Celebrant            God be with you!

People                  And also with you!

Celebrant            Lift up your hearts!

People                  We lift them up to God!

Celebrant            Then let us give thanks.

People                  It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right and a good and joyful thing to give thanks to you always, Creator God, because you have made the world in all its complexity. You have given humanity abundant good things. Yet you have also given us the capacity for dark choices and anxiety. You have provided us with paths leading to wisdom through deprivation and suffering. And you have shown us, through the incarnation of your love in Jesus Christ, the way of reconciliation through letting go of self and material concerns, seeking first the compassionate realm of God.

Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels, with all the company of the heavens, and with all the creatures of the earth, who forever sing their hymns to proclaim the glory of your name:

Celebrant and People

Holy, holy, holy Lord                                                                      Hymnal _____

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

The congregation may stand, sit or kneel as is comfortable. The Celebrant says

Ever Living God, you have created the world out of nothingness. You are present in both the darkness and the light.

You have created humanity from the dust of the earth, and have given us the ability to choose between good and evil. You have called your prophets and champions from among the lowly. You have formed your people through wanderings in the desert and through exile in foreign lands.

In your creative thirst to be known to us, you have entered into our struggles, coming among us in the human person of Jesus, the Christ. He was conceived amid scandal, born in want, raised in obscurity. With us he embraces hunger and thirst, temptation, rejection, doubt, grief, suffering and death.

On the night before he died, he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “Take, eat: This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

After supper he took the cup of wine and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink this, all of you: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.”

Therefore we proclaim this mystery of faith:

The Celebrant and People say

Christ has died with us.

Christ lives in us.

Christ comes into the world again.

The Celebrant continues

Now in this sacred rite of thanksgiving and praise we celebrate the saving work of Jesus. For in him the cross, the instrument of torture and death, has been transformed into the sign of reconciliation and abundant life. Recalling his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection, we offer these gifts of bread and wine. Spirit of Compassion, breathe upon them now, making them for us the very body and blood of your incarnate love, the Christ. And breathe your Spirit into us so that, having partaken of this sacramental meal in faith, we may serve you in unity, constancy and peace, and may dwell forever in the joy of communion with you.

All this we ask through the Christ, who is the human and cosmic incarnation of your Love. By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of your Holy Spirit all honor and glory are yours, Creator God, now and forever. AMEN.

(Continue here with the Lord’s Prayer and the rest of the service)