Cole Arthur Riley's Black Liturgies is a remarkable work of generosity. It invites us to bring to this generosity to ourselves while we engage in self-examination, not to find fault, but to find the sources of our strengths and weaknesses. This book offers multiple genres: reflections, meditations, poems, question for discussion—with like-minded companions or with one's self.

If you're looking for an affirmative path to come to a loving understanding of yourself, this is a book you will want to spend time with.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NatGalley; the opinions are my own.

As religions go, Catholicism is notorious for its interiority, and that might be one of the foundational reasons I decided at 12 that I would become a writer. Put another way, I have gotten to know myself deeply from a young age because I spent a lot of time alone.

We had zero money in the most expensive city in the country. Growing up, I knew homelessness and chaos. I got bullied for being bummy on top of being smart. I did not want to ever be poor again.

But there was scripture about poverty that made it seem like the closest thing to Godliness. Faith offered community, if not with other people, definitely with God and with saints. Writing, too, populated my world. It certainly didn’t seem like the way to steer clear of poverty, but I couldn’t help myself from writing to everyone, including God, to try and make sense of why I was here.

My mother was a devout Catholic, which, in the time she was raised — deep in the Black South of South Carolina, then, as a teenager in Philadelphia — was not exactly a popular choice. Specifically, our biological family had some challenges accepting this choice of hers. More than once, she told me that soon as she turned 18, she was baptized out of the Black Baptist tradition, and into Catholicism.

I mention all of this as context for how I think about religion and faith, and part of why I sometimes hesitate to write more intimately about both. The first paradox of my life was understanding that I was never going to be as religious as anyone else in my family and that I felt a special kinship with Jesus. I could feel in my bones that the same God who had made me a queer, Black girl in poverty also created a world that revered, protected and offered salvation to heterosexual, white and wealthy people. The question of what to make of all that remains unanswered.

Every point of reference for God in my world back then was some version of George Burns, some patriarchal, outside-of-me authority who judged me away from my humanity, and made it impossible for me to understand that the sacred connection I needed in the divine had been gifted to me in the form of intuition since before I was born.

This is some of why I have always been a seeker, probably a hippie in a former life: I had no evidence that I should, but I wanted deeply to believe Ntozake Shange in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf when she announced that she found god in her self and she loved her, deeply. Reading Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley made my heart ease with the same spark of cozy, humanizing recognition. To me, the chief violence of organized traditions and religions has been the alienation of non-white bodies from ourselves, which have made us disconnect ourselves from the comfort, the balm of the sacred.


This is my first time reading Cole Arthur Riley, but I am delighted to discover her, especially in this time of war and hatred spooling from every corner of the world (maybe all times are like this). Black Liturgies is one of my favorite kinds of text — operating in a tradition of creating sanctuary for those of us on the margins to give us the peace and beauty that will draw us closer to the center. Reading it felt like rest and nourishment.

As a spiritual, prayerful person who does not regularly attend church in ways that might appease traditionalists, reading this book was its own service. It offered an invitation to prayer and reflection that gave me back the parts of myself that I have abandoned over the years, thinking that in order to love God and the peaceful contentedness that arises when I think of the divine, I needed to become somehow different. The affirmation even in the title that Black liturgy is more than one thing, has more than one form, was liberating; the most important freeing aspect of reading Black Liturgies was a reminder that in order to stay human, we should remember our connection to the eternal.

Each chapter includes voices of our ancestors and uplifting quotes — I have always considered the wisdom of our elders and ancestors to be sacred, so this was beautiful to see and powerful to embrace. Finally, there is a template for folks to add their own liturgies, which I thought was so beautiful: “There are days you’ve lived that I could never speak to,” Riley writes toward the end of the book, “longings and losses I cannot fully understand…if you find yourself longing for more — for words that begin in you — remember, I am no nearer to the divine than you are, and my words are no more sacred.”

Amen.

