From Archbishop Mark MacDonald
| Dear Relatives and Friends, Many of you, especially, Indigenous People, have been looking for ways and places to pray. For prayer and ceremony over the next two days, I ask that we join with Chief Bobby Josephs and Reconciliation Canada (see the times and link, below), as they gather with others across the Land to mourn and pray. Later, tomorrow, I will give direction for our prayer and ceremony, Wednesday and after. Our Sacred Circle will join in prayer, placing the Gospel in the Centre, as we mourn and seek God’s justice and future. Let us all be in prayer for one another. Our communities across the Land are reporting Covid, Suicide, fire, and flood. We must hold on to God and one another. Many of you, both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous, have been looking for ways to act and express your pain. Many have been trying to contact our Reconciliation Animator, Melanie Delva, who is now on leave and unable to be contacted. We know that you are looking for a place to register your concern and look for a way to move forward. Please, do not try to contact Melanie. We will very soon find a way to organize that for you and will announce that soon. We have known that days like this were coming and have known and feared the pain they would bring. Many of our Sacred Circle lost relatives in the Residential Schools. Some still do not know what happened to them. The hideous evil that hid in structures that proclaimed that they were only for the good has not been hidden from us. They were innocent children. Innocent baptized children, for this was a condition of their participation in the schools. Did this not make them part of the Church? Did Baptism, which was said to make them registered in the Book of Life, not make them worthy to be noted in the register of the church, worthy of note when they were buried? Could not the water that Christ made Holy in baptism make the blind eyes of the school officials see that the children were human – were holy? I once heard someone say that Jesus, who died on the Cross, also died in the Holocaust. If that is true, they will find him among those children. But, we who have seen him die on the Cross and suffer with us, know that this is not the end of the story. He came back to us whole and sound, in a Resurrection body, from the World to Come. A World that he said we could start living in now, through love, through prayer, through the Sacred Circle, and through his Body and Blood. His justice, his truth, his love is walking in us and through us towards that day and we have seen it. It will rise, is rising, with those children and with a truth that could not be hidden. ZOOM links to the services We are looking for places to offer ceremony, grieve, pray, and believe in Sacred Circle. Each day, from now until Saturday, there will be a gathering, each day at noon Eastern, for you to join and be with others in prayer. On Sunday evening, Epiphany Indigenous Church is inviting us to join them for ceremony and prayer at 7pm Central Time (an invite will be sent out later this week). Tomorrow, Tuesday the 1st of June, we will pray with Chief Bobby Joseph, Reconciliation Canada, and others from across the land at 12noon Eastern, 9am Pacific. The Zoom Invite is: https://zoom.us/j/99892409581 On Wednesday, the 2nd of June, we put the Gospel in the Centre and pray. The Zoom invite is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82591609134 (If you have any trouble with the invite, mmacdonald@national.anglican.ca ) On Thursday, the 3rd of June, we put the Gospel in the Centre and pray. The Zoom invite is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82591609134 On Friday, the 4th of June, we put the Gospel in the Centre and pray. The Zoom invite is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82591609134 On Saturday, the 5th of June, we put the Gospel in the Centre and pray. The Zoom invite is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82591609134 As stated above, the Rev. Vince Solomon and the people of Epiphany will host us for ceremony and prayer on Sunday, June 6th at 7pm Eastern. We will send out the invite and remind you of this, later in the week. As you pray: Many of our communities are suffering, we are hearing this from so many of them. Please, keep them all in your prayers. This great grief, anger, and pain strikes in the midst of so many challenges. Let us mend the Sacred Circle in prayer, love, and concern for one another. For you who have been looking for a focus point for action on justice, we are brining together the things that will make this work proceed in a good way. The good work that Melanie Delva did to prepare this, must now go on without her, at least for the time being, as we mentioned yesterday. We do expect to have the things you will need for your ideas, concerns, and questions over the next few days. We will update you soon. The Elders who called for a Self-determining Church, those who also hired me, knew well, that this time was something that would face us. Even with so much hurt, we must not let that stop us. They had faced these hard cold truths themselves and knew that the perversion of the truth by others could not stop us from seeking it. The Western institutions, including the churches, always tried to convince Indigenous peoples that they the West owned the truth, that it was their unique possession and that only by becoming exactly like them could Indigenous People be saved. Now, we may say it clearly and for all time: this lie is dead, even for the institutions that believed and proclaimed it. Today, we seek healing and truth, Indigenous and non-Indigenous from God, who offers Forgiveness, Justice, and Truth in the Gospel, saying that it was for this, exactly for this, that Jesus was anointed. Love and blessings to you, – Mark MacDonald National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop |