Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 21st, 2023
Call to Action: 72
72. We call upon the federal government to allocate sufficient resources to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to allow it to develop and maintain the National Residential School Student Death Register established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
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!
Tuesday, Mar. 21, 2023
Missing Children and Burial Information
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 May, it’ll be two years since ground-penetrating radar identified the remains of 215 children found on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School on Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C. The calls to action for this week focus on access to information regarding missing children and the burial information of those children who died in the residential school system.
For today’s Lenten reflection, I ask you to sit with this art piece titled, The Scream, by interdisciplinary Cree visual artist Kent Monkman. Take a moment to be in this piece. What feelings are brought up for you? What thoughts are born from these feelings? Linger in this discomfort for a moment.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus heals a man in the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, which frustrates the established Jewish community. How can the persecuted in Monkman’s The Scream begin to heal? Are we—we as Church, parishes, and individuals—aiding in the healing in the ways asked by Indigenous communities? How do we progress from historical trauma to present-day healing?
—Meditation by Indigenous Solidarity Collective member Jessica Lemes da Silva
As part of your Lenten practice, please consider donating to one or more of the
following organizations: