1.   Kyrie Eleison

Children of our being

we visit you in death.

You plead still for the life of wonder and peace.

You reach out to us in our dreams.

Oh, what have we done?

What could we have done to save you?

Quid potuerimus fecisse ut vos salvemus?

We have burned you to ashes.

Your cradle has become your grave.

O grant us mercy to our children.

We sing to you this lullaby and requiem.

2.  Dies Irae

On the day of wrath, that day,

our hearts will be torn

by our children’s mercy failing.

Proclaim our secret:

that we did not love each child enough

to protect all children.

3.  Quid sum miser

Wretched beast that I am what shall I say?

To whom shall I plead for our children?

I  pray to you who hate me and who fear my children

for their future vengeance, 

let us not slaughter each other.

Consider their fragility.

My children and yours miracles of this earth.

Let us not destroy them.

I put my children’s lives in your hands.

I pray you put your children’s lives in mine.

4.    Rex Tremendae

Dreadful Mystery.

King of awful majesty.

We pray that you preserve us

Allow us in our small way to extend

your created mystery. Preserve the children.                                                          

Save the wondering child

within our hearts.

5.    Quaerens me

To confess our guilt.

Hear our confession to have not

loved our children enough.

Let the slaughtered children past

not have died in vain.

Give a compassion coreto the hearts

of the new generations of children.

Cosmos, make them more loving

adults than we have been.

6.   Lacrymosa ... mesto amoroso

We ask to be judged.

Let the sight of the slaughtered

children bring to us a new humility.

Let us sing them this lullaby.

Let us sing them this requiem.

Oh, merciful children

help us to love you enough

to make a world of compassion

that is safe from our hardness.

Teach us compassion  --

as we sing you our dark lullaby,

as we sing you this requiem

that fills our hearts with your loss.

7.    Offertorium

Majestic Mystery

we offer the ashes

of these slaughtered children

who died in wars, in genocide, in violence at home,

in the emptiness of our neglects

and the cauldrons of our passions.

We offer to the creating Cosmos each child’s being

, like a precious drop of rain that falls in a drought,

makes possible the harvest that is new life itself.

For the millons upon millions of children murdered   --

  each was a precious being, a pair of small hands, growing limbs,

clear and separate face, thoughtful eyes, smiles...

abandoned and betrayed across time; we make this offering to include their 

murderers and torturerswho were once children too. 

They were children who dreamt the monsters that we created for them,

until the monsters pursued them, consumed them, became them.

The innocent children burn as offerings

in the fires of human consciousness.

Let their embers fly up into darkness and be made into the stars.

8.   Sanctus

Behold in a child’s smile,

our joy of creation:

our joy of the universe

shining laughter of earth.

Holy, holy, holy

Join the Cosmos in praise

9.   Benedictus

Let the children teach us this:

Let the children instruct us

how to love and not hate

with their tenderness.

Let them teach us.

Blessed are the children

10.   Libera me

Liberate me

Free me

free us

free the children

Let us injure no more children over words.

Let us put aside our righteous masks

and let our children see our faces

humbled in tears.

Let them  offer us comfort to

summon our courage.

11.    Agnus Dei

For those children lost in our blood rites

vulnerable as lambs,

let us mourn and honor them

that they have helped us to see.

We sing to them this lullaby that they may 

sleep in their small bones

and awaken in our hearts  

new visions of innocence

flowering from the bitter seeds

of the death our requiem

commemorates.

All light shine upon them.

Be it. Amen

Peace, Pax. Be it. AMEN