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Sunday June 21, 2026 - National Indigenous Day of Prayer
10.30am Choral Eucharist

To mark the Indigenous Day of Prayer on Sunday June 21 during the 10.30am Choral Eucharist we will sing excerpts from David Buley's "Moosonee Service." Some of these movements are included in the Anglican Church of Canada's recent hymnal supplement Sing a New Creation (2022), which we use as our main hymnal at Sundays@4.

The pieces can be sung in a number of different ways: congregation only, choir only, or congregation with choir. To introduce these works to the cathedral community, we will sing them with choir only this time, and we'll invite the congregation to join our song at a future service.

The composer, David Buley, has offered the following note:

I want to acknowledge that I am not of indigenous heritage. I have however been gifted with many teachings and also gifted with a spirit name by an elder – the same person who helped me create my grandmother drum, which is featured in the Moosonee Service music. When Bishop Tom Corston was Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Moosonee, he was also the parish priest of the church where I was the Music Director at the time (Sudbury, Ontario) and so I humbly offered to create a mass setting for his consecration. In planning for the celebration, we very much wanted to acknowledge and include Bishop Tom’s indigenous heritage, his beautiful celebratory spirit and the sense of space that Tom always brought to his leading of celebrations of the Eucharist. Because the Diocese of Moosonee comprises a vast area and with numerous indigenous languages, we ended up deciding to use one common language, English – using the Anglican liturgical texts.  Through singing the whole service, the musical offerings acknowledge aspects of Anishnaabemdaa First Nations’ traditions:  the sound of the Grandmother Drum - a unifying heartbeat of all creation; the Seven Grandfather teachings of wisdom, love, honour, bravery, honesty, humility and truth; and the teachings of the four directions.

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You can learn more about David Buley on his web site.
Further information on the National Indigenous Day of Prayer is available on the Anglican Church of Canada web site.