Pride Prayers for Queer Folks: A Pride Blessing & Litany
A celebration and proclamation of LGBTQ spirituality.
These prayers were written for LGBTQ Pride Month 2021 worship at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, CA.
A Litany for Pride
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are the sacred weird ones.
Blessed are the holy and wholly different.
Blessed are the ones who are too loud, too bold, too wild, too much.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are your gay, lesbian, and bisexual children.
Blessed are your trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming children.
Blessed are your children who we are all learning to name, describe, and know.
Sung Response (From “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga)
I’m beautiful in my way / ’Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who have come out.
Blessed are those who cannot.
Blessed are those who are still finding their way.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who feel boxed in.
Blessed are those who feel shackled by tradition.
Blessed are those who are suffocated by the roars of expectation.
Sung Response
I’m beautiful in my way / ’Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who struggle with self-harm and self-hatred.
Blessed are those who strive to accept the person they see in the mirror.
Blessed are those who strain each day just to survive.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those who persist.
Blessed are those who persevere.
Blessed are those who prove to the world each day that diversity is divine.
Sung Response
I’m beautiful in my way / ’Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are the chosen families who have taken in the lost and forgotten.
Blessed are the friends and family who have helped rewrite the stories of lives.
Blessed are the allies who have loved those unable to love themselves.
Blessed are your children, God.
Blessed are those whose ancestral queer footsteps we walk in.
Blessed are those who marched and marched and marched before us.
Blessed are those who have dared to dream and dared to demand justice.
Sung Response
I’m beautiful in my way / ’Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born this way
Blessed are your children, God.
Every single one of them.
And blessed are we as we
Tirelessly,
Courageously,
Imaginatively,
Co-create with you
A world where all people know and feel and have love.
All sexualities.
All genders.
All gender expressions.
All families.
All bodies.
Holy One, guide us toward your strange, boundless, undefinable love. And when we are met with the sneers, side-eye, and shame of the world, remind us who walks this journey with us.
You: the One who has shattered every norm, every box, every shackle that holds us down and calls us to do the same.
Amen.
A Pride Blessing
Beloved, there is only love.
In you, only love.
Around you, only love.
Not a touchy-feely, pop song kind of love.
But a love that knows every secret corner
of your fragile, fabulous being and says, “Yes!”
“Yes!” to your difference.
“Yes!” to your diversity.
“Yes!” to your desire.
Whoever you are,
whatever beautiful spirit
God created you to be,
shine fearlessly and courageously.
We need you
and the divine light within you
to sparkle through the prism of your body
and brighten the world
with a glorious rainbow.
Never forget you are loved.
Fiercely and forever.
