Monday of the Second Week of Easter

Monday of the Second Week of Easter. The early Church prays for boldness and the place shakes. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night: born from above, of water and Spirit. The wind blows where it wills. Optional memorial of St. Martin I, Pope and Martyr.

Peter and John, released from the Sanhedrin, return to the community and report what happened. The community raises their voices to God with one accord: Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth, enable your servants to speak your word with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal and signs and wonders are done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. In the Gospel, Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, comes to Jesus at night. Jesus tells him: unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus asks how a man who is already old can be born again. Jesus answers: unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom. The wind blows where it wills; you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, you meet those who come searching in the dark and you do not turn them away for the hour of their arrival. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Christ Jesus, you promise birth from above - of water and Spirit - and the wind of your Spirit blows where it wills. PEOPLE: Christ, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, you fill your Church with the Holy Spirit and shake the ground when your people pray for boldness. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

PRIEST: Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord. Let us bring our prayers before the God who shakes the room when his people pray.

DEACON/LECTOR:

1. For bishops, priests, and deacons throughout the Church, that the boldness of the early community would mark their preaching - a boldness that comes from the Spirit rather than from human confidence, we pray to the Lord.

2. For the newly baptized, now eight days into the faith, who were born of water and Spirit at the Easter Vigil: that the wind of the Spirit would blow through their new lives in directions they did not plan and could not have imagined, we pray to the Lord.

3. For those who come to God at night like Nicodemus - carrying questions they cannot ask in public, doubts they are ashamed to voice, and a hunger for truth they do not yet know how to name - that the Church would meet them in the dark without judgment, we pray to the Lord.

4. For our parish community, that our prayer together would be bold enough to shake something loose - not safe prayers that ask for nothing, but the kind of prayer that the early Church prayed when they needed the Spirit to move, we pray to the Lord.

5. Remembering St. Martin I, who was exiled and died for the truth, we pray for all who suffer for speaking boldly, that the Spirit who filled the early Church would sustain every witness who pays a price for fidelity, we pray to the Lord.

6. For those who have been born from above through the waters of Baptism and have now passed through the waters of death into eternal life, that the wind of the Spirit which carried them through this world would deliver them safely to the Father, we pray to the Lord.

PRIEST: Sovereign Lord, maker of heaven and earth, you shook the room when the early Church prayed for boldness. Shake us. Fill us with the Spirit. Give us the courage to speak your word and the patience to meet every Nicodemus who comes in the dark. Through Christ our Risen Lord. Alleluia! Amen.