Hope has several special services during the year. These include a traditional Christmas Eve candlelighting service, a celebration of the Flower Communion on Mother’s Day and our Memorial Weekend Service when we recognize and call the names of those among us who have passed away during the preceding year. Services to make the passages of life are also performed from time to time: Naming Services, Child Dedication Services, Weddings and Memorial Services.

The Flower Communion

The Flower Communion was first celebrated on June 4, 1923, in the Liberal Religious Fellowship of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Created by Dr. Norbert Capek, it was a celebration of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all souls. Dr. Capek invited each member of his congregation to bring a flower to church that morning and to place the flower in a vase, symbolizing their voluntary membership.

Each flower represented the individual person who brought it and their contributions to the community and what Dr. Capek called “the treasury of grace.” The vase holding the flowers symbolized the community of the church formed by the individuals. Two young girls brought the flowers to the front of the church where he offered a prayer of consecration.

At the end of the service he offered a closing prayer and benediction over the flowers and invited each person to take a flower as they left as an acknowledgment of our interdependence and the gifts we receive from others.