SMALL GROUP MINISTRY:
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST WOMEN’S HERITAGE
LET US NOW
PRAISE THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE
From Let Us Now
Praise Universalist Women, Created by the Unitarian Universalist
Women’s Heritage Society, Originally presented at General
Assembly, 1993
Chalice
Lighting/Opening Words
For all who came
before,
who
founded churches and Sunday schools,
who
shared their faith through their preaching and teaching,
For all who fought
inequity and cruelty,
often
at great personal cost,
For all whose faith
fueled their work
for
a just world,
May the stories of
these few inspire us to find more stories,
and
to create our own,
Our paths
illuminated by this light of Universalism.
By Jacquelyn O’Sullivan
Check in:
Topic/Activity:
Share how a Unitarian
Universalist woman, historic, contemporary or in your own
congregation or family, has influenced you.
What in that woman’s
life honors our faith tradition?
By our very presence in
the company of Unitarian Universalists, we are showing the way for
others. How are you showing the impact of Unitarian Universalism on
your life?
[This can be repeated
to name additional women.]
Closing:
There are those who
will come after us and create new things on the foundation of the
work that we, in our turn, do. As our lives span the years, so do
they intercept and interlock with one another that the generations
seem not to be separate, but one. In their deeds and actions, their
interests and motivations, the women of [the past] are as much a part
of us today as they were in the beginning...
Because these things
are true, a grave responsibility rests upon each... of us—the
responsibility of cherishing the trust which is ours, of fashioning
it to serve the purpose of our day and of transmitting it in
wholeness to those who follow us.
(Laura Hersey, in Souvenir, published c. 1960, p. 30, adapted)
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