Flower Communion, Sun. June 7

The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore will celebrate the annual tradition of Flower Communion this Sunday, June 7 during worship at 11:00 am. Our service will be intergenerational and all children are welcome to participate in worship alongside the youth and adults. No RE classes will be offered during the service, but childcare will be available.

In addition to this meaningful ritual, we will also celebrate some of the joys of our community, including recognizing new members, installing the new Board of Trustees, and recognizing with deep gratitude the service of Religious Education volunteers.

Unitarian Universalist Congregations all over the world celebrate Flower Communion in the late Spring or early Summer. Flower Communion is a ritual created by Norbert Čapek (pronounced CHAH-pek), the founder of the Unitarian Church in Czechoslovakia. In Čapek's congregation in Prague, there were many members who had left Catholicism and the ritual of wine-and-bread communion behind. Still, the idea of communion, of coming together and sharing, is a powerful one and Čapek sought a way to create a ritual that would offer a sense of communion that would fit with his congregation. He created the ritual of Flower Communion, where each congregant would bring a flower to worship and would leave with a flower brought by another. In this simple ceremony, we acknowledge the beauty and power of what we bring to community, while benefitting from the beauty and power we gain from community.

After fleeing the war in Europe, Dr. Čapek's wife, Rev. Maja Čapek brought the Flower Communion ritual to the United States in 1940. Sadly Norbert Čapek did not escape Europe and was captured by the Germans in World War II and sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was killed. Before he died, he wrote this prayer:

It is worthwhile to live and fight courageously for sacred ideals.

Oh blow ye evil winds into my body's fire; my soul you'll never unravel.

Even though disappointed a thousand times or fallen in the fight and everything would worthless seem,

I have lived amidst eternity.

Be grateful, my soul,

My life was worth living.

Each year, as we leave a flower and take another, let us remember the value of all life, grateful for what we have and all that is precious in the landscape of our days.

To learn more about Flower Communion, click here.