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This Sunday we will be celebrating the transferred National Indigenous Day of Prayer. This day was added to the liturgical calendar in 2010 by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Calendar. It is a feast which takes precedence over a Sunday. Most Feast Days do not take precedence over the Propers for a Sunday, which is always reserved as a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.


The date of the National Indigenous Day of Prayer in 2023 is June 21. It can be transferred to the closest Sunday, which this year is June 18.


The Anglican Church of Canada has assigned Propers (readings and Collects [prayers] ) for this day but no official colour has been designated. There is also no specific liturgy for this day. The National Church site directs us to Indigenous-themed liturgies and resources developed in the Episcopal Church.

At the North American Dean’s Conference earlier this year I ran into my sponsoring rector. He just so happens to be the Dean of Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As we caught up we spoke about Land Acknowledgments and the work I was doing for Diocesan Council to update our policy. I then mentioned liturgy and he told me that Calvary Cathedral uses an authorized Episcopal Church liturgy created by The Very Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg, a Lakota priest originally from the area. I had to smile as I was reminded how connected we all are. For those who don’t know, Dr. Brokenleg led the Cathedral through Holy Week in 2019. He is also a past Dean at the Vancouver School of Theology. Dr. Brokenleg currently resides in Victoria.


I contacted Dr. Brokenleg and spoke with him at length regarding his liturgy. I asked how we at the Cathedral could work towards a similar process that would “indigenize” the liturgy for our particular context. We decided that he will come here in September to lead a workshop and propose a path for us so we can collaborate with the First Nations in this area to create an “indigenized” Anglican Liturgy for this context. In the meantime, it was determined that for this year's National Indigenous Day of Prayer, with Bishop John’s permission, we will use the liturgy that was created by him with the Lakota people in the Episcopal Church. It is an example of what the process of collaborating with local Indigenous nations can create, and serve as a goal for us.

The English wording within Dr. Brokenleg’s Liturgy was designed to reflect certain qualities of the Lakota Language which further emphasizes the unique and deeply spiritual character of Lakota Spiritual Thought/Theology. An attempt has been made to reflect in the liturgy that in Lakota, there are no Gender Pronouns and so a broader and more extensive view of the Nature of God is possible than in English, where an adequate Gender Neutral Pronoun doesn’t exist. The Lakota Language also has no past or future tense, in the same way, English does. Thus, this Eucharist Liturgy is written in the present tense whenever possible and enables a deeper understanding of the Amanesis (Remembrance) of the Eucharist. The Sacramental Action of this point in the Eucharist is seen as the connecting point to the simultaneous moment of Christ’s Last Supper. Dom Gregory Dix expressed this as a “Re-Presenting” of this Eucharistic moment where we believe all Christians past, present and future connect in Communion through this Sacrament (this paragraph adapted from the Ven. Paul Sneve).