Communion Liturgy: Discovering God

Communion Liturgy: Discovering God

Leader: The Lord is with you. 

All: And also with you. 

Leader: Lift up your hearts. 

All: We lift them up to the Lord. 

Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. 

All: It is right to give him thanks and praise. 

Leader 1: Father, Son and Spirit, who know the end from the beginning, thanks and praise are our free offering to you. Every day, like today, is a work of your ingenuity and skill, with an attention to detail that we are slow to grasp. Thousands of years have passed and though we have looked intently, we find we have barely glimpsed the intricacy and beauty of your design. It is good. It is very good. 

You say there is even more. We are eager to see what you have imagined, so we join our voices with the angels and all of creation and with all those you have redeemed from every time and place, who forever declare to the glory of your name:

All:

Holy, holy, holy, God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Faithful, Good and Worthy. Full of Grace and Truth.

Blessed be Your Name, Mighty God.

Leader 2: You are holy, O God of majesty and blessed is your son, Jesus Christ. At this table we recall the perfect gift of your son to this world. 

God, whose thoughts are high above ours, many sought to guess the nature of your magnificent gift, but no one was prepared for the genius of Emmanuel, God with us. In Jesus, we find the wisdom and goodness of God on full display. He is the word-made-flesh-in whom all the fulness of Deity lives. Even having found him, there is much more to be discovered as you reveal yourself to us. You are good. You are very good.

Leader 1: On the night he was betrayed, arrested and sentenced to death, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: "Take and eat; this is my body which is given for you."

Leader 2:When supper was over, he took the cup, and after giving thanks, gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take this and drink it; for this cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you and many, for the forgiveness of sins."  

As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we do proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. May our lives be resurrection-lives, always proclaiming the mystery of our faith:

All: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.