How Shall We Live? Sermon Text and Lyrics from the Missa Brevis Pro Serveto.
The Annual Conference and Meeting is the once-a-year gathering of
Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists from across Canada. Each year
the event is hosted by one of the
member
congregations of the Canadian Unitarian Council. The ACM is really a
two part event. The first component is the Annual Meeting.
Member congregations select delegates to represent them at the business
meeting of the Council. It is at this meeting where Social
Justice resolutions and Council business is discussed and voted upon.
The second component is the Annual Conference. A variety of
workshops are offered by leaders from within and without our movement,
providing attendees with opportunities to learn, think and play together.
Other aspects of the conference include a youth conference (Canuudle) and
programs for Jr. Youth and children. Because so many of our
congregations are geographically isolated, the opportunity to come together
is, for many people, a highlight of the church year.
The ACM will be held in Victoria, BC at the University of Victoria from May
21–24.
This year’s theme, How Shall We Live is the central
questions of all religions and
philosophies. Written attempts to answer it would fill many libraries. Do
Unitarians have a distinctive set of answers?
The phrase actually comes from the premiere of the Latin Mass, Missa Brevis
Pro Serveto, written by Rev. Frances Dearman, music by Tobin Stokes and to
be performed at the Sunday worship service by the conference choir. The
theme ( “How shall we live?” ) is from the introduction of the mass.
Translated from Latin it says:
“How
shall we live? I hate and I love. And we weep for friends of long
ago, now lost. The work of my hands might well be writ in wind and running
water. For I see the innocent suffer. And I tremble on the shores of night.
God has no hands but ours. Peace walks on no feet but our own. May I be
hope, may I be light from a hill. May our light go everywhere, like the sun.
May our shrine be the good heart.”