Such a powerful invitation to bring your full self into prayer and contemplation. Cole Arthur Riley writes in a beautiful and vulnerable style that is unique and compelling. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley is a must read! Rich with spiritual empowerment, prayer, grace and hope, Black Liturgies will bless your spirit and sooth your soul.

this is as stunning as i had hoped -- truly a gift and a gem and a balm to the soul. cole arthur riley's work is deeply heartfelt and poignant, not shying away from the truth or calling us into the light, but doing so with a grace and conviction and power that is so compelling and convicting. she is a poet and a prophet and a powerhouse of a writer, and i will support any and everything she does.

BLACK LITURGIES is a genuinely remarkable book. It's written in devotional form and includes prayers, poems, and meditations—what I'd typically call "devotions"—that pierce the soul, warm the heart, and inspire a conviction that calls for justice, equity, and a life of love influenced by the divine (which, in my case and the author's, is Jesus Christ).

The author, Cole Arthur Riley, clearly writes from a predominately—though not fundamentalist—Christian perspective but aims to make BLACK LITURGIES inspiring and accessible to people at different places of their spiritual journey. This book likely wouldn't sit well with readers who like strictly and traditionally Christian books, but I believe it's the type of book that could help those longing to reconnect with God (or spirituality in general) take a step forward.

I also believe it's a read that could restore some people's faith in people of faith, especially in Christians, if they've never read anything from a more progressive Christian perspective and are stuck associating faith with a type of religion that may have traumatized them in the past.

But I wouldn't say BLACK LITURGIES is about how to put yourself into a religious box at all; the content, while intersectional and sporadically interfaith, is very personal and vulnerable. Riley's writing is for YOU, the reader, to contemplate your own spiritual health. Her writing makes a beautiful guide.

I loved and appreciated the formula that every chapter followed, leading with wise quotes from Black ancestors, Bible scriptures, etc., and continuing into a stunning letter by the author, breath prayers, and more. Just like with her previous book, THIS HERE FLESH, her writing is so gorgeous, deeply thought out, and complex that I struggle to review it at all. Riley's writing is shaped by nuance and grace and expressed in a way that reflects goodness and charitable spirituality. It makes what's intellectual and historical approachable and beautiful. If you follow @blackliturgies on Instagram and treasure the words published there as I do, you'll just have to trust me and read this.

Cole Arthur Riley writes with such deepness and heart, cutting away chaff to leave genuinely impactful lessons.

The first half of BLACK LITURGIES offers liturgies grouped by story (touching on place, wonder, lament, doubt, rage, secrets, and more), and the second half offers blessings grouped around time (both time of day -- such as dawn and dusk -- and time of liturgical year -- such as Pentecost, Lent, and Kwanzaa). To close, the book contains longer liturgies which can be adapted for communal use, plus a framework for drafting your own liturgies.

Riley follows a formula for each chapter: she opens with quotes from black artists and authors, pens a letter, then a poem and specific prayers for the chapter's theme follow, for it to close with breath prayers, a confession, forgiveness, a benediction, and questions for contemplation.

This book helps illustrate intersectionality; this book is not meant specifically for me, but it still connects. As a woman, a people pleaser, a perfectionist, time and again this book offered a release from those pressures. Riley's vulnerability helps model what it is to be genuine in our faith and our community. This is a book I would welcome on my shelves, to flip through to locate just the blessing needed for specific instances.

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

Many thanks to Net Galley for the advance reading copy of this beautiful eBook.

I would recommend this book to anyone with spiritual inclinations and a complex relationship with religion due to religious bigotry and alienation; I think this also would be a very worthwhile read for Christians seeking to be more inclusive and welcoming in their practice. My favorite element of this book is the prayer sections; I don’t think any element at play is particularly weak—it’s a very strong book overall and I found a lot of comfort in it. Because of that, the only thing I really would have wanted from this book is more of it.

This is a well-crafted, layered, easy to follow text. This book feels very meticulously structured, and I think that worked out as the author intended. While it’s not necessarily meant to be read in a linear, straightforward way, it’s put together in a way that allowed doing so to work for me. Every section and chapter feels necessary and intentional—none of them feel like filler, and even chapters that I probably wouldn’t turn to regularly (like some of the ones modeled on Christian holidays) were worthwhile to read in their beauty.

