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We Celebrate She: Remembrance Liturgy
This Mother's Day, we invite you to make room for grief. Our We Celebrate She: Remembrance Liturgy is written to encompass mothers' experiences of grief, loss and trauma, as well as our own mourning within our relationships with mothers and mother-figures.
Many of us will be experiencing fresh types of mourning in the period of COVID-19 across the planet. Our Remembrance Liturgy was written by Lieutenant Emma Howan and Soldier Rosy Keane as part of the We Cel, as a way to make space for our community to acknowledge their grief, seek God and find comfort. We invite you to light a candle as a physical act of remembrance and symbolism of God's thoughts toward us, as you read.
You can download the card for printing or share the liturgy on social media. We also have the liturgy available as a Powerpoint, and widescreen Powerpoint. The Remembrance Liturgy is part of our We Celebrate She inclusive Mother's Day resource, providing a place for Remembrance and Thanksgiving in Mother's Day.
- Download the Remembrance video here
- View the Remembrance Liturgy Squares on Facebook here
- Download the Remembrance and Thankfulness cards for printing or social media here.
We Celebrate She
We Celebrate She is a Women's Ministries' initiative to help all people feel included and engaged on a day that traditionally may hold both grief and joy for our community.
Remembrance Card: This card/picture acknowledges that Mother's Day is also an opportunity for all who carry hurt, loss and disappointment around mothers and important female figures. It can also be a time to call to mind women who have blessed us and are no longer with us. The Remembrance card gives us the opportunity to be surrounded by our community or given space to grieve. We allow space for pain. 'Remembrance for those you have loved, hoped for and lost. May God comfort you, in the manner of Hannah and Hagar, Esther, Anna, Sarah, Leah and Mary and Bathsheba. We remember with you.'
Thankfulness Card: This card/picture invites the reader to contemplate the women who have blessed our lives and invested in us, and we thank God for them! ''Thankfulness for those you love and have learned from. May God bless her legacy, in the manner of Mary Magdalene, Martha, Priscilla, Junia, Abigail, Huldah and Elizabeth. We rejoice with you.' Click here to read more and see the rest of the We Celebrate She resources
Remembrance Liturgy text
'Matt 5:4: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’
For the mums we've lost,
we remember you.
For those who never knew their mum,
we remember you.
For the mums who are close
yet outside our bubble,
we remember you.
For those whose mums are far away, emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically,
we remember you.
For the mums who have experienced loss,
we remember you.
For those who wanted
to be a mum but can’t,
we remember you.
For the mums who have lost children,
or had them taken away,
we remember you.
For those opening their homes and
hearts to other children,
we remember you.
For the mums who are exhausted and feeling overwhelmed,
we remember you.
For those trying to survive in
unsafe households,
we remember you.
For the mums who are going it alone,
we remember you.
For those who were forever altered through traumatic complications around conception, pregnancy and childbirth,
we remember you.
For the mums who are struggling through post-natal depression,
mental unrest and illness,
we remember you.
For those in financial hardship,
sacrificing mightily for their family,
we remember you.
For the mums enduring a lack of support from family, or children’s fathers;
or whose community feels fragile, disinterested or isolating in this season,
we remember you.
For those who carry grief around the idea of motherhood, the reality of motherhood, the expectations of motherhood or
their own relationships with mothers,
we remember you.
We light this candle knowing that God comforts us, her children.
Matt 5:4: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’'
- Repentance Liturgy by Lieutenant Emma Howan and Soldier Rosy Keane
Posted by Salvation Army Women's Ministries on Thursday, May 6, 2021
