Prayer for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Holy One, Child of Life, Great Spirit, we meet you in the company of ancestors and the oft-unnoticed presence of people praying throughout the country, connected by a longing for peace and healing.

Find our hearts open and ready for reconciliation as we face the injustices of the past and long for the joy of a future of peace and healing.
Help us to attend well to the stories we need to receive. Awaken our hearts with the stories of residential school survivors and their kin.

Together, we weep for the children, then and now:
for braids, beads, new moccasins, and the orange shirt taken away leaving only broken hearts;
for parents whose hearts were torn from them when their children were taken; for children whose tongues were silenced when they lost their languages and names.

Awaken our spirit, O God.
Help us to hold the stories faithfully, so that they may transform us and become part of us.

May our prayers be translated into compassion and may our “Amen” be this truth:
(Indigenous) brothers, sisters, and siblings:
We receive your stories.
May they lead us in wisdom and may we journey together in love. Amen.