Responding to Diocesan Convention 2020’s Amended Resolution Designating the Third or Fourth Sunday in Advent as a Day to Offer God Thanks for the Abolition of Slavery and to Ask God’s Help in Assuring Always that Black Lives Matter, the Reparations Committee is pleased to offer this Liturgical Toolkit for your congregational and personal use.
Containing music, litanies and images, the resources can be used as individual pieces or as complete litanies.
To view these resources in use at diocesan gatherings, we invite you to watch the Diocesan Convention 2020 Roll-out Meetings where they were incorporated into thematic liturgies at the beginning and end of the meetings, and at the November 2nd Convention Evensong.
The Amended Resolution Designating the Third or Fourth Sunday in Advent as a Day to Offer God Thanks for the Abolition of Slavery and to Ask God’s Help in Assuring Always that Black Lives Matter asks every congregation to make a different choice than the decision of the House of Deputies in 1865 to defeat a resolution asking our church to celebrate the passage of the 13th Amendment. We invite you to look through the Liturgical Toolkit and see whether any of the prayers fit your worship plans for this Sunday. If not, for a start, here is a brief prayer of thanksgiving to include in the prayers of the people:
13th Amendment Commemoration Prayer
We thank you God, for bringing this nation through a devastating civil war, in which the enslavement of people of African heritage played a central role, and served as the catalyst to change hearts and minds in this country to prohibit chattel slavery and the dehumanization of a large faction of your people. We are particularly grateful to commemorate the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was passed by Congress on the last day of January, 1865 and finally ratified in that same year in early December as the law in this country. We thank you for the tireless work of people from many nations towards justice, freedom, equity and opportunity for enslaved African-Americans from the inception of this evil institution to the present. We thank you for giving us courage to honestly face past injustices, grace to repent, and strength to keep on working through and committing to authentic demonstrations of permanent, transformative actions towards a time when all Black lives assuredly matter in this country and throughout your creation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.