Rite of Blessing (Easter sunrise)

Molly invited me to represent CWM in the Somerville multi-church Easter sunrise service this year.

How about the Rite of Blessing--sprinkling the crowd with baptismal water, using a budding branch (lots of homage to our Pagan roots), to symbolize our new life. If you say yes, I'll send you the order I usually use to do it, which you can adapt as you wish.

[...]

I tell people that this is one of the more ancient rites of the church, a reminder of baptism.

I take a big bowl of water (sometimes I'll use local water--say, from the Mystic, or even better, salt water from the ocean), dip a branch in it (all the better if it's budding). Say one of the following prayers.

Then I walk around the circle sprinkling people with the branch dipped in water and telling them in turn (maybe 3-4 at a time) that they are God's beloved, with whom God is well pleased.

I took the longer prayer of the two she sent and ... almost entirely rewrote it.

I was telling Ari this yesterday, and she said isn't it great that we both have church communities where we can be given a text in advance and entirely rewrite it and that's okay.

After the service was over, I thanked Molly for inviting me to participate in the service.

She said, "Thank you, for being one of our ministers."

♥

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my prayer:

O God, Source and Breath of all being,
receive the prayers of your people:
We celebrate our creation and redemption;
receive our prayers and bless this water
which gives fruitfulness to the fields
and refreshment and cleansing to all people.
After you led your people to freedom through the Red Sea,
You satisfied their thirst in the desert with water from the rock.
In the waters of baptism and blessing, we are renewed and transformed;
we are washed clean of our old lives,
of all that obscures the spark of Divinity within each of us;
we are brought through darkness and water
into the light of new life.
May this water be a reminder to us of the covenant You have made
with each of us and with the whole communion of saints.
May this water bring us up from the ground of stagnancy and death,
into the light and breath of new life,
of life abundant,
of life everlasting.
We ask this in the name of God our Creator,
Jesus our Redeemer,
and the Spirit our Sustainer.
(and the people of God said) AMEN.

***

the prayer Molly sent:

Lord God almighty,
Hear the prayers of your people:
We celebrate our creation and redemption
Hear our prayers and bless + this water
Which gives fruitfulness to the fields
And refreshment and cleansing to all men, women and children
You chose water to show your goodness when you led your people to freedom
Through the red sea
And satisfied their thirst in the desert with water from the rock.
Water was the symbol used by the prophets to foretell your new covenant with man
You made the water of baptism holy
By Christ’s baptism in the Jordan
By it you give us a new birth
And renew us in holiness
May this water remind us of our baptism
And let us share in the joy of all who have been baptized at Easter
And who will be baptized today, this easter
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord
AMEN.