Unitarian Universalists honor and celebrate a wide range of holidays and occasions over the course of a year. Unlike other faith traditions that use a single lectionary (a collection of scripture readings appointed for a given day or occasion), the topics and themes for Unitarian Universalist worship services are usually chosen independently by worship leaders in congregations. These include unique UU traditions, like the Flower Ceremony, as well as holidays from other faith traditions, such as Christmas or Beltane.
View and download the 2023-24 UUA Worship Calendar (PDF), which includes faith-based and secular holidays that UU congregations often celebrate. The calendar also includes monthly worship themes used in popular theme-based ministry programs. To download or print, follow the link and use the File menu, then select the Landscape layout option.
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- Advent (2)
- All Saints Day (1)
- All Souls Day (6)
- Animal Memorial (5)
- Bridging Ceremony (1)
- Christmas Eve / Christmas (3)
- Día de los Muertos (5)
- Disaster or Crisis (13)
- Easter (2)
- Father's Day (1)
- Good Friday (3)
- Halloween (1)
- Hiroshima Day (1)
- Holocaust Remembrance / Yom Ha'Shoah (2)
- Justice Sunday (1)
- Lent (1)
- Life Transition (2)
- Memorial Day (9)
- Memorial Services (19)
- Military Service (2)
- Mother's Day (5)
- Mourning (4)
- Pride Sunday (1)
- Remembrance Day (8)
- Rosh Hashanah (1)
- Samhain (1)
- Thanksgiving (2)
- Transgender Day of Remembrance (1)
- Veterans Day (2)
- Water Communion (1)
- Winter Solstice / Yule (1)
- Abundance (1)
- Acceptance (5)
- Activism (1)
- America (5)
- Animals (1)
- Anti-Oppression (2)
- Awe (1)
- Balance (2)
- Beginnings (1)
- Birth (2)
- Body (1)
- Brokenness (14)
- Caring (3)
- Challenge (1)
- Change (2)
- Children (4)
- Community (7)
- Compassion (3)
- Connections (4)
- Contemplation (1)
- Courage (1)
- Death (24)
- Despair (5)
- Discernment (1)
- Doubt (1)
- Earth (3)
- Empathy (2)
- Ending (3)
- Environment (2)
- Faith (1)
- Family (11)
- Fathers (1)
- Fear (1)
- Food (1)
- Forgiveness (1)
- Friendship (1)
- Generations (8)
- God (1)
- Grace (1)
- Gratitude (4)
- Growth (1)
- Healing (12)
- History (1)
- Honesty (1)
- Hope (6)
- Human Rights (1)
- Humility (1)
- Imagination (2)
- Immanence (1)
- Integrity (1)
- Interdependence (4)
- Journey (2)
- Joy (1)
- Justice (2)
- Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer (2)
- Letting Go (8)
- Limitations (1)
- Living Our Faith (2)
- Love (20)
- Meaning (2)
- Military (5)
- Mothers (4)
- Mystery (4)
- Nature (2)
- Oppression (1)
- Pain (4)
- Parents (2)
- Peace (2)
- Presence (1)
- Purpose (1)
- Reconciliation (1)
- Relationships (5)
- Responsibility (3)
- Reverence (2)
- Sacred (3)
- Sacrifice (1)
- Sadness (1)
- Searching (2)
- Self-Care (1)
- Self-Respect (1)
- Service (2)
- Shadow (1)
- Silence (1)
- Solidarity (6)
- Sorrow (6)
- Spirituality (2)
- Spiritual Practice (3)
- Strength (1)
- Stress (3)
- Suffering (2)
- Terrorism (1)
- Transcendence (1)
- Transformation (8)
- Trauma (2)
- Violence (3)
- War (2)
- Wholeness (6)
- (-) Grief (59)
- Addae Ama Kraba (1)
- Amy Brooks (1)
- Amy Williams Clark (1)
- Amy Zucker Morgenstern (1)
- Angela Buchdahl (1)
- Audette Fulbright Fulson (1)
- Becky Brooks (1)
- Caitlin Cotter Coillberg (1)
- Celie Katovitch (1)
- Christine Robinson (1)
- David Breeden (2)
- David O. Rankin (1)
- Dawn Star Sarahs-Borchelt (1)
- Debra Faulk (1)
- Douglas Taylor (1)
- Elea Kemler (1)
- Eliot Brian Chenowith (1)
- Elizabeth Harding (1)
- George A Tyger (2)
- Greg Ward (1)
- Gwen Matthews (1)
- Heather K Janules (2)
- Heather Lynn Hanson (1)
- Jennifer Gracen (1)
- Karen G. Johnston (1)
- Kari Kopnick (1)
- Kate Landis (1)
- Katie Sivani Gelfand (1)
- Keith Kron (1)
- Laura Horton-Ludwig (1)
- Leslie Takahashi (1)
- Linda Hart (1)
- Lindasusan Ulrich (1)
- Lora Brandis (1)
- Lori Walke (1)
- Lyn Cox (1)
- Mary Wellemeyer (1)
- Maureen Killoran (1)
- Melanie Morel-Ensminger (2)
- Monica Dobbins (1)
- Naomi King (1)
- Natalie Maxwell Fenimore (1)
- Ndidi Achebe (1)
- Nicole McKay (1)
- Patricia Shelden (2)
- Paul S Sawyer (1)
- Rebecca Bryan (1)
- Rebecka Clement (1)
- Sara Goodman (1)
- Shari Woodbury (1)
- Sheri Prud’homme (1)
- Tess Baumberger (1)
- Tracie Barrett-Welser (1)
- Vanessa Titang (1)
Displaying 1 - 20 of 59
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We come into consciousness in the middle of the story...Prayer | By Linda Hart | May 3, 2024 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Birth, Compassion, Family, Generations, Grace, Gratitude, Grief, Love, Mother's Day, Mothers, Parents, WorshipWeb, Worship
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If you have come here tonight on Rosh Hashanah and feel that there is nothing to examine, no wound in your life to heal, no relationship to repair—then I hope you will listen especially closely to the shofar.Quote | By Angela Buchdahl | April 4, 2024 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Brokenness, Grief, Healing, Judaism, Reconciliation, Rosh Hashanah, WorshipWeb, Worship
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In this heartbreak what we carry forth is our humanity in newly revealed form—our hearts tender and delicate.Prayer | By Vanessa Titang | December 12, 2023 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Brokenness, Community, Compassion, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Healing, Trauma, WorshipWeb, Worship
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May you be tender and gentle with yourselfPrayer | By Katie Sivani Gelfand | September 13, 2023 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Brokenness, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Love, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Stress, Transformation, WorshipWeb, Worship
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My vet said, “She's telling you thank you for letting her go.”Reflection | By Ndidi Achebe | October 12, 2022 | From Braver/WiserTagged as: Animal Memorial, Animals, Death, Direct Experience, Grief, Letting Go, Love, Secular, Worship
