Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
March 15th, 2023
Call to Action: 66
66. We call upon the federal government to establish multi-year funding for community-based youth organizations to deliver programs on reconciliation, and establish a national network to share information and best practices.
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. 15, 2023
Youth Programs
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 the podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's, investigative journalist Connie Walker unearths the painful legacy of St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. This trauma has been embodied and passed down through her family. "It's been said that there's not a single Indigenous person in Canada who's not been touched by the legacy of residential schools. And I know that's true. I felt it the moment I heard it."
Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's creates a platform for truth that disrupts this long-lasting hurt. Walker's stories, as well as those of her family and elders in the community, emphasize the power of storytelling and the deep ache for repair and reconciliation. Countless stories name priests and nuns breaking commandments that they supposedly espoused and expose how they victimized and wielded abusive power.
Fulfilling the law of justice requires accountability. It's holding accountable the people, policies, and structures within the Catholic Church that inflicted atrocities upon Indigenous youth- and their descendants. It looks like substantially funding programs of reconciliation and healing as well as programs allowing for intergenerational practicing of Indigenous cultures.
—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: