Addressing a crisis of prayer
The ‘work of the people’ may be to say ‘no, no, no.’
by Diann L. Neu

Many women and men, boys and girls need and yearn for a community of faith to restore their spiritual, physical, emotional and mental health after they have experienced violence. Some of them may want to celebrate a liturgy for healing.

Let me give four examples of people who have come to my colleagues and me for help in planning a healing liturgy.

Sara, a social worker in her mid-40s, requested support and assistance in planning a liturgy to mark publicly her survival of childhood incest.

Suzanne, a nurse in her 50s, spoke out about the sexual abuse she experienced from a former pastor while she was in counseling with him. Members of her community needed to create a liturgy of lament to remember those who have been victimized by church leaders, and to voice the need for effective change in attitudes and church practice.

Gina, a teenager, was raped by a counselor at church summer camp. Her counselors and friends needed to gather for a service of healing.

Francesca was invited to be on her church’s team that responds to violence against women. Her community wanted to create a commissioning to bless her and the team.

Liturgy, liturgia, "the work of the people," brings to public expression the faith life of the community. Communities use healing liturgies to restore spiritual, physical, emotional and mental health to members who have been hurt through broken relationships and scarred from sexual harassment, molestation and misconduct or abuse of a sexual nature. They light candles and burn incense, read texts and pray, lay hands on one another and anoint with oils, bathe in salts, bless with water, drink herbal teas, talk and listen and break bread. The liturgies gather and renew the collective energy of a community of people who are engaging in liberation from patriarchy and kyriarchy. They raise up the voices of the abused and make visible the faith of individuals, families and congregations.

"Creating a service of healing is often helpful for the transition from victim into survivor," says S. Amelia Stinson-Wesley, an ordained Methodist minister who is founder of Response: A Religious Response to Violence Against Women and Children in North Carolina. She calls for healing liturgies in her 1996 article, "Daughters of Tamar: Pastoral Care for Survivors of Rape" (in Through the Eyes of Women: Insights for Pastoral Care, ed. by Jeanne Stevenson Moessner, Fortress Press, 1996). But, too often, official liturgical texts fall short of what’s needed for this to occur. Marjorie Procter-Smith, an Episcopalian liturgist and author of Praying with Our Eyes Open: Engendering Feminist Liturgical Prayer (Abingdon, 1995), shares an experience that many have. "A woman survivor of family violence asked me to help her plan a healing service for herself. … In turning to conventional models of Christian prayer, I found myself unable to claim anything in this tradition of confession, thanksgiving, and petition that seemed appropriate to the occasion. Certainly there was much to confess in this woman’s life, but not on her part … certainly all of us there could and did give ample thanks for the courageous and creative woman for whom the ritual was held; and petitions for her continued well-being were in all our hearts. But the conventions failed miserably to acknowledge her – and our – anger and outrage. … What needed to be said to God could not be fitted into the form of traditional Christian prayer."

Many women survivors of violence, and the women and men who work to end the violence, find themselves in a crisis of prayer. They often feel anger at God and the church. They feel betrayed. They need prayers of refusal: refusal to accept, to yield, and to assent to the terror of things as they are. They need to say "no" in prayer because saying no and being heard is essential to survival.

Some communities create healing services to meet the specific needs of their members for this kind of prayer. I share the following with you so you can imagine the liturgies your community may need to create. But they come with a caution: Make sure the person, family and community is ready for such a liturgy. As Stinson-Wesley notes, "Suggesting a healing service is a delicate matter. Be careful not to insist upon anything or any form. Let the survivor decide whether and when and how any ritualized form of healing will take place. Offer resources such as prayers, litanies, and songs related to the surviving of violence. Help her plan, but do not create the entire service without her contribution."

Sara’s liturgy: Break the silence

Sara’s father, her perpetrator, had died within the year. His death was the catalyst for her, as she said, "to give myself the gift of integration and healing." Her liturgy began with a purification of her home to establish safety. Four women lit four candles to symbolize the collective power, tears, life and support of women. Sara’s daughter invited participants to each take an evergreen branch and place them around the house to create a safe space. Each placed oil, an ancient symbol of strength and healing, on one another’s foreheads to invoke healing, saying to one another, "Reclaim your healing powers for yourself and for others."

Sara told her story about the terror and violence of her incest, named her wounds, read some of her poems, and put her father’s knotted handkerchiefs in the center of the room to represent the tears of children, her tears. She then took scissors and cut the knots from the handkerchiefs. The women did the same with the handkerchiefs they used. Some women spontaneously untied the knots. Many wept. Sara proclaimed a litany to which all responded, "Be gone! Be gone! Be gone!"

I release the chronic pain of 45 years.

I release the pain in my jaws, my legs, my head, and my entire body.

I release the pain of disturbed intimate relationships.

I release the need to maintain silence about my incest.

I release the attachment to wanting my father’s admission of raping me.

The women blessed Sara’s home and work. They wrote notes to her telling her how she is a blessing to them, shared what they had written, and gave her the papers as a keepsake. They sang and danced. To close, they passed the four candles around the circle and committed themselves to breaking the cycle of violence, saying, "My sister, as long as your light burns, violence will be overcome."

This liturgy broke the silence that surrounds incest. It offered Sara another aspect of healing and invited the community to touch their healing powers.