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Grief is welcome, a sacred part of the mourning.Reading | By Kari Kopnick | March 1, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Advent, Balance, Challenge, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Compassion, Despair, Empathy, Grief, Winter Solstice / Yule, WorshipWeb, Worship
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There was an audible gasp when they heard he* was gone A whoosh of air that sounded exactly like the bottom falling out of his mother’s** world the winds of mortality brushing his father’s** face the last breath of a kind soul All the years of struggle have settled into silence: Unsought,...Poetry | By Lindasusan Ulrich | January 14, 2022 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Death, Grief, Love, Memorial Services
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The words we cast to fill the silence left by one we loved never are enough.Poetry | By David Breeden | June 2, 2021 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Contemplation, Death, Grief, Meaning, Memorial Services, Silence
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Breathe in for caregivers of all kinds who give of themselves to make other people’s lives better, more whole.Prayer | By Sara Goodman | June 2, 2021 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Caring, Family, Generations, Grief, Imagination, Mother's Day, Responsibility, Unitarian Universalism
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Memorial Day is not to be celebrated. It is to be observed, scrutinized, and witnessed on behalf of the true witnesses of our human failure to love our neighbor as ourselves.Reflection | By George A Tyger | May 26, 2021 | From Braver/WiserTagged as: America, Death, Direct Experience, Family, Grief, Memorial Day, Military, Sacrifice, Secular, Service, Worship
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It can be a lonely time for those of us whose arms are empty.Meditation | By Amy Williams Clark | March 18, 2021 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Children, Direct Experience, Grief, Mother's Day, Mothers, Searching, Secular
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I am afraid and exhausted from the constant fear. I don’t know who to trust for information about the virus.Ritual | By Kate Landis | March 16, 2021 | From WorshipWebTagged as: #COVID19, Brokenness, Death, Direct Experience, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Healing, Hope, Secular, Solidarity, WorshipWeb, Worship
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Impermanence, mortality, ashes, dust: this is the truth of being human.Reflection | By Lora Brandis | February 17, 2021 | From Braver/WiserTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Christianity, Death, Discernment, Grief, Humility, Lent, Love, Spiritual Practice, Worship
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We gather because we need community to do all of this holy work.Affirmation | By Nicole McKay | January 23, 2021 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Grief, Interdependence, Memorial Day, Memorial Services, Relationships, Remembrance Day, Seven Principles, WorshipWeb, Worship
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When we feel overwhelmed, we gather to find a path, to find new ways forward.Responsive Reading | By David Breeden | September 19, 2020 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Community, Disaster or Crisis, Grief, Humanism, Memorial Services, Purpose, Searching, Secular, Strength, Stress, Unitarian Universalism, WorshipWeb, Worship
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Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love, we come today carrying our grief, our memories, and our love. We gather around screens and devices, reaching out with our minds and hearts to join in this most ancient of human customs: honoring one whom we loved who has died....Prayer | By Laura Horton-Ludwig | July 1, 2020 | From WorshipWebTagged as: #COVID19, Death, Grief, Love, Memorial Services
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Minister: At this time, we would like to introduce a special ritual. The holidays can be an especially poignant time of year. Alongside the joy in these present moments, we may recall fond memories of past celebrations with our loved ones....Ritual | By Shari Woodbury | May 5, 2020 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Advent, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Connections, Direct Experience, Family, Grief, Spiritual Practice
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As my body begins to loose its hold On this life, this earth, this entirety, May I lay my past to rest And face the unknowable With courage and curiosity. May those to whom I am connected gather. May they recall me as I am and have been....Prayer | By Tess Baumberger | January 16, 2020 | From WorshipWebTagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Death, Direct Experience, Gratitude, Grief, Humanism, Meaning, Memorial Services, Mystery, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Remembrance Day, Secular
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This ritual begins by lighting a candle from the chalice, and placing it in position. A list of supplies is at the end of this resource. One: Fire. Source of warmth and life for our ancestors; and for humans still today....Ritual | By Amy Brooks | January 3, 2020 | From WorshipWebTagged as: Direct Experience, Disaster or Crisis, Earth, Fear, Grief, Solidarity, Unitarian Universalism, Climate Justice
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Sometimes grief sends notice ahead of time; sometimes, it shows up as an unwelcome, uninvited guest.Reflection | By Monica Dobbins | October 30, 2019 | From Braver/WiserTagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Acceptance, Bridging Ceremony, Change, Children, Direct Experience, Grief, Growth, Humanism, Letting Go, Mother's Day, Parents, Secular, Transformation