WE SUFFER

This is a season of deep suffering. 

 

The discovery of so many unmarked graves at former residential schools has brought the entire country into suffering. There is no part of the country that is not affected and is participating in some manner in the suffering of our First Nations peoples and all other Canadians. Suffering in not limited to only the direct victims.

 

We have been very slow to consider the entire population of Canada as a living body, a living organism. There are many different groupings of peoples in this vast country but we do share strong common values of respect, human rights and compassion for one another. Just like your physical body, when one part is injured the entire body feels the pain. When you stub your big toe on a chair leg, why do all the leg muscles respond in discomfort? When your big toe hurts why do you not feel like jogging your daily two K run? 

 

In all social groups (a country is a large and diverse social group) when one serious issue of pain arise, then other issues of suffering and exclusion flow into the river of pain.  These issues have always been present in our history. They have been pushed aside and not give the attention they deserve. Now, with this seemly new national pain shared by a great number of Canadians, the other painful issues flow into the mix.

 

This is the time when our First Nations peoples can bring to the surface all the pain, exclusion and second-class status they have been reduced to throughout the past one hundred and fifty years. All Canadians, long standing and new immigrants, need to embrace the pain and suffering. It is not easy. It is not pleasant. As we listen to the stories of past hurts (and some of the present issues of missing and murdered women) we are so often confused.

 

Our First Nations Peoples are claiming their equal status with all other Canadians. They no longer will tolerate being passed over when it comes to employment and education. They do not want their schools on the reserves to be second class. They want equal and fair treatment in our health care system.

 

Catholics and all Christians are suffering with the memory that we cooperated in oppressive colonial policies. This suffering is not a one-way street.

 

When you embrace the sufferings of another you also suffer. The wrongs of a hundred years ago come back to inflict pain on this generation. As Christian people we will embrace this pain and all the fallout that comes with it in our society and bring it to the very cross of Jesus. This is the cross being lived out, very concretely in 2021. We ask that God’s Spirit will give us life, healing and reconciliation. May this pain be redemptive and not useless.

 

The great mystery of the cross is that God can raise from our suffering, tears and confusion new life, reconciliation and peace. I am not living in some distant spiritual forest. This pain and suffering is the mystery of the cross being played out in my country, my church and my own life, 2021. 

 

This means listening and embracing the pain and suffering of our First Nations peoples, the Chinese workers who built the railway in the late 1800’s, the British Home Children, the missing and murdered women in this country and all others who have suffered at the hands of others.

 

My life is filled with great suffering at this time.   This is a suffering that embraces the pain of our ancestors, the pain of anyone who has suffered exclusion and the people who have been regulated to the file of ‘unimportant’ by sheer indifference.  We embrace the consequences of colonialism.

 

As many others in my country and my Church, this suffering is in my  bones and in my prayers.