Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 30th, 2023
Call to Action: 81
81. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Survivors and their organizations, and other parties to the Settlement Agreement, to commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools National Monument in the city of Ottawa to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities.
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!
Thursday, Mar. 30, 2023
Commemoration
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.
Today is significant: More than 500 years since the beginning of settler colonialism in the Americas, the Vatican repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery.
It's appropriate that the Vatican would make this announcement during this Lenten season of reconciliation. We began this Lent with CTA member Rosa Manriquez urging us to conduct a true examination of conscience. Today's Gospel, in which Jesus inspires us to fully align ourselves with God, brings us back around to Ash Wednesday when we began this examination.
We would hope that it wouldn't take our church officials so long to examine their consciences. Today's announcement is just one more step in this reconciliation process. We pause, acknowledge this important step, and then continue on.
—Meditation by Indigenous Solidarity Collective member Lauren Barbato
As part of your Lenten practice, please consider donating to one or more of the
following organizations: