Dr. Louise Prochaska taught us the development of the understanding (as if we ever could, really) and the experience of Christ as God and as man, in word, art, and prayer. Below are her notes from the evening.
After the notes is a litany I hope you will consider praying. Those who attended the evening developed and prayed it together.
The Risen Jesus in Belief, in Art and in Prayer
Louise Prochaska, Ph.D. St. Malachi Adult Education
April 20, 2010
submitted by Jackie Bluett
Let’s imagine that we are visiting a virtual interactive exhibit on Jesus Christ. It is displayed in three rooms: a Dogma Hall, a Portrait Gallery and a chapel. We’ll spend the most time in the Dogma Hall, then analyze some images in the Portrait Gallery, and finally, pray in the chapel. See where YOU meet the Risen Jesus!
A. What is High Christology?
This approach starts with reflections on the Second Person of the Trinity, the pre-existent Word of God becoming human to redeem us from sin. The Son of God takes on our flesh, dies and rises from the dead to save us.
B. Where is it expressed?
One of earliest expressions: Letter to the Colossians
“He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things, in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible…(Col 1:15) He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead so that he should be supreme in every way…to reconcile all things to [God], by making peace through his death on the cross. “ (Col.1: 18b and 20 b)
Prologue to John’s Gospel is perhaps the cornerstone of Scriptural High Christology:
“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came into being.” Jn 1:2
After the apostolic Age, on through the 2nd and 3rd and 4th centuries, Christians were trying to explain just HOW Jesus could be divine and human. Bishops and scholars preached a variety of theories. Here are 5 of them:
1. Jesus was born a human being and was adopted by God the Father as his “first born son” so he was not always divine. (One of my students just last week expressed this belief: “The water turned into wine at Cana symbolizes Jesus who was born a human and then became divine.”)
2. Jesus’ humanity is an illusion, a “hologram” accompanying the Son of God. God could NOT really take on a corruptible human body!
3. Jesus is divine but subordinate to God the Father, a kind of demi-god as in Greek mythology.
4. After the Incarnation, Jesus is only one nature, divine. He is not truly a human being.
5. Finally, there are two separate persons in Christ. Mary is the mother of the human person.
Even the Emperors were eager to settle the disputes (and there were violent disputes)…so Constantine called a council of all the bishops in AD 325 at Nicea.
The result was the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one God…and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father…True God from True God, …Begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father….”
This statement was still ambiguous: the Greek word homoousios (Substance) could mean “one in essence”, “One in being” “same materiality”. So the controversies continued.
In AD 451 Emperor Marcian called the Council of Chalcedon. The result was a longer more precise dogmatic statement. Here are some key phrases:
We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in manhood…the same consisting of a reasonable soul and a body, of one substance [homoousios] with the Father as touching the Godhead, that same of one substance with us as touching the manhood, like us in all things apart from sin; begotten of the Father before the ages…for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos [God-bearer]…to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,…concurring into one [divine] Person [prosopon and hypostasis].
The bishops and the emperor thought that this statement would end questions once and for all. Of course, they were wrong.
Here are some problems with it.
1. The formal balance of the statement “one substance or nature as touching Godhead…one substance with us as touching the manhood…” may imply that we humans understand the divine nature as clearly as we understand human nature. Again, WRONG.
We understand NOTHING about the divine nature. REPEAT. In fact, we can’t even use the term “nature” or “essence” for the divine without having to say—“no, it’s not at all like the nature of anything in creation. “ (Here, I’m following Thomas Aquinas, who said that everything we say about God needs to be contradicted in the next breath.)
Scholar Rudolph Otto coined the word “numinous” for the Mysterium Tremendum…the Terrifying Mystery that is the Divine. (I won’t even say ‘being” because the Numinous in not a being as we think of beings….)
2. How well do we understand human nature?
• Brain research
• Emotions … and mammal studies
• Fertility
• Human Genome Project
So what does it mean that Jesus has a “human nature” In fact, what does it mean that you and I have human natures?
