A Eucharistic Preface for Safeguarding Sunday

Last week's review by Keith Makin into the Church of England's handling of allegations of serious abuse by the late John Smyth made horrific reading . As church leaders we felt that this was too important just to ignore, and Dean Simon made an important statement at the start of Sundays Choral Eucharist in Truro Cathedral yesterday (Sunday 17th November 2024). But it is important to take all our horror and pain and mess and bring it to God in prayer. In yesterday's service we used previously published resources and used them within our intercessions, but no Eucharistic preface had been provided, and for me it was important to take this pain and bring it to the altar. 

With that in mind here is my offering of the preface that I wrote for us to use in the cathedral on Safeguarding Sunday. We used it with Eucharistic prayer E. I have run it past some survivors I know before publishing it here. A couple of things to note: Although I am keen on using Father within prayer on most occasions (as God self-identifies as Father) I feel that in this context it could be a source of further pain for those abused by their fathers, so instead I used the "rock" imagery of the psalms. I also referenced the "casting down" promised in the Magnificat. 

Feel free, as ever, to use or amend as feels appropriate for your context. 

The Lord be with you

and also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give thanks and praise.

It is indeed right, our duty and our joy

always and everywhere to give you thanks:

You are the God who makes beauty from our ashes;

the Rock that we can cling to when faith’s foundations crumble:

You are the God who pours down light into the world’s dark corners

revealing painful truths and casting down abusers.

You took the worst of human nature and nailed it to the cross,

rising from the grave to bring healing to the broken. 

Therefore with angels and archangels, 

and the souls of the righteous martyrs 

we sing for ever the song of your glory. 

Holy, holy, holy Lord...