Nurturing
Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children          
Luke 2 7: 28

Mothers weeping,
Lamenting
By the well-worn path
Trodden daily by the convicted
Being led to death.

Injustice
Manifest
Before their very eyes:
An innocent seized,
An horrendous crime.

They know him –
A firstborn child,
Nurtured
By his mother
Like a sapling.
He lived among them
Curing their ills,
Soothing their pain,
Embracing their children.

Should evil be returned for good?

Mothers of the world
Do not weep for me,
Weep for yourselves,
Weep for your children.

Look at your vulnerable off-spring,
The children you nurtured
In your womb.
Can you spare them
From the violence of war?
From devastation
Of nuclear attacks?
From barbed wire
That tortures their flesh?

Mothers weeping
and lamenting
On the roads of the world.
Your cry resounds
Throughout all of history:
It is heard In Ramah... in Bethlehem...
In Hiroshima... in Auschwitz...
In Kosovo... in Rwanda...

There is no end to
The tears
Running from your eyes.

Mothers on the journey of life,
Trust the green wood,
The innocent SON
Who has strength
To carry your sorrow,
To give your children hope.

 

Mothers, women, they know the pain of loving. In the face of human sorrow and tragedy, mothers are those who pay the highest price of seeing their own children, flesh of their flesh, being deprived of their dignity, abused, tortured, killed. Mothers know the hard way of the cross.

The cross - this horrible means of torture of the past has been replaced with modern and more sophisticate means of mass destruction. Yet Jesus calls women to nurture a better world, so to spare humanity from even greater tragedy.

Indeed, he calls us all to have a mother-like heart, to nurture life around us.

Celebration Themes & Scripture Links
Jesus meets the women
Nurturing
Luke 23:27-32; Isaiah 66:12-13; Jeremiah 9:16-19; Hosea 11:2-4
Motherhood
Luke 23:2 7-32; John 3:16 15:12-14; Romans 5:6-8; Philippians 25:11; Luke 2:3 4

 

We Pray...
Jesus, you are the beginning and the end,
the one who leads us out of death into life.
Help us be people who nurture, giving life
to those who feel abandoned or let down in any way.

Second Reading – Hebrews 10: 16-25

The Service continues with AMEN!

"You will Bear witness for me ... beginning here,"