B Where is High Christology expressed?
• Orthodox Christianity, liturgy and icons
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Declaration Dominus Jesus (2000) from Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• Pope Benedict
• New liturgical regulations, eg., bowing before receiving Eucharist
We have two more questions to answer about High Christology before looking at Low Christology: [how’s time?]
C. What is the appeal of High Christology?
• It has the weight of tradition behind it
• It is the approach of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and thus it colors liturgy, translations, and interpretations of Scripture.
• It sets Christianity in very clear and unmistakable contrast to other religions and insists on the superiority of Catholic Christianity over all others.
D. What problems does it generate?
• As I developed before, some of its statements are misleading in that we think we have grasped the mystery by defining it in words.
• Focusing on Jesus’ death for our sins can paint Christian faith in very dark and negative tones…some members of my family have left the church because of the emphasis on sin and suffering.
• It poses difficulties in dialogue with other religions because they can’t get passed the belief that the one God is also human. If Christianity is absolutely distinct and carries all the truth of revelation, what does that leave for other religions? Not much, if anything at all.
• Finally, It tends to separate the baptized, like you and me, from identifying fully with Our Lord. Remember the years when people did not feel worthy to receive Eucharist except for once a year…or had to go to confession first, every time?
It makes conservative Catholics suspicious of the authentic faith of those who don’t take the High Christology approach. Here’s a Story to illustrate. ‘Jesus was raised from the dead” or “Jesus rose from the dead.
A. What is Low Christology (LX)
Study and reflection starting with Jesus’ humanity. It focuses on Jesus the man, our brother, who ministered to the poor, preached to his contemporaries, felt hunger, thirst, fatigue, anger, frustration, and fear and anguish at the prospect of suffering under the Roman torture machine
Again, it takes a different starting point from HX, but it does not in any way deny that Jesus is the divine Son of God.
B. Where can we find it expressed?
• In the synoptic gospels, especially Mark and Luke
• Highly respected theologians too: Monika Hellwig, Jesus, the Compassion of God (1983), Donald Senior, Christology (1995), Leonardo Boff, Karl Rahner, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Meier’s Jesus the Marginal Jew, etc.
• The Jesus Seminar…on the historical Jesus
• In musicals such as Godspell and Jesus Christ, Superstar
• In popular fiction, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young (sold millions) and the 5 Joshua books by Fr. Joseph Girzone.
C. What is its appeal?
• Children and teens
• Suffering people
• The unchurched
• It balances the traditional and authoritative focus on the divinity.
• Much easier place to begin a dialogue with other religions: How are Jesus and the Buddha alike? Jesus and Krishna in Hinduism
• It takes a deep faith to focus on Jesus’ divinity, and some Jesus scholars have little or inactive faith, or as one of my professors said, “When you study the Bible, you have to leave your faith at the door.” So you can be a Jesus scholar and focus on the humanity.
D. What problems does it generate?
• It happens that the desire to appeal to young people or the unchurch, Jesus is portrayed as just a regular guy! Dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and work boots…or a door to door Bible salesman.
• The almost endless mine of information on first century Judaism, on psychology and anthropology make Jesus studies all consuming…sometimes to the point that his divinity doesn’t come up!
• It has led to conflicts between the Vatican’s CDF and theologians who are trying to make Jesus understandable to those outside the Church. Eg. Roger Haight has been suspended from teaching theology because of his book, Jesus, Symbol of God. He insists that he never denies Jesus’ divinity, but his image of Jesus as God’s Sacrament doesn’t explicitly develop the divine nature.
• Another unorthodox departure from Christology is the theory that God revealed some truths through the Buddha, through Hindu gods, through Lao Tsu perhaps. Then the fullness in Jesus. The Vatican insists strongly that Jesus is the exclusive, full and pure revelation of God. Any truth in other religions is subordinate to and dependent on Jesus.
Keep in mind that both approaches are good and valid, as long as neither one neglects reconnecting with the other.
