Readings:
Psalm 68:33-36
Sirach 1:1-11
Romans 15:13-21
Mark 4:1-20Preface of a Saint (1)
[Common of a Missionary]
[Common of a Pastor]
[For the Ministry]
[For the Mission of the Church]
PRAYER (traditional language)
Almighty God, by the proclamation of thy Word all nations are drawn to thee: Make us desire, like John Eliot, to share thy Good News with those whom we encounter, so that all people may come to a saving knowledge of thee; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
PRAYER (contemporary language)
Almighty God, by the proclamation of your Word all nations are drawn to you: Make us desire, like John Eliot, to share your Good News with those whom we encounter, so that all people may come to a saving knowledge of you; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
This commemoration appears in A Great Cloud of Witnesses.
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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), Unbosom 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 Algonquian 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 Triturating 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 Kieffer