The labor and love that went into this book sing through every page. The writing style is very accessible and consistent without being boring to read; it’s effective and comforting. The author manages to communicate their messages to the reader in a variety of different ways without being repetitive. The writing is poetic, but it’s also incredibly clear and direct; the intention is never obfuscated, and it’s always wrapped in just the right amount of figurative language. I’m very curious to see where the author’s writing career goes next, and may at some point check out their previous book.

I really loved this book it has some very powerful poems and prayers. They are really good and they cover nearly every subject too. It’s just really well written and something you’ll always want to come back to. Even when things are going good you’ll want to read this book. I had no idea there were many Black poems and prayers/meditations. But this little book has really opened my eyes and I read it every night before go to sleep. It’s amazing. I find a subject that I want to pray/meditate on then go from there.

Having read (and loved) a dozen or so books of liturgies -- giving each one 4 or 5 stars, after years of seeing the Black Liturgies account on Instagram, and after reading and enjoying Cole's debut title (I gave it 4 stars), I was very surprised to find that this one was difficult to read. I think this is mostly due to the format, as it's *not* actually a book of liturgies. Each essay includes MANY pieces, switching formats several times, and it was often disorienting in an expected way.

(4.25/5 stars) I have enjoyed following Cole Arthur Riley on Instagram (@blackliturgies) for years now and loved her first book (This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us), and when I saw that she was releasing another book I was immediately (immediately!!) requesting it on NetGalley. This book is a collection of chapters that are both focused on shared experiences (part 1) and holidays (part 2) that can be read as an individual or a community. Each of the 43 chapters includes Riley's own letters, poems, prayers, breath practices, confessions, and meditation questions. I honestly think you can take as little or as much as you want from these liturgies, and Riley invites you to do just that - to take what you need, what is timely, what resonates in your soul when you read it. The thoughtfulness and soul work that Riley has put into this is clear, and it is a gift to those who read it.

This Here Flesh is one of my favorite nonfiction books, so as soon as I heard Cole Arthur Riley had a new one, I immediately jumped on it. There is something about Riley's writing that is just so beautiful and healing. While this book is written to a Black audience, there is so much to gain for anyone who has ever been Othered in religious spaces and is looking for a safe space to heal. This book is a slightly different format, as it is comprised of letters from Riley to the reader, and then followed by poems, prayers, breath exercises, and questions to contemplate on the subject talked about. There is also a section at the end for liturgies based on seasons and holidays/special days. Rather than reading this straight through, this is one to come and get what you need from it when you need it. It's absolutely one I will be coming back to constantly.

Cole Arthur Riley’s second book is released today. Black Liturgies is a beautiful collection of essays, poems, prayers, and meditations. Her first work, This Here Flesh, is a favorite of mine. Black Liturgies furthers that work in ritual, guided prayers, and reflective questions. It can be read any way you like, picking and choosing what you need and coming back to the rest later.

It is thoughtful, eloquent, and deeply moving. I am so thankful for Riley’s work. She’s having a series of IG lives to promote her book release this week. So check those out.

In her introduction, she says,
“To be clear, liturgy in no way saved me, nor was it even a remedy to my depression. But it was an anchor, something that kept me from drifting helplessly into my own interior current.

Ritual, when coupled with beauty, makes for a very adequate mooring. It won’t carry you to shore, but it will keep you close enough that hope can swim out to visit you regularly.”

I know many have left church or never went because of the hurt it causes. Riley’s work is a balm to a spiritual soul. It is a comfort.

Black Liturgies is such a beautifully written book of spiritual meditations from a Christian perspective. It has been a soothing and affirming read that I've found myself visiting and revisiting several times already! A series of prayers, poems, and meditations, Black Liturgies offers reflection on the human experience in ways many of us can relate to.

In the first part of the book, author Cole Arthur Riley shares anecdotes "by story," in chapters such as love, belonging, doubt, fear, power, joy, and rest. In each of these chapters, she offers quotes, personal experiences, poems, prayers, confessions, and questions for readers to meditate on. I find this format extremely helpful and the anecdotes quite comforting. The author shares a vulnerability in her writing that makes the reader feel seen, heard, and validated in ways I did not expect. The section on Belonging, for example, spoke to me immediately and I found such solace in that chapter.

