Healing Waters

Rev. Maria Cristina preaches for the first time and ushers in a new church year with a beloved UU tradition: The Water Ceremony.

The first UU Water Communion was held in the mid-1970s at the first Women & Religion Convocation held at a retreat center in Grailville, Michigan. The organizers of the conference asked that the participants – UU women from all over the continent – bring with them a small amount of water from their homes, to be poured together into a common bowl at the opening worship service. The water symbolized that although the women came from many different places, were of different backgrounds and life experiences and social situations, they were Unitarian Universalist sisters, of one liberal heritage. 

The Water Communion’s true and continuing purpose is not to report on “What I Did During My Summer Vacation” which not everyone gets, but instead “How I Felt This Summer,” to highlight our congregation’s connection and closeness and to celebrate our diversity. 

Water Communion is a Powerful metaphor of unity in diversity, of a community united across all the usual lines and categories, that serve to separate and divide, and the women who were there were greatly moved by it. Many of them returned from Grailville and shared a version of the ceremony with their congregations.