Each year in July, Indigenous peoples from across western Canada gather at the lakeside of Lac St. Anne, Alberta, near the city of Edmonton. This annual gathering commemorates the feast day of St. Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus. St. Anne is venerated by Indigenous Catholics as an elder and a grandmother and as one whose wisdom helped form the mother of the Lord so that Mary could offer her “fiat” her “Yes” when it was announced that she was chosen to be a part of God’s great plan of salvation. The pilgrimage to Lac St. Anne is always a wonderful celebration but in July of 2022 it was an event unlike any that had come before.

I found myself there, sitting on a grassy field by the shore of the lake surrounded by 40 Indigenous pilgrims from my diocese and thousands of others from across the nation. We were all gathered to see and hear Pope Francis in person, as he prayed with us on his cross-country Pilgrimage of Penance. This Papal visit was in response to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation commission which asked for the Pope to apologize, in person on Canadian soil, for the abuses which took place during the time of the Indian Residential Schools system in our country.

Pope Francis began his homily by referring to an important cultural tradition, which many of the Indigenous groups present would have taken to heart, as he said,

“In these days, and today in particular, I have been struck by the sound of drums that accompanied me wherever I went. This beating of drums seems to echo the beating of so many hearts: hearts that, over the centuries, have beat near these very waters; hearts of the many pilgrims who walked together to reach this “lake of God”!

How wonderful to hear those word of affirmation. Not so many years ago the very drums to which Pope Francis referred were silenced by the missionaries as they came to this land, bringing their faith and their culture, unfortunately at the expense of the religious traditions and cultures that were already here present.

Long before the missionaries arrived, the people of the north were already here. And God was with them.

In the area of the northwest Arctic, that is now a part of my diocese, contact with outsiders first began as rumours of strangers coming from the east and west by land and sea. These strangers were the early European explorers searching for trade routes through the North-West passage. It was not until the early 19th century that formal introductions took place when an expedition by Captain John Franklin, to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the nearby coasts, revealed the Inuvialuit people to the rest of the world for the first time. News of the expedition spread quickly and inspired many other voyages. Contact between the Inuvialuit and the foreigners quickly increased. For better or for worse, the people from these disparate cultures would be strangers no more.

Following the traders, missionaries arrived.  At the time, there were numerous indigenous religious traditions present across the land. They included animism, a belief that all animals had spirits that could be angered and appeased, as well as Shamanism in which certain individuals in a community were seen to harbour supernatural powers. One story recounts that, when a Christian missionary taught that Jesus could raise people from the dead, the people were not all that impressed because their own Shaman did those kinds of things all the time. There was also a tradition of a creator who had a personal relationship with his creation. And many of the stories about the creator sounded very familiar to our own.

Christianity was received slowly but it had an effect, over time, of bringing changes to long held traditions. Ironically, when many of the communities became devastated by diseases introduced by the explorers, confidence in traditional medicine and practices fell out of favor and the use of medicine provided by the newcomers became accepted and along with that came their religious practices.

For a time, there was a harmonious relationship between the original people of the north and the missionaries. In acts of generosity, many communities offered large pieces of land for the opening of permanent missions. Priests and religious sisters and brothers took the time to learn the local languages and customs. They grew to know the families and had a healthy respect for the way of life of the people.

However, as time went on, the balance of power began to shift. Control of the people’s lives came more and more under the influence of the Church and of the government. The culmination of this is perhaps best reflected in the Indian Residential School system. Beginning in 1883 and operating for more than a century, the Government of Canada partnering with many Christian churches, opened schools across the north with the goal of the quick assimilation of students into western culture. In these schools, the people’s own culture and language became actively discouraged. Soon young students could no longer speak their first language, the bonds with their families were broken. Along with these sanctioned methods, there were also many reported cases of outright abuse and mistreatment of students, the wounds of which we are now trying to heal across our country.

Through the national events of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2014, at which survivors of the schools were able to publicly tell their stories, Canadians grew in awareness of the involvement of the Christian Churches in the Residential Schools. It was at these events that we learned of the harm that had been caused not only to the surviving students at those schools, but to the next generations that followed.

Having served as a priest in Saskatoon during the TRC events, I heard the terrible stories of the schools firsthand and at the end of those days, I took part as the diocese apologized to the Indigenous people and made promises to them of a better future.  It seemed to be very cathartic and effective. We all wanted to be part of the healing, we all wanted to be part of Reconciliation and it seemed that we had a path forward.