Suzanne’s liturgy: A service of lament

Suzanne spoke out about the sexual abuse she experienced from a former pastor while she was in counseling with him. Members of the community came together angry and hurt that their souls had been stolen from them by God’s servant. In their sorrow they created a liturgy of lament to remember those who have been victimized by church leaders and to voice the need for effective change in attitudes and church practice. They prayed:

Leader: Who are our enemies in the context of working to stop abuse and violence in the church? Who are hostile and rejecting when we speak out and challenge our churches? Who are not our friends in this matter?

Voice 1: Those who put stumbling blocks in the way of children. Those who hide crimes and misconduct from lawful and appropriate investigation.

Voice 2: Those who commit violence against women in the home, at the workplace, in the streets, in cults and those who abuse women and men in pastoral relationship.

Voice 3: Those who listen to victims’ stories with sympathy, yet speak badly of them to others and do more harm by their actions.

Voice 4: Those who play at being advocates, abandoning victims when their status in the church is at risk, leaving others to pick up the pieces.

Voice 5: Those who manipulate and obstruct processes of accountability for clergy. Those who exploit the letter of the law and negate its spirit.

Voice 6: Those who talk of justice, of right relationships with each other and sexuality as a gift from God but who do not discern when their colleagues abuse their professional power.

Leader: What do we want for our enemies?

Voices 1-6: That they be held to account.

Leader: What do we want for ourselves?

Voices 1-6: Justice, healing and vindication.

Leader: What does God want for us?

Voices 1-6: To know the truth, to set the oppressed free, to have life abundantly.

This liturgy, created by Coralie Ling and members of Fitzroy Uniting Church in Melbourne, Australia, broke silence about clergy sexual abuse and acknowledged publicly that it is a church issue.

Gina’s liturgy: Be healed

Gina was raped by a counselor at church camp. Her youth minister and friends gathered with her to help her reconstruct her world which had been shattered and will never be the same again. They each took a scarf, tied a knot in it, raised it high over their heads and shouted: "No! No! No!"

Leader: To counselors who rape and harm,

All: No! No! No!

Leader: To men who harass women and girls walking down the street,

All: No! No! No!

Leader: To fathers, brothers, grandfathers and uncles who sexually abuse girl-children,

All: No! No! No!

Leader: To husbands, lovers and partners who batter and rape their partners,

All: No! No! No!

They blessed oil and anointed their friend with it. After asking her permission, they laid hands on her and one close friend offered a healing prayer that included:

Leader: From violence to your body, be healed.

All: Be healed.

Leader: From violence to your feelings, be healed.

All: Be healed.

Leader: From violence to your mind and spirit, be healed.

All: Be healed.

Leader: Holy Spirit of Original Blessing surrounds you, upholds you on all sides, flows round about you, caresses you, loves you, and wills you to be restored. Be restored, dear friend. We are here. We are with you.

This liturgy broke the silence of rape and invited the counselors and friends to be healers.

Francesca’s liturgy: Blessing a healer

Francesca was invited to be on her church’s team that responds to violence against women. Her community blessed her and the team for this healing ministry.

Leader One: Let us lay hands on N. and N. (Names of the team) and bless them for healing ministry.

N. and N., you are called to healing ministry for (Name your congregation).

Leader Two: Spirit of Healing,

Time and again throughout history

You call forth Your ministers from the community

And send them to do works of justice:

to heal the sick and broken,

to feed hungry souls,

to give drink to thirsty ones,

to free captives.

Come, Holy Wisdom, Healing Spirit, Regenerative Source,

Bless us, to do Your works of healing.

All: Give us Your Spirit.

Leader Three: We ask You to bless us, who, in the cry of the people and in the word of the community, are called to participate in healing. We ask You to pour out Your Spirit upon us, that we may have the gifts of health and healing, see visions, dream dreams, break bread, do justice.

All: Give us Your Spirit.

Leader Four: Give Your Spirit, Holy Wisdom, to your people with whom we minister.

Give Your Spirit to women and men, boys and girls recovering from clergy or ministerial misconduct of a sexual nature, that they may stand up to the powers and principalities of the church, ask for what is rightfully theirs, and refuse to be silent or disappear.

Give Your Spirit to ministers, pastoral counselors, supervisors, seminary professors and church representatives who have sexually exploited the faithful that they may recognize the harm they have done, seek help and offer restitution.

Give Your Spirit to church decision-makers, bishops, cabinets, pastors, response teams and others that they may walk with truth-tellers.

Give Your Spirit to the churches that the whole people of God may benefit from our work.

Give Your Spirit to families and friends, wives and children of perpetrators, congregations and communities that they may be offered loving care, understanding and support.

All: Give us Your Spirit.

Leader Five: When the bread is not enough,

When our hope is dim,

When our energies are frazzled,

Refresh us with Your Spirit.

All: Give us Your Spirit.

This liturgy broke silence about violence against women in church communities and invited the church community to respond by blessing members for healing ministry.

These stories reveal the healing powers of liturgy. Women’s healing liturgies can also empower change in church and society. They can give women, men and children courage to break the cycle of violence that exists in church and society. Like Suzanne’s lament for clergy sexual abuse, they provide opportunities for healing. Women and church communities need to affirm and reclaim the power of collective healing. These liturgies are a beginning. l

Diann L. Neu is co-founder and co-director of WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual) in Silver Spring, Md. She is a feminist liturgist and a licensed psychotherapist and spiritual director. This article is based on presentations made in December 2001 at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass., and in July 2001 at a training in Colorado Springs, Colo., for "Teams Responding with Intervention and Healing Related to Clergy or Ministerial Misconduct of a Sexual Nature" sponsored by the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women of the United Methodist Church.