Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
Matthew 7:6, 12-14 It is a conundrum for many in Canada – What to do with “the Indigenous Issue”? Christ Jesus gave a whole sermon on a mountain to crowds of people over the space of a few days, teaching them how God has designed all of us men, women and children to perceive and receive others. He summed it up at one point: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” As the English mother of an Inuit , First Nations and English-settler family, I sometimes feel that I am standing in the breach between mainstream culture, and the first peoples of this land. I know what it is to be a privileged (white) Canadian and I witness day after day the inequalities, injustices, and grave misunderstandings, both historical and present, that have played out in the health and wellbeing of my Indigenous family. Bluntly, my life expectancy is about 86 years, while my children’s life expectancy is about 70 years. How do we as a family live through the trauma dramas that seem to engulf generations of Inuit and First Nations families in this country? By ‘Putting [our hands] the hand of the Man who stilled the waters,’ and striving to see everyone not as ‘others’, but as fellow human beings to whom, in everything, we have the purpose and the privilege to do to them as we would have them do to us – as individuals, and as family and community members. And let us always welcome and understand ‘others’ as we would be welcomed and understood ourselves. Will I – will we - truly embrace The Golden Rule of life today? Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me to do to all others what I would have them do to me. We ponder your steadfast love, O God. (Psalm 48:9) If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest. Corrie Ten Boom See the attached 2 page article from the Catholic Register, May 15, 2022, “New Paths Sought in Reconciliation Walk” https://www.catholicregister.org/item/34400-new-paths-sought-in-reconciliation-walk Soli ad gloriam Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook & www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
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AuthorBeverly Illauq lives in Kemptville, Ontario, where she greets each morning by seeking the Gospel Mystery of the Day - the Word of the Lord for direct and practical application to the specific challenges & joys of the day. Archives
March 2024
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