Truth and Reconciliation Service

Prayer for those Who Did not Return Home from Residential School and for all Missing and Murdered Indigenous People    - by Toronto Urban Native Ministry

Let us pray,

We hold close to our hearts today those whose absence leaves a gap too great for words. We hold to our hearts and grieve those beautiful lives cut short by colonial violence.

For the thousands of children who did not return home from residential school,

For the many Indigenous people who are missing, or taken from us,

May love surround them.

May love circle those who miss them from their circles of love, family, and community. May love empower and encourage us to act with compassion, understanding and peace.

Peace and dignity to all beings, of earth, sky, and sea.

We lament the violence at every level of Canadian society.

May we listen and follow the leadership of the families in this time of reckoning and calls for justice.

May the chains of violence in hearts and communities be healed at their deepest roots.

We hold close to our hearts the tears of so many, and the dead who lay in the earth.

We commit ourselves to praying, listening, being in relationship, speaking, and acting for the healing of the generations past and generations to come. Creator of life – unleash the healing of your love in this land. In the spirit of the Creator who is with us now, Amen.