A Journey Into God’s Resurrection Created World:
A Celebration of the Easter Season
By Christine Sine
A Litany of Hospitality
The following litany, which incorporates several Celtic prayers, revolves around the practice of hospitality. Use it to focus your minds and hearts on the call to be Christ’s hospitality to our world. Brigit’s prayer, at the end of this litany, also makes a great grace before a meal. You might like to write out copies for each person and recite it together as you begin your meal.
God, we are aliens and sojourners in this world, but you invite us to be your guests.
You lavishly offer us your hospitality and lovingly welcome us into your family,
You invite us to share in the abundance of your kingdom.
The King is knocking. If you desire your share of heaven on earth, lift the latch and let in the king of Kings.18
God, you have shown us that providing hospitality to strangers opens a doorway into the Kingdom of God.
Remind us that when we offer hospitality to others, we are receiving Christ into our midst and so fulfilling the law of love.
We open our hearts to embrace the stranger, the friend, the rich, and the poor,
We open our lives to offer a generous heart toward all.
Pause to remind yourself of ways that God has extended hospitality to you.
God, we want to fulfill your law of love and be your hospitality to our world,
I open my heart to be the hospitality of Christ, to all those who come to my door.
I open my heart to Christ in the stranger,
To Christ in the face of colleague and friend.
I open my heart to the one who is wounded,
To Christ in the hungry, the lonely, the homeless.
I open my heart to the one who has hurt me,
To Christ in the faces of sinner and foe.
I open my heart to those who are outcast,
To Christ in the broken, the prisoner, the poor.
I open my heart to all who are searching,
To Christ in the world God’s generous gift.
Pause to remind yourself of ways that you could extend God’s hospitality.
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
We want to take our everyday ordinary lives and offer them as pleasing sacrifices to you,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
We don’t want to be so well adjusted to the culture around us that we fit into it without even thinking,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
God, encourage us to fix our attention on you so that we will be changed and renewed from the inside out,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
We want every part of our lives to be transformed so that we can mature and become all that you intend us to be,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
May we practice real love and allow it to flow out from the center of our being in friendship and compassion, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that we can serve you joyfully and enthusiastically, praying continually especially when we encounter difficult situations,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.
Open our eyes so that we can see beauty in every face and practice hospitality, particularly to those we usually overlook or ignore,
God, we want to love you more and become your hospitality to our world.19
Read Scripture:
Isaiah 25: 6-8
Acts 4: 33-36
Luke 14: 16-24
Lord Jesus Christ, we believe you welcome us all to your banquet table.
May we open our arms to embrace you,
May we see you in the face of a stranger,
May we welcome you in the love of a friend.
We believe you welcome the abandoned, the misfit, the wretched to your feast.
Forgive us for the times we have allowed our prejudices to overrule,
And rejected you because you are different, ostracized or despised.
We believe that there is beauty hidden in each person,
Forgive us for the times we have failed to see your face,
Because you are disabled, poor, or homeless.
We believe we are all precious in your sight.
Forgive us for when we have counted you unworthy of our love,
For when we have been indifferent to your cries.
We believe we are called to share life together as members of one family,
Forgive us for when we have been unconcerned for your suffering,
And failed to see others in your worldwide community as you do.
We are all created in God’s image,
Redeemed by Christ,
Filled with the Holy Spirit.
We are all invited to feast at God’s banquet table.
We are welcomed into God’s eternal kingdom,
With all the peoples’ of the earth.
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
Pause to pray for people to whom you would like to offer God’s hospitality.
I should like a great lake of finest ale, for the King of Kings.
I should like a table of the choicest food, for the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith, and the food be forgiving love.
I should welcome the poor to my feast, for they are God’s children.
I should welcome the sick to my feast, for they are God’s joy.
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place, and the sick dance with the angels
God bless the poor, God bless the sick, and bless our human race.
God bless our food, God bless our drink, all homes, O God, embrace.
We saw a stranger yesterday, we put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place, music in the listening place,
And with the sacred name of the triune God
He blessed us and our house, our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise
The blessings of God be upon this place, with plenty of food and plenty of drink,
With plenty of beds and plenty of ale, with much riches and much cheer
With many kin and length of life, ever upon it.
Amen.
18 Adapted from an ancient Hebridean welcome.
19 Hospitality responsive prayer adapted from Romans 12: 1-13.
Easter Celebration Guide available here:
http://msainfo.org/articles/a-journey-into-gods-resurrection-created-world-easter-celebration-guide