. They were the worthless, but essential workers of the day.

We are in a sort of Holy Saturday ourselves, waiting for the word for the all clear. Hearing stories of who has died, and the suffering they have undergone.

We are experiencing the interminable wait, the timeframe is unknown, the hope is thin, and the loneliness is impenetrable.

Families are worried and separated from one another. And the world is slowly falling apart. And the world is a dark and scary place.

We can see the cornerstones of our lives being deconstructed. The things we depend upon are changing: the routines are gone, the securities are unreliable: school, work, church are crumbling.

Holy Saturday is what happens under the waters of baptism, I wonder if that’s what happens when you say goodbye to a loved one who has died who you can no longer see on earth. I wonder if Holy Saturday is where we are as we wait for the second coming of Christ.

Holy Saturday is the gap in scripture, undefined by the stories, left wide open in the yawning space of time.

Holy Saturday is now. The time between sickness and the cure. It’s the time before the temple is rebuilt. It’s the time when the cracks in society are splitting apart. It’s the time when the gaps are made clear, for when the rebuilding needs to happen.

And we await the healing, sabbath, wholeness of Easter and the time we can be together.

Somehow, this dark waiting time can be Holy too.

More Pandemic Prayers