2. The Portrait Gallery
[Good Shepherd]
We have the earliest picture of Christ in the catacombs: the beardless shepherd boy carrying a lamb on his shoulders. Perhaps the model was Apollo…and the artist was a pagan Roman, hired by the Christians since they didn’t have any artists trained in mosaic and murals.
Icons: Eastern Christianity (Greek, Russian, Coptic, etc) has always focused on Jesus’ divinity and that is evident in images on icons. The Pancrator means creator of everything. The icon’s face is never realistic because it is intended to be a window into the divinity, not a mirror of our humanity.
Da Vinci’s Last Supper Is this high or low Christology?
Rouault’s image of Christ?
Salvador Dali’s Last Supper: high or low?
Images from Jesus 2000, booklet from National Catholic Reporter, Dec 24, 1999.
Selected Bibliography on Jesus Christ, Human and Divine
Adam, Karl. The Christ of Faith: The Christology of the Church (Pantheon Books, 1957)
Crossan, Dominic. The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. (Harper, 1991).
Ford, David, and Mike Higton (eds). Jesus. (Oxford University Press, 2002). This is an Oxford Reader that gives a thorough, century by century explanation of beliefs developing about Jesus. Almost 550 pages!
Guardini, Romano, The Humanity of Christ: Contributions to a Psychology of Jesus (Pantheon Books, 1964.)
Haight, Roger. Jesus: Symbol of God (Orbis, 1999).
Hill, Brennan, Jesus the Christ: Contemporary Perspectives (Twenty-third Publications, 1991)
Johnson, Elizabeth, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (Crossroad, 1992)
Johnson, Luke Timothy, The Real Jesus: the Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. (Harper Collins 1996) LT Johnson is one of the most respected Catholic NT scholars today and his books are readable by those who aren’t scholars themselves.
Johnson, L T. Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (Harper San Francisco, 1999).
Meier, John, A Marginal Jew (Doubleday, 1991)
Nolan, Albert, Jesus Before Christianity (Orbis, 1992). This is one of my favorite books. Nolan really means “Jesus before Christology”
O’Grady, John F. Models of Jesus Revisited (Paulist Press, 1994)
Sloyan, Gerard, Why Jesus Died (Facets of Fortress press, 2004) a tiny book that may be helpful in one area.
Sobrino, Jon. Christology at the Crossroads (Orbis, 1978) Liberation theology
Jesus 2000, National Catholic Reporter supplement of the 60 top paintings of Jesus for the millennium contest. Dec. 24, 1999. If there are copies still in print, you can order them at $5.00 each and mail name, etc. to
NCR J2K 115 East Armour Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64111-1203.
Or call (816) 531-0538.
Dr. Prochaska observed it is best when we approach prayer and experience of Jesus in a balanced manner – keeping in mind and heart his human and Divine natures.
She distributed cards with different topics on them, including the arts, healing, scripture, non-Christian religions, mystery, social groups at risk, and science. In small groups, we described different ways of seeing Christ within these topics. Lastly, we spoke these ways out loud and the whole audience answered, “Risen Jesus, hear us.” In other words, we wrote and spoke our own litany. It is below. Please consider praying it out loud sometime as God, for sure, and prayer may not be limited by time – so even if you could not attend that evening, you can pray with us.
The Ultimate Expression of the Real; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Many Halos of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Symphony of Love, Compassion and Strength; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Conductor of the Music of our Hearts; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Miracle Worker; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Lord of second chances; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Restorer of faith Who makes us new; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Healer; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Wonderful Word; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Teacher; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Teller of stories; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Book of Life; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Word of Light; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Inspirations; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Divine Word; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Fully human Brother; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Light of the Universe who shines on us all; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Lamb of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Word of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Son of God and Son of man; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Second Person of the Trinity; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Acceptor of all; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Healer of outcasts; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Star through foreign land; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Bond between woman and man in love and commitment; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Great Scientist of all humans; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Being who touches the atom and the galaxies; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Risen Jesus in Belief, in Art and in Prayer
Dr. Louise Prochaska taught us the development of the understanding (as if we ever could, really) and the experience of Christ as God and as man, in word, art, and prayer. Below are her notes from the evening.
