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.

 

OUR HISTORY IS BEING RETOLD

         

 

Our history is being reshaped as the people from the margins of society are demanding that their story become part of the accepted story of Canada. 

 

History is always being retold and reshaped. Consider your own family. There are memories and personalities from your family history that are never mentioned. It is only years later, when you are already close to seventy, that you discover that the reason that your family had so little connection with your Grandfather’s sister and her family was because the husband was very addicted to alcohol and had caused many problems for your Grandfather and the rest of the family. Their solution over the decades was to keep a safe distance between the families. 

 

This did not mean that there was not history in your great-aunt’s family. Your family refused to recognize it or to deal with it. As you are discovering your larger family’s story, history is not being invented, it is just being recognized. 

 

We are living through such a historical shift in Canada. Our First Nations peoples are clearly saying that we do not want to be considered as second-class citizens. We have our history. It must become part of the Canadian story, no matter how painful it might be. 

 

Women are demanding that their story, their contribution to the Canadian fabric be recognized and integrated into the history. There have been some very powerful women who made a significant difference to their family, community and country.  Women are making their presence felt.

 

The Asian, the black, the Arabic and Indian people who have emigrated into the Canadian fabric are demanding that Canadians recognize their story: their struggles to be accepted, the racism they encountered and the contribution they have made to the Canadian people.

 

Whenever you hear of someone telling their story and memories, (beginning with your own family’s story), always ask: And what is being left out? Who is missing? Ask the family on the margins of your own clan: And what part of the story are we ignoring? What part of the family story are we reluctant to deal with? 

 

In your parish community, whose story do you not pay attention to? Is it the family who suffered the suicide of the father leaving a mother with four little children? Is it the couple whose son is homeless, living in the east side of Vancouver, and caught up in the drug culture? 

 

And we have to ask how much of the story of Jesus do we not pay attention to? What parts of his story do we not make a part of our lived story?  What part of the history of the Gospel is not a living part of your church community?

CONFUSING TIMES ARE VERY HARD TIMES

 

I hate  driving in the fog, whether daytime or at nighttime. I am afraid that someone may come crashing in from my rear or not recognize my headlights in the front. I am confused. And I feal very fearful. 

 

We are living in a time when there are no signposts of truth. The culture is very polarized and very shrill about their positions. What should hold us together with clear values are almost non-existent. You may try to teach your children one value only to have it trashed by the very next TV program they are watching. We live in a post-truth world. It does not matter what the truth is. This is all about winning. It is power that counts! And that is all!

 

You teach your children that life is sacred. You must not kill – even your own self. Next month the family is greeted with news that your great aunt has just had herself put down with medically assisted death. What do you teach your children as the truth? What values can they stake their lives on?

 

Human beings need to have some clear and definite values. We find it very difficult to live when the value ground is shifting every year. The values that are true and give for us to follow are like the runway lights on a runway at night. I remember the northern pilots telling stories about how much they appreciated the runway lights when they came in from the North on an ambulance call to bring a patient to the University hospital in Saskatoon. So often as they would recount these night trips you could feel that they wanted to get out and hug each one of those night lights. Each light told them exactly where and how they could accomplish their flight mission.

 

As the culture is shifting more and more to a very individualistic position there is greater distrust of any type of institution or organized set of values and directions. It is all about how I, the individual, is going to do things. No one is going to impose some other truth on me!

 

In all societies, religion has been the force that defined peoples’ lives and had signposts that were clearly right or wrong. Religion gave your value to your own individual existence and your place on this earth.

 

Religion has been regulated to the margins. It is strictly and individual’s choice. You have your religious values and I have mine!

 

It is in this confusing fog that we live. What does it mean for our Christianity?

 

This is a time to rediscover the great truths that our Christianity brings. We are just like the first Christians who were misunderstood, rejected because they believed in the wrong truth. Their position challenged the powers that be during the first two centuries. They had to locate the powerful meaning that their faith in Jesus Christ brought to their lives/family/society. We are in the same position.

As we move through this fog of confusing values, we want to locate the truths of the revelation of Jesus Christ. We want to be claimed by the power of his truths. 

 

We may be living in the fog of moral confusion, but our feet are standing firmly on the ground.

NEVER ATTACK PEOPLES’ RELIGiON

                                  

 

When Saulteaux Nation Chief Felix Thomas and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Vice-Chief David Pratt, Friday, June 11, 2021, asked Catholics to boycott the Sunday Mass they stepped into very dangerous territory.

 

We have learnt through centuries of colonization and suppression the incredible damage that can be done when one group/person uses religion to dominate another. Our ancestors, the conquering peoples throughout history, have trampled over the religious sensibilities of the peoples they conquered. Our European settlers made tremendous mistakes when they dismissed the religions of the peoples who lived in the Americas.

