A Responsive Meditation for Passion Sunday or Holy Week
• Setting: A bare space with an empty cross or a crucifix which is visible to all during the meditation. Three candles are placed further beyond the cross and around them a good number that are unlit.
Opening prayer – complete silence during which the candles are lit
Reading: Luke 23: 39-43
Reader
Who is this who hangs here?
Keeping once again the company of outcasts
And who in their pain call to him
Did we ever recognize him?
When did we ever let his innocence,
Draw from us a cry of forgiveness?
Perhaps it was the familiarity
Of close community
Or even our sense of being chosen
That kept us from knowing
Such holy intimacy
As this
All: Today you shall be with me in Paradise
Reader
Oh we sought to be like him
To live and emulate
And be real disciples
We thought we were on the winning side
But not one of us cried
Like this criminal – remember me
Or if we did
Was it because we wanted
A place in the kingdom
Our dreams of power
Corrupting our vision?
And when others came and scorned his claim
How we would leap over our doubts
To provide a defence
With no sense of our own denials
All: Today you shall be with me in Paradise
Reader:
Did we ever see this man who hangs here
This man we have followed and proclaimed
And yet here is named
Not by us but by criminals
With whom his blood mingles
As it drops
Do we wish he’d stop it now and save himself?
We need you God, strong and whole
To feel better about ourselves
Or do we see at last
The largeness
The terribleness
Of our sin
And in recognition
Know him
The only innocent one
Embracing with aching arms
All who come?
All: Today you shall be with me in Paradise
Or do we just see again
An old familiar scene
An icon of our dreams
Instead of the truth
Of what it takes to receive
This promise
A ghastly execution
Two criminals
And a Christ
• Following the reading a time of silence during which people move forward, passing around the cross meditatively to light candles.
A closing hymn/song such as “O Sacred Head Surrounded”
© Erice Fairbrother