An exploration of the Epiphany season readings from 1 Corinthians using Daisy Barnes' beautiful mandalas
Click on the image to view the PDF. Text for the prayers and hymns (where relevant) is also included below.
Click on each image to view a larger version
Click on the image below to view the mandala images in one document
Prayers and hymns to accompany each mandala
(these are also in the PDF)
1 and 2 Celtic knots
To sing: ‘The Circle’
(tune: What a friend we have in Jesus)
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Come and join the growing circle,
Everybody heed the call,
Spread the circle, push the limits,
God is love and loves us all.
There’s no place for narrow vision,
‘keeping out’ or ‘keeping small’
Here’s a circle of true freedom,
God is love and cares for all.
Love, the circle which surrounds us,
God the centre, source of all,
Not for us to set false boundaries,
God is love and loves us all.
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Where we find the lost and broken,
When we see the ones who fall,
Stretch the circle to embrace them,
God is love and cares for all.
When we pray, we say ‘our father’
Asking for our daily bread,
We are praying ‘in a circle’
So the world may all be fed.
We forgive and are forgiven,
‘All for one, and one for all’
Seeking for the coming kingdom,
Where God’s love can conquer all.
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To pray
Lord Jesus, you call us to be your followers.
Help us to follow when you call.
Together we call on your name.
Lord, help us to be loyal in praying to you
and finding what you want us to do.
Together we call on your name.
Help us to remember that we are members of a worldwide family.
We are all different but united in your love.
Together we call on your name.
3 The shattered cross
To pray
When we quarrel and get angry over unimportant things,
Lord, forgive us.
When we think our ideas are more important than other peoples’,
Lord, forgive us.
When we forget that the one we worship died for us on the cross,
Lord, forgive us.
Lord, show to us the things that are really important.
Point us to the Cross of Jesus.
4 Upside-down
To pray
Whenever things seem to work in favour of the powerful,
Help us to work for change.
Whenever we see something unfair, which needs to be turned the other way up,
Help us to work for change.
Spend a few moments thinking of anything in your lives that needs turning upside down to fit in with God’s values.
Then continue:
When our lives need turning upside down,
Help us to work for change.
5 The box
To pray
Lord, you are higher than we can imagine,
higher than the mountains which reach into the sky.
Lord, you are wider than our wildest dreams,
stretching to infinity.
Lord, you are deeper than our reason and thought,
deeper than the depths of the sea.
We ask for a glimpse and a taste of your glory and goodness.
We ask for the will to search and your Holy Spirit to help
us find, what you hold in store for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
6 The height chart
To pray
Give everyone a piece of A4 paper on which is drawn/printed a simple staircase shape, and a pencil. Invite people to spend time writing on the steps the names or initials of people they know in various stages of their life’s journey, and of those who help them to grow/mature.
End with this prayer together:
We commit to you, Lord, all those who need our prayers, young and old.
We pray for those who have just started their faith journey – those with no faith,
and those whose faith is being tested to the limit.
We thank you for all who nurture us in our faith and help us to grow,
and we pray your blessing on them.
Amen.
7 The transfiguration
To sing
(tune: Blessed assurance – the verse only; or use the chorus as in the original hymn)
Transfiguration, glimpses of glory.
splendour unequalled, blazes of light.
Brighter than white, up on the mountain,
then to the plain, and back to mundane.
Word for the future, word from the past,
lawgiver, prophet; then, at the last,
God’s own clear message spelling his choice,
‘Listen to Jesus, his voice, my voice’.
Clearer our vision journeying on,
sharing the message of God’s own Son.
Jesus, Messiah, Saviour and Lord,
Heeding his story, living his word.
To pray
A guided meditation with silences
Look at the mandala image. Send a few moments imagining yourself in the place of the figure. Imagine the most wonderful view you can think of.
Now think of it in dull light, seen through mist or drizzle, and imagine how it feels with rain
and a chill wind.
Then think of a shaft of light, breaking through the clouds, beginning to light up the scene.
Recall an experience that brought you close to God, or a verse of Scripture that has helped you, or something someone has said to you, or maybe someone you have met who has encouraged and helped you.