After the notes is a litany I hope you will consider praying. Those who attended the evening developed and prayed it together.
The Risen Jesus in Belief, in Art and in Prayer
Louise Prochaska, Ph.D. St. Malachi Adult Education
April 20, 2010
submitted by Jackie Bluett
Let’s imagine that we are visiting a virtual interactive exhibit on Jesus Christ. It is displayed in three rooms: a Dogma Hall, a Portrait Gallery and a chapel. We’ll spend the most time in the Dogma Hall, then analyze some images in the Portrait Gallery, and finally, pray in the chapel. See where YOU meet the Risen Jesus!
A. What is High Christology?
This approach starts with reflections on the Second Person of the Trinity, the pre-existent Word of God becoming human to redeem us from sin. The Son of God takes on our flesh, dies and rises from the dead to save us.
B. Where is it expressed?
One of earliest expressions: Letter to the Colossians
“He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things, in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible…(Col 1:15) He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead so that he should be supreme in every way…to reconcile all things to [God], by making peace through his death on the cross. “ (Col.1: 18b and 20 b)
Prologue to John’s Gospel is perhaps the cornerstone of Scriptural High Christology:
“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came into being.” Jn 1:2
After the apostolic Age, on through the 2nd and 3rd and 4th centuries, Christians were trying to explain just HOW Jesus could be divine and human. Bishops and scholars preached a variety of theories. Here are 5 of them:
1. Jesus was born a human being and was adopted by God the Father as his “first born son” so he was not always divine. (One of my students just last week expressed this belief: “The water turned into wine at Cana symbolizes Jesus who was born a human and then became divine.”)
2. Jesus’ humanity is an illusion, a “hologram” accompanying the Son of God. God could NOT really take on a corruptible human body!
3. Jesus is divine but subordinate to God the Father, a kind of demi-god as in Greek mythology.
4. After the Incarnation, Jesus is only one nature, divine. He is not truly a human being.
5. Finally, there are two separate persons in Christ. Mary is the mother of the human person.
Even the Emperors were eager to settle the disputes (and there were violent disputes)…so Constantine called a council of all the bishops in AD 325 at Nicea.
The result was the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one God…and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father…True God from True God, …Begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father….”
This statement was still ambiguous: the Greek word homoousios (Substance) could mean “one in essence”, “One in being” “same materiality”. So the controversies continued.
In AD 451 Emperor Marcian called the Council of Chalcedon. The result was a longer more precise dogmatic statement. Here are some key phrases:
We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in manhood…the same consisting of a reasonable soul and a body, of one substance [homoousios] with the Father as touching the Godhead, that same of one substance with us as touching the manhood, like us in all things apart from sin; begotten of the Father before the ages…for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos [God-bearer]…to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,…concurring into one [divine] Person [prosopon and hypostasis].
The bishops and the emperor thought that this statement would end questions once and for all. Of course, they were wrong.
Here are some problems with it.
1. The formal balance of the statement “one substance or nature as touching Godhead…one substance with us as touching the manhood…” may imply that we humans understand the divine nature as clearly as we understand human nature. Again, WRONG.
We understand NOTHING about the divine nature. REPEAT. In fact, we can’t even use the term “nature” or “essence” for the divine without having to say—“no, it’s not at all like the nature of anything in creation. “ (Here, I’m following Thomas Aquinas, who said that everything we say about God needs to be contradicted in the next breath.)
Scholar Rudolph Otto coined the word “numinous” for the Mysterium Tremendum…the Terrifying Mystery that is the Divine. (I won’t even say ‘being” because the Numinous in not a being as we think of beings….)
2. How well do we understand human nature?
• Brain research
• Emotions … and mammal studies
• Fertility
• Human Genome Project
So what does it mean that Jesus has a “human nature” In fact, what does it mean that you and I have human natures?
