A prayer for use during this year as we move towards the Referendum on Recognition and Voice.
Please feel free to use it as you wish.
God who listens,
open our hearts to hear the gentle invitation of those without a voice;
placeless and dispossessed of all that was theirs,
instead of anger, revenge or blame,
they offer in their open hand absurd generosity,
an act of transformational forgiveness
from the centre of their being to ours:
May we sense the integrity of country speaking to country, body to body;
and find within ourselves the humility to accept and journey together,
to become our nation’s better future,
resolving our colonial memory, Australia’s original sin.
As Jesus gave his body for ours,
help us to receive and pass on this gift of new life,
for his name’s sake. Amen.
(Glenn Loughrey 2023)