 

When the European settlers tore up the sacred texts and tried to stamp out the prayer gatherings/ceremonies of the established population (included here are all the South and North American religious traditions) they sought to crush a people. As a human being, when you attack my religion you attack my person!

 

Throughout the past ten thousand years the conquering forces destroyed and imposed their religious system on the subjected people.

 

When you seek to diminish the religion of another, you are diminishing a person. We have much to repent about the actions and attitudes of our ancestors. We carry their sins in our history.

 

Religion must not be politicized. We have some strong right-wing Catholics who strongly (they are very shrill) want to deny communion to any Catholic who might support a civic law that allows abortion. It is a blatant error to use religion to exclude people.

 

We live in a very polarised society. People are so divided on very important issues. People are so shrill and angry. They do not listen to the position of the other. In too many instances truth has degenerated into “my” truth. Truth is not above and beyond us. Truth does not challenge the entire society. Truth has become in this divided society what I want to make it to be!

 

In front of the religious knowledge and experience of the First Nations peoples we must be silent and reverent. We must recognize their experience of the divine/ transcendent power in the world. We must respect and listen attentively to their prayers and ceremonies. The experience of the divine is much greater than any one of us.

 

First Nations spirituality must stand in respect before the spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. And all people must bring respect to the dignity and the life-giving powers that the religion of each people gives them. This is a time of great learning and a time of strong repentance for any past attitudes that saw “my position is the only one” and “you are all wrong!”

 

We can locate all kinds of attacks and put-downs within Christianity in the year 2021. We are a long way from being perfect. 

 

Holding all the past mistakes in my hands (or in my memory) I must stand before the religion of another person in respect. The religion of another is always sacred. We need to take off our shoes in the presence of the religion of another human being.

 

A person’s religion states clearly their human dignity and value. When I attack the religion of another or use it for political purposes I am attacking the other person. May I never attack the religious values and practices of anyone who is different from me.

 

 

 

THIS IS A SEASON OF DEEP PAIN

                                  

I sit here in deep pain. These past two weeks have been very difficult for Canadians, First Nations peoples, Moslem newcomers to Canada and  the Catholic Church.

 

It has long been a shared memory among our First Nations peoples of the children who did not return from the residential schools. There always were stories that carried these painful memories. The findings of the 215 gravesites at the Kamloops Residential school sent shock waves across our country.

 

Last Sunday, in London, Ontario, a family of five Moslem immigrants from Pakistan were attacked by a half ton truck. (We almost never think of a motor vehicle as a weapon to kill people.) Almost all the country reeled back in disbelief that such a horrendous act of hatred could be committed on one of the streets of our cities. 

 

We hurt! We cry! We shake our head in disbelief!

 

When you hurt you turn inward to survive.  When you have been banged up in a car accident you focus on all the pain and the discomfort of the medications. But very seldom do you focus on the pain and sufferings of the other members of your family standing around your hospital  bed. Concern for the difficulties of other family members may come later.

 

Whenever some trauma hits us or we lose a loved one through death, we need a period to grieve. It can never be programmed. It is messy, unpredictable. Grieving is embracing the pain and the suffering of this trauma/loss. It must become a part of us. It can never be done alone. This is why we need the support, the presence, the prayers of our family and friends when we grieve the death of someone we cherish.

 

This is a time for all of Canada to sit silently, to listen to the pain and suffering of our First Nations peoples. Now, the majority of all Canadians do not know by name any First Nations people personally. This painful time of listening must also become a time a learning and understanding our First Nations story and culture. There can only be healing In our country if we listen non-judgmentally, absorb the beep meaning of the lives of our First Nations peoples and make them part of our own personal history. 

 

At the same time, we must listen to the prejudice that so many of the new immigrants to Canada are experiencing. The brutal murder of four members of one family in London, Ontario, last Sunday is but the horrendous extreme of racial prejudice.

 

It is not good enough to say, “in Canada we can do better!”  This is a time when we must walk into the pain, the trauma, the fear and the sufferings of our First Nations peoples, our new immigrants and all other marginal groups. It is a time to sit in silence and listen. It is a time to allow ourselves to be changed when these people share their stories of suffering, exclusion and made to feel as second-class citizens.

Our Christian religion gives us the tools to do this. Explore in the Bible why there is such a strong emphasis on repentance and the need to once again turn back to God and the ways of life that are laid out for us. But repentance in the Bible never sidesteps the pain and confusion that goes with turning back to God. But only if there is death to all darkness will we ever be able to rise to the light. 

 

This is a hard, hard time but we are not going to cut short any part of the painful and healing journey.

 

 

Reform within the worldwide church

                     

 

A wise thinker gave humanity a great truth: If you do not learn from your history, you are bound to repeat it! 

