Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 29th, 2023
I went to the Mission for one school year in 1973/1974. I had just turned 6 years old. I lived with my grandmother on the Dog Creek reserve. We never had very much money, but somehow my granny managed to buy me a new outfit to go to the Mission school. I remember going to Robinson’s store and picking out a shiny orange shirt. It had string laced up in front, and was so bright and exciting – just like I felt to be going to school!
When I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt! I never wore it again. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t give it back to me, it was mine! The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared, and how I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.
Call to Action: 80
80. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour Survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.
Suggestions for Almsgiving
The 2023 Lenten Calendar is a project of CTA's Indigenous Solidarity Collective, a working group that addresses the Catholic Church's historical and current role in colonialization. To support more projects from working groups like this one, please consider making a contribution!
Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2023
Commemoration
Call To Action's 2023 Lenten Calendar is a collaboration between the Indigenous Solidarity Collective and Anti-Racism Team (ART). This calendar provides more than 40 days of prayer and study to lead members into action and solidarity with Indigenous communities. For holy days and Sundays during Lent, we'll publish a reflection from an ART or Indigenous Solidarity Collective member on why we're committed to undoing racism and Indigenous oppression in our own communities and biases and what it means to do this work as Catholics. Following each meditation or reflection, we will feature a call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
In 2013, Phyllis Webstad created the Orange Shirt Society. Webstad is Northern Secwepemc and a survivor of St. Joseph's Mission, a residential school near Williams Lake. Webstad's story, in her own words, led to September 30th being commemorated as Orange Shirt Day in Canada.
In sharing her story, Webstad inspired other survivors of the residential school system to share their stories. In 2021, the Canadian Government passed a bill to declare September 30th a statutory holiday known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The intention behind this day is to remember the lives of survivors and to keep their stories centered in what is often a whitewashed history of cultural genocide. This institutionalized acknowledgment serves as a powerful ritual that helps us, as embodied beings, begin to process trauma.
Perhaps the freedom that Jesus speaks about in John's Gospel is this ability to acknowledge, process, and be liberated from the shackles of sin. In what ways can we practice reconciliation that does not forget hard truths, but rather recalls and remembers reality, so that we might move towards healing liberation?
—Meditation by Indigenous Solidarity Collective member Scott Pyzik
As part of your Lenten practice, please consider donating to one or more of the
following organizations: