Readings:
Psalm 68:33-36
Sirach 1:1-11
Romans 15:13-21
Mark 4:1-20Preface of a Saint (1)
PRAYER (traditional language)
Great Creator, source of mercy, we offer thanks for the imagination and
conviction of thine evangelist, John Eliot, who brought both literacy
and the Bible to the Algonquin people, and reshaped their communities
into fellowships of Christ to serve thee and give thee praise; and we
pray that we may so desire to share thy Good News with others that we
labor for mutual understanding and trust; through Jesus Christ our Savior,
who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.
PRAYER (contemporary language)
Great Creator, source of mercy, we thank you for the imagination and conviction
of your evangelist, John Eliot, who brought both literacy and the Bible
to the Algonquin people, and reshaped their communities into fellowships
of Christ to serve you and give you praise; and we pray that we may so
desire to share your Good News with others that we labor for mutual understanding
and trust; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with you and the Holy
Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Thei commemoration adopted provisionally at General Convention 2009
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JOHN ELIOT
MISSIONARY TO THE AMERICAN INDIANS, 21 MAY 1690
John
Eliot was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1604 and graduated from Cambridge
in 1622. He taught school for a while, came under Puritan influence, and
determined to become a minister. In 1631 he went to New England and was
ordained to preach at Roxbury. He developed an interest in Indian language
and customs, and began to preach to the Indians in 1646, at first in English
but within a year in their own tongue, Algonkian. He published a catechism
for them in 1654 and by 1658 translated the Bible into Algonkian, the
first Bible to be printed in North America. A revised edition was published
in 1685. Eliot also wrote The
Christian Commonwealth (1659), Up-bookum Psalmes (1663),
The Communion Of Churches (1665), The
Indian Primer (1669), and The Harmony of the Gospels
(1678), and was a major contributor to the Bay
Psalm Book.
 John Eliot's Algonquin Bible |
Eliot planned towns for Indian converts, away from the white towns, in areas where they could preserve their own language and culture and live by their own laws. He prepared Indians to be missionaries to their own people. Daniel Takawambpait was the first Indian minister in New England, being ordained at Natick, Massachusetts, in 1681. Eliot's Indian towns grew to fourteen in number, with thousands of inhabitants, but they were scattered in King Philip's War in 1675 (King Philip was an Indian leader who undertook to drive the English out of New England), and although four communities were restored, they did not continue long.
Eliot died after a long illness on 21 May 1690.
— by James Kiefer