As many of us prepare services for September 26th with both Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30th) on our minds, we are wondering how to include our children into a time of reflection that can be difficult. Our dear friend Rev. Catherine T. Stuart, Regional Minister for Children, Youth and Young Adults for the three Atlantic Regions and Co-Minister for Ukulele Church, shares a prayer she wrote for this Sunday with us.
“I wrote this prayer as a recognition that Children and Youth, like adults, feel that reconciliation needs to happen in our communities. It’s not an easy way forward, and sometimes we don’t get it right. But Creator is with us, loving and holding us, giving us courage to keep working for love, peace, and justice among people and for all of Creation. It will be used in worship at Mount Royal United Church, located on Unceeded Mi’kmaq territory, in what Settlers know as Moncton, New Brunswick.”
A Reconciliation Prayer for Children
God, we try to love your world
as you would have us do:
to see all of creation
as good and sacred too.
Sometimes our view gets clouded,
and we lose our way.
Help us to say we’re sorry
and to mean what we say.
Let Jesus be our leader,
so that we might know your heart—
that your Spirit brings us courage
to work together, not apart.
Amen.
Jesus, Glue and Glitter 