B Where is High Christology expressed?
• Orthodox Christianity, liturgy and icons
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Declaration Dominus Jesus (2000) from Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• Pope Benedict
• New liturgical regulations, eg., bowing before receiving Eucharist
We have two more questions to answer about High Christology before looking at Low Christology: [how’s time?]
C. What is the appeal of High Christology?
• It has the weight of tradition behind it
• It is the approach of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and thus it colors liturgy, translations, and interpretations of Scripture.
• It sets Christianity in very clear and unmistakable contrast to other religions and insists on the superiority of Catholic Christianity over all others.
D. What problems does it generate?
• As I developed before, some of its statements are misleading in that we think we have grasped the mystery by defining it in words.
• Focusing on Jesus’ death for our sins can paint Christian faith in very dark and negative tones…some members of my family have left the church because of the emphasis on sin and suffering.
• It poses difficulties in dialogue with other religions because they can’t get passed the belief that the one God is also human. If Christianity is absolutely distinct and carries all the truth of revelation, what does that leave for other religions? Not much, if anything at all.
• Finally, It tends to separate the baptized, like you and me, from identifying fully with Our Lord. Remember the years when people did not feel worthy to receive Eucharist except for once a year…or had to go to confession first, every time?
It makes conservative Catholics suspicious of the authentic faith of those who don’t take the High Christology approach. Here’s a Story to illustrate. ‘Jesus was raised from the dead” or “Jesus rose from the dead.
A. What is Low Christology (LX)
Study and reflection starting with Jesus’ humanity. It focuses on Jesus the man, our brother, who ministered to the poor, preached to his contemporaries, felt hunger, thirst, fatigue, anger, frustration, and fear and anguish at the prospect of suffering under the Roman torture machine
Again, it takes a different starting point from HX, but it does not in any way deny that Jesus is the divine Son of God.
B. Where can we find it expressed?
• In the synoptic gospels, especially Mark and Luke
• Highly respected theologians too: Monika Hellwig, Jesus, the Compassion of God (1983), Donald Senior, Christology (1995), Leonardo Boff, Karl Rahner, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Meier’s Jesus the Marginal Jew, etc.
• The Jesus Seminar…on the historical Jesus
• In musicals such as Godspell and Jesus Christ, Superstar
• In popular fiction, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young (sold millions) and the 5 Joshua books by Fr. Joseph Girzone.
C. What is its appeal?
• Children and teens
• Suffering people
• The unchurched
• It balances the traditional and authoritative focus on the divinity.
• Much easier place to begin a dialogue with other religions: How are Jesus and the Buddha alike? Jesus and Krishna in Hinduism
• It takes a deep faith to focus on Jesus’ divinity, and some Jesus scholars have little or inactive faith, or as one of my professors said, “When you study the Bible, you have to leave your faith at the door.” So you can be a Jesus scholar and focus on the humanity.
D. What problems does it generate?
• It happens that the desire to appeal to young people or the unchurch, Jesus is portrayed as just a regular guy! Dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and work boots…or a door to door Bible salesman.
• The almost endless mine of information on first century Judaism, on psychology and anthropology make Jesus studies all consuming…sometimes to the point that his divinity doesn’t come up!
• It has led to conflicts between the Vatican’s CDF and theologians who are trying to make Jesus understandable to those outside the Church. Eg. Roger Haight has been suspended from teaching theology because of his book, Jesus, Symbol of God. He insists that he never denies Jesus’ divinity, but his image of Jesus as God’s Sacrament doesn’t explicitly develop the divine nature.
• Another unorthodox departure from Christology is the theory that God revealed some truths through the Buddha, through Hindu gods, through Lao Tsu perhaps. Then the fullness in Jesus. The Vatican insists strongly that Jesus is the exclusive, full and pure revelation of God. Any truth in other religions is subordinate to and dependent on Jesus.
Keep in mind that both approaches are good and valid, as long as neither one neglects reconnecting with the other.
