Intercessions ~ The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Oldest known wooden building in Russia ~

The Raising of Lazarus

Soon it will be Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week./ The time of the Jewish Passover approaches as well./ We ask for days of peaceful reflection./ We pray to the Lord.

Lazarus,/ Martha and Mary were brother and sisters./ We pray for families around the world,/ mindful of those suffering the effects of war,/ famine,/ abuse,/ poverty,/ displacement or disaster./ We pray to the Lord.

We ask for the deepening of our prayer/ and for a revival where we have perhaps abandoned prayer,/ or where our prayer has become minimal,/ routine,/ selfish or tepid./ We pray to the Lord.

We ask for an increase of faith,/ hope and love where we are discouraged,/ tired,/ frustrated or feeling empty./ We pray to the Lord.

Again in our prayer/ we intercede for the countries of the world,/ praying now for the people and lands of Cambodia,/ Cameroon,/ Canada,/ Cape Verde,/ Cayman Islands,/ Central African Republic and Chad./ We pray to the Lord.

Millions live in refugee camps where there is the disruption of war./ We pray for them and for the sick,/ those in hospitals,/ nursing homes and hospices./ For the strengthening of caretakers/ and for anyone who is alone./ We pray to the Lord.

Finally/ we pray for those who have died to know the fullness of Jesus' love for them./ We pray to the Lord.

Fourteenth Station ~ Jesus is Buried in the Tomb

HERE IS AN ICON of Jesus' Mother in her Good Friday anguish. She is depicted in her sorrow as her Son is taken down from the cross and placed in the stone tomb. It's said that there is no sorrow like that of a mother sorrowing over the death of her child. The Medieval hymn asks:

                                     Who, that sorrow contemplating,

                                     On that passion meditating,

                                     Wound not share the Virgin's grief?

But this icon scene of the sorrowing Mother is also seen in newspapers  and on TV and computer screens each day. The misery so deep is all over the world as mothers watch helplessly while their children wither and die.

Perhaps Mary grieves too that her Son remains so unknown, unloved; that sin is so un-acknowledged, un-repented of and evil so justified. 

Iraqi Mother trying to revive her dead son.

Oh Jesus, give us new hearts, hearts that are eager even to know about and share the sorrows of others. Give us hearts that turn, and turn again, and yet again - to interface with others and to know that you are there.

Thirteenth Station ~ Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

REMBRANDT PAINTED AT THE HEIGHT of the slave trade. Every year the Dutch ships brought hundreds of thousands of slaves to the Americas from Africa. While the ship captains would read their bibles at night and in rough seas the crew would shoot muskets into the air to wake up heaven to their plight, they saw nothing wrong with stealing people away from their homes half a world away to make slaves of them.

Rembrandt knew about this exploitation and greedy profit. His image of Jesus reflects this numbing sadness. Jesus' muscles are useless here and his body is even deformed, unlike the pumped up, idealized bodies of sculpted Greek gods. Rembrandt isn't saying, Jesus is useless. Rather Jesus, God humanized, has entered our world of decay and deforming choices. 

Saint Paul writes to us: 

"Who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:6-8)

Our Father Who Art in  Heaven...

Hail Mary full of grace...

Glory be to the Father...