Native Orthodox Church

Catlin’s Creed

I love a people that have always made me welcome to the very best that they had.

I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.

I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read or heard them preached from the pulpit.

I love a people who never swear or take the name of God in vain.

I love a people who love their neighbors as they love themselves.

I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.

I love a people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.

I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, when there was no law to punish either.

I love and don’t fear mankind where God has made and left them, for they are his children.

I love a people who have never fought a battle with the white man, except on their own ground.

I love a people who live and keep what is their own without lock and keys.

I love a people who do the best they can.  And oh now I love a people who don’t live for the love of money.

The Offering of the Pipe, from Black Elk Speaks:

Hev hey! Hey hey! Hey hey! Hey hey!

Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have been always, and before you no one has been.

There is no other one to pray to but you.

You yourself, everything that you see, everything has been made by you.

The star nations all over the universe you have finished.

The four quarters of the earth you have finished.

The day, and in that day, everything you have finished.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, lean close to the earth that you may hear the voice I send.

You towards where the sun goes down, behold me;

Thunder Beings, behold me!

You where the White Giant lives in power, behold me!

You where the sun shines continually, whence come the day-break star and the day,

behold me!

You where the summer lives, behold me!

You in the depths of the heavens, an eagle of power, behold me!

And you, Mother Earth, the only Mother, you who have shown mercy to your children!

Hear me, four quarters of the world – a relative I am!

Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is!

Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you.

With your power only can I face the winds.

Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, all over the earth the faces of living things are

all alike.

With tenderness have these come up out of the ground.

Look upon these faces of children without number and with children in their arms,

that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

This is my prayer; hear me!

The voice I have sent is weak, yet with earnestness I have sent it.

Hear me!

It is finished. Hetchetu aloh!

Now, my friend, let us smoke together so that there may be only good between us.

Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt, Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1979.