Liturgy Pacific: Liturgical Land Acknowledgements: A Rationale and Suggested Texts

Liturgical Land Acknowledgements

I) A Theological and Pastoral Foreword

Christian ritual both arises from and shapes Christian identity. This dynamic is reflected in two words used by the first generations of Christians to describe who they were as a community and what they did when they were gathered in public assembly.

Early Christians chose a Greek political term to describe who they were. Christians were members of an ekklesia, a public assembly of citizens called out of their daily affairs to take counsel about and to take action for the common good of the whole community, whether citizens or not. When the Christian ekklesiagathered, its members engaged in leitourgia, another Greek term from the public arena. Leitourgia meant a voluntary act of public service, diakonia, undertaken for the common good. We are, as Archbishop William Temple once wrote, the only public institution that exists primarily for its non-members.

Ritual requires thoughtful preparation and engagement regardless of the kind of ritual we are enacting. This is particularly true in this time and place as we seek to be agents of God’s reconciling love in building a new future from the wreckage of the Church’s involvement in the residential schools and other acts of colonialism and racism. No congregation should undertake the inclusion of a liturgical land acknowledgement unless it has pondered and is pondering how this liturgical act will be embodied in how the ekklesia does its leitourgia to provide the wider community with a diakonia worthy of our claim to be disciples of Jesus.

II) The Gathering of the Community

In the ordo of The Book of Alternative Services 1985 (BAS), the Gathering of the Community has only two required elements: (i) the greeting and (ii) the collect of the day. All the more familiar elements are auxiliary, that is to say, they are used with care to help set the specific liturgical context for the occasion being celebrated.

The form is extremely simple. This is intentional. The aim is to set the tone for the celebration and to lead directly into the proclamation of the word and the eucharistic celebration itself. The entrance rite ought not to become a liturgy in its own right. [1]

On appropriate occasions this gathering rite may be replaced with ‘A Penitential Order’ (BAS pp. 216-217): (i) the ‘Grace’, (ii) a penitential versicle and response, (iii) the Collect for Purity, (iv) an optional short reading from the Scripture and (v) the general confession followed by absolution. The rite continues with an act of praise, if desired, and the collect of the day.

III) Form follows function.

Before we adopt, adapt or create liturgical texts and actions, however, we need to ask a simple preliminary question, ‘What is the liturgical function of such liturgical texts and actions?’

i) Is the acknowledgement intended as a formal announcement that precedes the liturgical gathering of the community?

ii) Is the acknowledgement intended to be a rite analogous to ‘A Penitential Rite’ and form the core of the gathering rite itself?

iii) Is the acknowledgement to be ‘an act of praise’ integrated into the gathering rite as described in the BAS?

iv) Should the acknowledgement include a confession of wrong as a fixed or optional element followed by an absolution or assurance of pardon? Is it possible, in the current climate, for such an absolution or assurance of pardon to be given?

v) If the answer to the question posed above in (iv) is ‘yes’, should this penitential element be specific or general?

vi) Do we need guidelines for how an acknowledgement is conducted when Aboriginal elders or representatives are formally present?

IV) Draft Texts

1. When the Territorial Acknowledgement is made prior to the beginning of the liturgy, the following form may be used.

Presider or other assisting Minister

We recognize and respect that [Parish name] is on the unceded and unsurrendered land of [name(s) of Aboriginal nation(s)]. We acknowledge that colonialism has made invisible their histories and connections to the land. As a Parish, we are learning and committed to building relationships with the people(s) on whose lands we worship and serve. [2]

2. When the Territorial Acknowledgement is used as an act of greeting and thanksgiving within the Gathering of the Community, the following form may be used.

Presider

In this time and place, we acknowledge that we gather on the unceded ancestral lands of [name(s) of Aboriginal nation(s)]: From many places and peoples we come to this house of prayer.

The Territorial Acknowledgement continues. The versicles and responses may be led by the Presider and/or other assisting Minister(s).

In this time and place, we meet in the presence of the living God: The Creator who is the source of all that is, seen and unseen.

In this time and place, the risen Christ stands in our midst: Our Companion who walks with us and with all peoples on the path of reconciliation.

In this time and place, God’s Holy Spirit breathes in and through us: The Divine Wisdom who transforms us and all life.

In this time and place, together, people of God from every language, culture and nation: We are being made new by the holy and life-giving Trinity, one God.

The liturgy may continue with an act of praise such as the Gloria in excelsis, Kyrie eleison, Trisagion, a canticle or other hymn. Then the Collect of the Day is said or sung. [3]

3. When the Territorial Acknowledgement is used as an act of confession and repentance within the Gathering of the Community, the following form may be used.

Presider

Blessed be the Holy One, who forgives all our sins and whose mercy endures for ever. Amen.

Creator of all, we acknowledge that we gather on the unceded ancestral lands of [name(s) of Aboriginal nation(s)]: Lead us on pathways of reconciliation and peace.

The following versicles and responses may be led by the Presider and/or other assisting Minister(s). The responses may be said or sung.

We have wilfully misused your gifts of creation:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have mercy upon us.