Sunday, June 4

Flower Communion

Services at 9:30 and 11:15 a.m., in the chapel and via live stream

Revs. Jon Luopa and Beth Chronister will lead our annual Flower Communion service. This service will also include Child Dedications and (during the 11:15 a.m. service only) the Bridging Ceremony for graduating seniors.


Music by the Bell Choir; the Loft Choir; the All Voices Choir; and Dwight Beckmeyer, piano.


Order of Service


Click here for links and information about attending the service in person or via livestream.


On the first Sunday in June, UUC celebrates “Flower Communion,” inviting all congregants to bring a flower (or flowers) to share, and to take home a flower someone else has shared. The flowers are collected in baskets as you enter the chapel and carried to the front as the worship service begins. During the service, we’ll celebrate high school seniors as they “bridge” from youth to young adulthood, and we’ll welcome children entering the church community in the ritual of the Child Dedication. At the end of the Flower Communion service, the congregation is invited forward to choose a different flower to remind each person of the beauty that persists, and of our interdependent support for one another.

 

The first Flower Communion ceremony was held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in June 1923, led by Unitarian minister Norbert Čapek (pronounced “CHOP-ek”). It was brought to the Unitarian Church in Cambridge, MA, in 1940 by Rev. Čapek’s spouse, Mája. You can read more about the story of Norbert Čapek’s flower ceremony on the website of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).

Posted/updated on:

June 1, 2023
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