Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
March 8th, 2023
Call to Action: 59
59. We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement to develop ongoing education strategies to ensure that their respective congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization, the history and legacy of residential schools, and why apologies to former residential school students, their families, and communities were necessary.
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. 8, 2023
Church Apologies and Reconciliation
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.
For a faith whose core tenets continually call us to beloved community and right relationship, our history has been horribly marked by exclusion, fear and hatred, and acts of unspeakable violence.
It should not sit well with any of us that our Church has committed acts of genocide. It is a harsh and heavy truth that I wish for us to meditate on this Lent.
In July of 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Canada to issue an apology for the role the Catholic Church played in the abuse of Indigenous peoples through the residential school system. As necessary as this apology was, it does not complete the reconciliation process, nor are we as Catholics immediately entitled to forgiveness and mercy.
However I do believe that we can follow this example with the hope that as a Church we can continue to educate ourselves about our history, rather than hide from it. The more we know, the better we can act to truly forsake such historical wickedness.
—Meditation by Indigenous Solidarity Collective member Revalon Wesson
As part of your Lenten practice, please consider donating to one or more of the
following organizations: