Walpole Unitarian Church

Our Special Water Communion Ceremony: honoring the gift of life

Join us Sunday, September 9, at the church at 10 a.m.

Led by Rev. Elaine Bomford

leting the Water Communion

        The Water Communion, also sometimes called Water Ceremony, was first used at a Unitarian Universalist (UU) worship service in the 1980s. Many UU congregations now hold a Water Communion once a year, often at the beginning of the new church year (September).

        Members bring to the service a small amount of water from a place that is special to them, anything from an ocean to their own wells. During the appointed time in the service, people one by one pour their water together into a large bowl, often started with water from previous years. As the water is added, the person who brought it tells why this water and/or the event is special to them. The combined water is symbolic of our shared faith coming from many different sources. It is often then blessed by the congregation, and sometimes is later boiled and used as the congregation's "holy water" in child dedication ceremonies and similar events. 

        At the Walpole Unitarian Church, we stock our crystal bowl at Water Communion with water from last year, which held water from the year before, which held water from the year before......that's a lot of shared expreiences and emotions in this precious fluid, saved through the years as a symbol of continutiy, and made up of water from oceans and streams and taps and tears of our lives.