We Feel a Largeness Coming On

About three years ago, Commissioner - the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, former senator and co-author of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Report spoke to a packed crowd of us at King’s College Conference Centre in London, Ontario.

After a brief introduction to the talk on reconciliation, he invited all of us to take out our cell phones. I thought initially he was going to ask us to put them on mute. Not so. He asked us to scroll through and find a favorite picture of our child or niece, nephew, or grandchild. He did the same and landed on a picture of his 5-year-old granddaughter. It made him smile. There was a pause in the audience. “Now, he said, I want you to delete the picture.” As you can imagine, no one deleted anything. In a very poignant and stark way, we all got the point. This was the experience of so many indigenous parents whose children “were disappeared” in a variety of ways to the residential school system. Deleted.

None of us knew in that conference hall over three years ago that we would be reading in the newspaper in Canada on May 27, 2021, that 215 bodies of indigenous children were found buried in the yard of a residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. Some were as young as three years old. Deleted.

In a conversation with friends the day after the revelation, one of the details that left us saddened and almost without words was the photo of a pair of small handcuffs created specifically for a child’s hands. While it was unspoken, the thought of intentionally handcuffing a small child somehow seemed to capture the cruelty and racism of this part of the Canadian story---past and present. Deleted.

Poet Tracy K. Smith reflects on the experience of racism this past year and a half, “We feel a largeness coming on.” Largeness is not ‘overwhelm’ - since overwhelm can hold us immobile.

During this year-and-a-half of the global pandemic; during this year-and-a-half of continued unmasking of systemic racism in the US and in Canada; during this year-and-a-half of ongoing angst about climate change, there is one question that rises to the surface.

As we carry grief and shock, what is the new story we will commit to creating personally and communally as a country?

Sister Margo Ritchie, Congregational Leader, csj

Spirit brother, Spirit sister

I am… a Mom, a Grandma, a musician, a retired teacher, a Companion — a clay vessel being shaped and reshaped everyday.  It is not the shell I move around everyday with, but the heart that is being molded, all in the Creator’s time.

All my life experience has shaped my heart, raising 4 children, teaching JK/SK students, volunteering as a church musician and in particular, being a member of a “Companions” group.  “Companions” is a group of lay people and one religious sister from the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph.  The purpose of this group really is to understand and share and live the charism of the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph in our daily lives.  This outreach group has had a flow of working/retired, men/women in the group who listen to the movements of the Spirit when praying, sharing, singing, reflecting on personal/world events which impact their lives.

Our most recent “Companions” virtual meeting involved a guest who provided us with his life experience as it related to our topic of reflection: racism.  Our head knowledge of this topic was based on the book, “Me and White Supremacy” by Layla F. Saad.  Our heart knowledge learning was based on listening to this young Indigenous family man and his lived experience of racism. With gentleness, openness, humility and humour he shared his life and work experience.

What immediately struck me and others in our group was his wisdom of heart, being who he was called to be at such a young age (early thirties).  Many of us could relate to him on the level of “being” as we are past the stage of life of “doing”. Living his life, he has realized about right relationship and he expressed a desire to reconnect with his Indigenous heritage after the death of his Indigenous Grandfather.  He spoke the language of right relationship, …love, addressing the needs of others by listening and communicating in a reciprocal manner, especially the elders in his work life. We only have to look at retirement homes during COVID to see where we fail at loving our elders.  He offered practical suggestions of books to read and courses to take which address more truthfully our knowledge of present-day indigenous issues of marginalization.

History books tell the story from the perspective of the dominant person and therefore is a one-sided story coming from a vantage point of power. It was backed up with heart knowledge where inadequate solutions to serious problems caused subsequent physical, social, emotional and spiritual consequences in these communities.  These issues are real, and they are happening to real people. The enduring shame of Indigenous people must be challenged.  We can’t dismantle what we can’t see. We are all racists and our help to address the shame and marginalization, in particular, Indigenous youth must mean we need to relate to them without stereotyping, defining, limiting, and judging.

He shared a story from his work life about his plan to help indigenous youth connect with their heritage in their community.  It was a tree planting project. When he approached the elder (who had no prior dialogue about the plan) as to where the trees should be planted, the elder directed the tree planting group to the outer edge of the boreal forest where this Indigenous community had carved out its community life. The Spirit gave him a moment of humourous reflection with the love lesson of always having meaningful discussions about their needs rather than having a pre built-up plan to solve the issues.

How can an Indigenous community have a boil water advisory for 25 years?! The answer to that question is a personal conversion of heart. Whether it is in omission or commission this suffering in this community is my suffering too.  In order to have common union we must face this community’s suffering and convert our heart.

Our speaker’s passion for learning about his heritage and his desire to claim it was remarkable.  He recognized his homecoming, who he was created to be is the path he must take. What insight, courage, humility, gentleness knowing that his journey is my journey too…who we are called to become, who we are called to be…Love.

Submission from the Pentecost Companions Group:  Jane, Leanne, Jaime, Dena, Sue, Ann.

Taking A Stand for Justice

The deep prejudice against African Americans is so painful and shameful to witness on our newscasts, and in our own experience and makes me think of the way Sister St John Fournier in 1845 defended the teaching of African American girls, against a furious white mob in St. Louis, who came at night to forcibly drive out the Sisters.  I want to share with you what she wrote about it. 

But first, I think we would be proud to note also that in the book Spirited Lives, which treats the way a French Sisterhood, namely the Sisters of St. Joseph, adapted to American culture, the authors (Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith) has a footnote listing those Sisterhoods that used slave labor, and state that the Sisters of St. Joseph never did so. (Spirited Lives, footnote 14, p.241). 

-Sister Wendy Cotter, csj

Now, here is Sister Saint John Fournier: 

Sister St. John Fournier

"In 1845 Bishop Kendrick, [Bishop of St. Louis] established a school for Catholic coloured girls, the daughters of free negroes". Sister Saint John Fournier  (to whom Mother Saint John had given her name while she was preparing to come to the New World, a new novice) was now thirty years old when she faced the threats of a mob determined to drive them from the house.  Here is her account:  

"Obedience sent me there with two Sisters.  We were preparing these girls for the reception of the Sacraments. This so displeased the white people that they threatened to drive us away by force.  The leaders came every day. One morning several persons spoke to me after Mass and warned me that the next night we were to be driven from the house. I had no fear and said nothing to the Sisters because I had so much confidence in the Blessed Virgin.  I placed miraculous medals on the street door and on the fence.  

That night, at eleven o'clock a great noise suddenly awakened the Sisters.  A crowd of men, gathered in the street, were screaming and blaspheming.   We cast ourselves on our knees and began the Miserere and other prayers.  In the meantime, the enraged mob rushed upon the door.   The police drove them away. They returned three times that night.  The Blessed Virgin protected us.  In spite of their fury and their efforts, they succeeded neither in opening nor forcing the door.  

The day after this occurrence, the Mayor of Saint Louis advised the Bishop to close the school for the time being. Peace was restored.  The Sisters' schools received indiscriminately rich and poor, Catholics, Protestants, schismatics, and children of all religions.  A few years later, the asylum alone numbered two hundred fifty orphans."  

- Mother Saint John Fontbonne; A Biography, 1936 English translation of the French original, 1929, researched and written by "A Sister of St. Joseph", pp 358-359.