But then in the spring of 2021, the unmarked graves near the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops were discovered. Almost overnight, it seemed that wounds which we thought were healing were suddenly torn open again. We didn’t just lose ground, but the ground disappeared from beneath us.

What had happened is that we were too eager to rush to reconciliation and we had forgotten about truth. Reconciliation is the good part. It is warm and fuzzy and feels productive, like putting the last pieces in a puzzle.

But facing hard truth is much more difficult.

Facing the reality of what it meant for the Church to be a part of the Residential school system has made us take a long hard look in the mirror and not liking what we saw there. That, as a Church, we had taken the Good News of the Gospel and turned it into a dangerous tool that tore apart families and irrevocably damaged entire cultures.

I think of Saul, in the Acts of the Apostles, and his zealous campaign against the early Christians in the name of his faith. He thought he knew best. He was powerful, authoritative, and efficient in his methods. It took a moment of Grace to shock him out of his blindness so that he could become aware of the terrible things he was doing in God’s name.

So here we are. Knocked off our proverbial horse, dazed and confused, ashamed of our past and not quite sure where to go.

Saul, who became St. Paul, tells us that it is in our greatest weakness, in our darkest hour, that God’s Grace will come to the fore. (2 Cor 12.5-10) When we let go of our power, when we humble ourselves and admit our failings, when we stop trying to fix everything and realize that it is we who are broken, then God can get to work.

This means that, for God to move forward, we must step back. Instead of speaking, we must become a listening Church, opening our ears and hearts to the stories of the survivors of the schools as well as the children of survivors.

Instead of going forth with power, we must be humble, willing to admit that our church did serious harm and that we have hurt people and have been involved in a system that did serious harm to generations of Indigenous people.

And, instead of standing on our authority, we must be willing to make amends. This doesn’t mean that will fix everything but simply that we must be open to the next steps, and we must be willing to sit with the discomfort for as long as it takes.

I can only imagine what St. Paul must have been feeling when he presented himself to the Christian community that he had been out to destroy. In the end, he was welcomed and forgiven and embraced by them.

I am hopeful for what I see when I visit the communities of the north. The people are so spiritual. They have always known and had a deep hunger for God. They want to reconcile with the church and they’re willing to keep walking together on this journey.

To that end, the arrival of Pope Francis, what he said that day at Lac Ste. Anne, and throughout his pilgrimage across Canada,  all of it so important and necessary, but there is much more to do.

Pope Francis has encouraged the Bishops of Canada to, “continue to engage in an intensive pastoral work of reconciliation, healing and solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples and to collaborate in concrete projects aimed at improving the condition of the First Peoples.” The Bishops of Canada are equally convinced about the primary need for additional work to be done at the most local level, in terms of authentic encounters which address the hurts, dreams and aspirations, needs and traditions of Indigenous Peoples.

Intensive, concrete, authentic… This kind of work takes time, patience and perseverance but if we commit ourselves to it, it will have a better chance to make the Papal visit much than a just momentary event in time and place. That visit can instead be a lasting symbol of a new beginning of right relationship between the Church and the Indigenous people of this land that we call Canada.

At his homily address earlier in the day of the feast of St. Anne, Pope Francis addressed the crowds at Commonwealth Stadium Mass with these words, “In addition to being children of a history that needs to be preserved, we are authors of a history yet to be written. Each of us can recognize ourselves for who and what we are, marked by both light and shadows, and by the love that we did or did not receive… Thinking about the people we are today, what do we want to do with ourselves?”

Never have I felt more the need to call upon “Our Mother of Perpetual Help”.

Mary bore the weight of heaven and earth on her shoulders from the moment when she and Joseph presented their infant Jesus to the Temple and the Prophet Simeon told her that because of her son, her heart would be pierced, all the way to the time of sorrow as Mary stood at the foot of the cross.

Mary understands our need and the difficulties we face on the path ahead. As we strive for reconciliation and peace with our neighbour, let us seek her guidance and intercession. Let Mary point us toward her son, Jesus who summed up the most important of all his teachings with this simple wisdom. Love God with all your heart, love your neighbour as yourself.

I pray that Almighty God bless you: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.