<p>Dignity Boston was honored by the Boston City Council on June 8 2022 to offer the invocation before its meeting and was given a resolution passed by the Council honoring the chapter for its 50 years of service to the LGBTQI community and for creating a safe and welcoming place in the church.</p><p>While Boston city council meetings have opened with an invocation for decades or even hundreds of years this was a first for Dignity Boston to offer the prayer. Usually ordained clergy from churches temples and mosques offer the invocation but in this case Peggy Hayes a Dignity Boston member and lay leader of prayer offered the blessing.</p><p>Peggy offered a prayer adapted from the Celtic Christian tradition a type of prayer frequently used by the chapter in its liturgies because of its inclusivity and lack of emphasis on gender. The invocation ended with a prayer for the work of the council: May your minds be inspired may your hearts yearn for justice may your words be wise may your strongest muscles lift the burdens of the vulnerable may your ears hear the needs of the people the city and the planet may your feet keep you moving forward and may your work always be blessed.</p><p>It took 50 years to be invited to offer the prayer before the Boston City Council said Peggy Hayes but Dignity was warmly welcomed and our history and commitment to the city such as co-founding in 1984 a meals program for people in need that is still running today was honored. Real change has come to Boston with a City Council that is majority women and people of color and a representative of an LGBTQI Catholic community offering the prayer.</p>