Greeting for National Indigenous Day of Prayer, June 21, 2025 from Canada's National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop Chris Harper

This June 21, 2025, we the people of Canada acknowledge first in the church National Indigenous Day of Prayer and across the landscape of Canada National Indigenous People’s Day.

This day is set aside to walk in common in the traditional stories of the original peoples of this land and history that we as Canadians share. Together on this day, we seek to slow down and listen to each other, that in slowing down and listening, we might better walk and learn from each other for the common good and healing.

As human beings, we share many things in common with the greater host around the world, and one of these sharing points is prayer.

All nations pray, and all our prayers voiced and of our hearts are the expression of our inward needs and yearning. When words and actions fail, we pray. As Indigenous Peoples we had equally as many forms of prayer to the Almighty One the Creator God. As diverse as humanity is, we also had unity in Prayer.

Let me give you an example: From the republished Sarum Primer of 1558 and the Book of Hours, a collection of prayers and Christian worship from 1514, we hear these words:

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes, and in my looking;
God be in mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and my thinking;
God be at my end, and at my departing.

This prayer from the Sarum Rite, also called the “use of Salisbury” from the diocese and cathedral in UK, was from a variation on the Roman Rite developed somewhere around the 1100s, a rite that was known to be high in ceremonial liturgical practice.

The Sarum Rite also had a bounty of gloriously shaped prayers that have influenced our Christian worship to this very day. But let's pause here to acknowledge that prayer transcends time and space. It is that mysterious wondrous moment when all creation pauses to speak and communicate with the Creator, the Almighty. Prayer is something that we as humanity share interculturally.

Prayer is at the heart of what it means to be human. When all else fails around us, when all seems lost, we as human beings know to pray. Transcending time and space, Indigenous peoples here on the land knew this prayer in the form of the Sarum Primer, as it is used in the prayerful Smudging Ceremony, with a variation of the words for our languages and context. Smudging prayer: After metal is removed (rings, watch, eyeglasses), the rising smoke of the smudge (sweetgrass, wild sage, cedar and tobacco) is gathered in your hands and guided to the areas of prayer as in the following:

Almighty be in my head and in all that you reveal to me;
Almighty be in my eyes that I might glimpse your long vision;
Almighty be in my speaking and words that I might offer only truth;
Almighty be in my heart that your peace may fill me;
Almighty be with me in all my journey within your Creation.

This prayer that we share with you, our relatives in the Almighty’s Creation, as prayer brings us together, as prayer was meant to do in building up peace and healing of relationships.

Prayer itself calms the rush and roar of the world around us, calming our hearts, slowing us down to breathe and listen to what the Almighty might have to say to us. Our world today is moving so fast that we have no sense of what is true anymore. We’ve lost where we and our feet are connected to.

We live in a time where truth seems lost to us, where individual reality is more important than anyone else's reality. We’ve lost the moment to respect each other and to pray with humility.

This day set aside, June 21, and the moment you now take to hear and read these words causes you to pause, reflect and hopefully pray.

The Almighty hears your prayers and every prayer is answered—just not as you might expect or demand.

Prayer transcends time and space, as the Almighty transcends time and space, but personal enough that God prays with you as you pause and pray over the world before you.

From all of us in the National Indigenous Ministries Office, Archdeacon Ros and Krista, ACIP, our Co-Chairs Rosie Jane and Canon Murray, and all the hardworking ACIP team, and all our relatives in Sacred Circle, we wish you, our relatives in Creation a very blessed National Indigenous People’s Day and National Indigenous Day of Prayer.

May we in the church put our best foot forward in walking together in faith and peace, embracing truth with the Gospel in the center of all we say and do, and may we together be blessed to be a blessing to all. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.