 

Every culture, every political system and every educational institution must be reformed. We can begin by meeting the specific needs of people at this point in history. For example, almost immediately with the settlers coming to Saskatchewan (the rural population was huge) the one-room school house system of education was established. Right from the very beginning our political and religious leaders knew they had to educate the population.

 

But that education system had to adapt and be reformed several times to meet the foundational need to educate the population. The reform never came easy and at times it was rather painful for families and government.

 

The Protestant reformation of the early 1500’s is the classic example of a period where the people of the Church were badly in need of reform and updating, but it only happened through the breakup of Western Christianity into the Protestant North and the Catholic South. But this breakup should never have happened!

 

Within Catholicism, the Second Vatican Council  (ended 1965) was an earth-shaking event. It laid out a path for many serious reforms within the Church. Fortunately, the people of the Church were hungry for reform and embraced the journey to reform and updating enthusiastically. 

 

Today we are in a season of reform. With the election of Pope Francis as leader the turn has been toward the poor of this world. People not only respect Pope Francis, they also like the man as a person. His personality is also carrying the sails on this boat toward reform.

 

Many people do not like Pope Francis but they are careful to mute their opposition to his call to the Church to turn toward the poor of this world. He is speaking to the top twenty percent of humanity (the First World) who are rich and consume more than their fair share of the earth’s resources. But he is also speaking to the growing strength of the Church in Africa and Asia which is growing more powerful. This is a call to keep them engaged in their concern for   the poor. 

 

Concern for the poor is the sign of credibility for the Church. We do not want to have only the leadership of the Church to be concerned for the poor in their own country. It is not enough to have the local parish to have a monthly collection of food for the food bank or have visitation volunteers for our nursing homes. This must also be the concern of each believer. In our homes and at coffee time our conversation must also exhibit a personal concern for the poor with their many faces. Each individual Christian must ask themelves how they are living out this concern for the poor with their many faces.

 

There is a dynamic shift within Christianity to have a clearer, more identifiable practice and teaching of our Christian faith. We want to have things nailed down! This is very inward looking and carries the danger of making the Church centered in on itself and avoid the difficulties of the world. A turn too much inward could mean avoiding the poor who are living very close to you!

 

In his very calm manner Pope Francis is challenging the Church to reach out to the poor and to make this their first priority of ministry. He is challenging to Church not to be inward looking but to reach out to the people on the margins of society.

 

Many people are going to drag their heels, but then who said that reform of the Church was ever easy?

 

 

 

 

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HUMANITY

                        

 

Do you remember the poem about the walk in the forest and the poet comes upon a fork in the path?  A choice must be made. He takes the path less trodden “and that made all the difference?” There is a decision to be made if he was to move forward in life.

 

The human race stands in front of the fork in the road. Will we choose the path to bring our planet to a sustainable future or will we continue to warm the atmosphere with carbon dioxide from our industrial development? 

 

For the past sixty years scientists have been warning that if humanity continues our present rate of consumption of the earth’s resources we are headed for ecological collapse. Many people are having a difficult time coming to grips with a warming climate. Many are voicing their fears the demands that a sustainable environment will make on them. 

 

If we use the example of the food chain, then, the top twenty percent of humanity are consuming (greedily) too much of the earth’s resources. The people at the top are taking too much and the people at the bottom will suffer the most from climate warming.

 

We can see this as a tremendous burden or as an opportunity for the human race (and each individual human) to avoid collapse and move into a sustaining life for the planet. 

 

The ecological crisis is a great opportunity for realigning our lifestyles. It is a time to once again root ourselves as part of the human race; what we do in Canada affects every person on this globe. What happens in China impacts every Canadian. 

 

Whenever people have to work together for survival, they begin to see each other in a very positive light and begin to understand each other in very helpful ways. When the people in any of our towns come out to fill sandbags to make a dike to prevent the flooding of their town, they see each other in such a positive light. Getting to know and appreciate each other through flood prevention can be such a strong blessing. Great things come out of crises.

 

This is the opportunity for the human race to work together for survival as never before. This is an opportunity for all peoples to work together. I see this as a time to build bridges between cultures and politics. A bridge always carries the travellers two ways. We will be enriched by working together to save the planet. What could happen if countries like the USA, China and India all worked together to prevent further destruction of the ecosystems of the earth? 

 

And now all religions have a common cause to work toward. You cannot work together when you see the other as your enemy. What will happen when all the Christian communities, all the various religious expressions work together to survive? We now have common concerns to work with the Buddhists, the Sheiks, the Hindus and all Christians to preserved and nourish our common home.

 

Is climate change a recipe for disaster or an opportunity for new growth? Will humanity step backward or will it go forward to choose life for the future of the planet?