The second part of the book is separated "by time," in which Riley provides prayer guides for several occasions. While some are as constant as mornings and evenings, others are celebrations such Christmas, Easter, Juneteenth, and The New Year. Again, I love how this section is formatted and how beneficial it is to the reader searching for a particular prayer or meditation for the occasion.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Black Liturgies and I have no doubt that I will be revisiting highlighted and bookmarked passages quite often. Many thanks to Convergent Books and Netgalley for the ARC of Black Liturgies in exchange for an honest review.

4.5

Cole Arthur Riley takes the soul of a Black person and heals it with words that are balm to wounds that have closed over time and time again, but never really found safety in rebinding the roots and the skin there.

My heart has been nourished with how Riley entertained poetry to prayer and how inviting the space is for all who seek solace and comfort in knowness.

As someone who grew up in the church, was recklessly deceived by it, and has been searching for a way back, these words found their way home to me. I cried, I smiled, and I remembered and I cared about who I was then and who I am becoming. I have since found communities that are rich in faith and care, but this was different. This was whole and these responses when done individually were rectifying, so I can only imagine how whole they are in community.

Cole is attentive to heart and mind and body and combines them all to create a narrative that welcomes and soothes and binds. I felt rebounded and that is a solidifying feeling. To feel safe in your Black skin again. To know that you are indeed made beautifully and wonderfully, not mistakenly nor less than how differently is supposed to show up. I feel bold and new and proud. I feel whole.

Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley should be on everyone's bookshelf! There is a prayer/meditation for so many different occasions, stages and seasons of life. As a white woman working to de-colonize and diversify my understanding of faith, this book will continue to be a helpful tool.

If you follow @blackliturgies , you know the beauty, wisdom, depth, & brilliance of Cole Arthur Riley’s writing. I was thrilled to receive a digital advance copy but immediately knew that I need a physical copy to mark up, be with, & use in spiritual direction. This unique book is absolutely gorgeous and will be a perfect companion both for individuals in solitude as well as for faith communities who are doing the deep work of spiritual healing together. This is a “collection of prayer, poetry, and spiritual practice centering the Black interior world.” Cole Arthur Riley is a prophetic voice that needs to be broadcast from the rooftops for people of all backgrounds who are on the spiritual journey of becoming more human.
 
The book is divided into two sections: Part 1, “By Story,” and Part 2, “By Time.” Part 1 is topical and has reflections, poetry, liturgy, prayers, and questions to ponder that are arranged topically (topics like dignity, selfhood, wonder, calling, body, doubt, lament, rage, justice, etc.), and part 2 follows highlights of the liturgical year, some holidays and times of day, and major life events (Advent, Lent, Juneteenth, birth etc.). She also includes a liturgical template that can be used to create your own liturgy for additional occasions.
 
Black Liturgies feels like a fresh breath from the Spirit and is also highly practical, following an easy-to-use format that can be returned to repeatedly. I agree with my spiritual director that Cole Arthur Riley is one of the most important prophets of our time. She seems to have one ear to the ground, deeply in tune with the plights of our time, place, & people, & the other attuned to the Spirit, which comes through her embodied experience as a queer Black woman living in the U.S. in 2024.

Serving as a salve & a challenge all at once, her words wake up the parts of us that have been asleep, soothe the parts that have been wounded, & inspire the parts that have become weary and apathetic. I’m so glad her voice & work is in the world & can’t recommend this enough to people/communities of faith.

As someone who is working to decolonize my theology, authors like Riley and books like Black Liturgies are essential works for me. There is much to absorb and take in here, so much so that I know I'll need to return to it again and again. Highly recommended.

There is something so healing about the way that Cole Arthur Riley writes. Black Liturgies is exactly what I didn't know I needed at this point in my faith journey.

What a wonderfully writing book of meditations, poetry, and prayers. As a black woman the words on these pages made me feel centered. This book gives you the words to say in prayer when feeling not seen or not understood. I am thankful for this book is written from the black perspective.