2. The Portrait Gallery
[Good Shepherd]
We have the earliest picture of Christ in the catacombs: the beardless shepherd boy carrying a lamb on his shoulders. Perhaps the model was Apollo…and the artist was a pagan Roman, hired by the Christians since they didn’t have any artists trained in mosaic and murals.
Icons: Eastern Christianity (Greek, Russian, Coptic, etc) has always focused on Jesus’ divinity and that is evident in images on icons. The Pancrator means creator of everything. The icon’s face is never realistic because it is intended to be a window into the divinity, not a mirror of our humanity.
Da Vinci’s Last Supper Is this high or low Christology?
Rouault’s image of Christ?
Salvador Dali’s Last Supper: high or low?
Images from Jesus 2000, booklet from National Catholic Reporter, Dec 24, 1999.
Selected Bibliography on Jesus Christ, Human and Divine
Adam, Karl. The Christ of Faith: The Christology of the Church (Pantheon Books, 1957)
Crossan, Dominic. The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. (Harper, 1991).
Ford, David, and Mike Higton (eds). Jesus. (Oxford University Press, 2002). This is an Oxford Reader that gives a thorough, century by century explanation of beliefs developing about Jesus. Almost 550 pages!
Guardini, Romano, The Humanity of Christ: Contributions to a Psychology of Jesus (Pantheon Books, 1964.)
Haight, Roger. Jesus: Symbol of God (Orbis, 1999).
Hill, Brennan, Jesus the Christ: Contemporary Perspectives (Twenty-third Publications, 1991)
Johnson, Elizabeth, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (Crossroad, 1992)
Johnson, Luke Timothy, The Real Jesus: the Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. (Harper Collins 1996) LT Johnson is one of the most respected Catholic NT scholars today and his books are readable by those who aren’t scholars themselves.
Johnson, L T. Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (Harper San Francisco, 1999).
Meier, John, A Marginal Jew (Doubleday, 1991)
Nolan, Albert, Jesus Before Christianity (Orbis, 1992). This is one of my favorite books. Nolan really means “Jesus before Christology”
O’Grady, John F. Models of Jesus Revisited (Paulist Press, 1994)
Sloyan, Gerard, Why Jesus Died (Facets of Fortress press, 2004) a tiny book that may be helpful in one area.
Sobrino, Jon. Christology at the Crossroads (Orbis, 1978) Liberation theology
Jesus 2000, National Catholic Reporter supplement of the 60 top paintings of Jesus for the millennium contest. Dec. 24, 1999. If there are copies still in print, you can order them at $5.00 each and mail name, etc. to
NCR J2K 115 East Armour Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64111-1203.
Or call (816) 531-0538.
Dr. Prochaska observed it is best when we approach prayer and experience of Jesus in a balanced manner – keeping in mind and heart his human and Divine natures.
She distributed cards with different topics on them, including the arts, healing, scripture, non-Christian religions, mystery, social groups at risk, and science. In small groups, we described different ways of seeing Christ within these topics. Lastly, we spoke these ways out loud and the whole audience answered, “Risen Jesus, hear us.” In other words, we wrote and spoke our own litany. It is below. Please consider praying it out loud sometime as God, for sure, and prayer may not be limited by time – so even if you could not attend that evening, you can pray with us.
The Ultimate Expression of the Real; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Many Halos of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Symphony of Love, Compassion and Strength; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Conductor of the Music of our Hearts; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Miracle Worker; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Lord of second chances; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Restorer of faith Who makes us new; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Healer; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Wonderful Word; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Teacher; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Teller of stories; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Book of Life; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Word of Light; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Inspirations; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Divine Word; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Fully human Brother; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Light of the Universe who shines on us all; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Lamb of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Word of God; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Son of God and Son of man; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Second Person of the Trinity; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Acceptor of all; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Healer of outcasts; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Star through foreign land; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Bond between woman and man in love and commitment; Risen Jesus, hear us.
Great Scientist of all humans; Risen Jesus, hear us.
The Being who touches the atom and the galaxies; Risen Jesus, hear us.