Indigenous Peoples Day

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Chief Seattle, discrimination, humanity, immigrants, indigenous people, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In the United States, today has been traditionally celebrated (since 1892) as Columbus Day. This title was adopted as such at a time when Italian immigrants were vilified and faced religious and ethnic discrimination, notably in the year after a mass lynching of 11 Italian Americans by a mob in New Orleans. Over the years there has been a rising of challenge, not for the representation of the people who came to the United States searching for safety and acceptance in their new home but about the man, Christopher Columbus, who led the expedition to this “New World” but who, ironically, had never set foot in this country; Columbus anchored in the Bahamas! (npr.org)

In a growing trend, over 100 cities, towns and counties in 10 states across the country including this year the D.C. Council of the nation’s capital, are celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In 1992, speaking about the growing shift, Loni Hancock, then mayor of Berkeley, California (the first U.S. City to switch), said the following:

“I think that to fully understand and take responsibility for who we are as a people in this land made it very important to be clear about who was here and reflect on what happened in our history after that, in terms of the displacement and oftentimes genocide of those people. How that might have reflected a general discounting of the history and the humanity of non-white people of many kinds in this country and to take responsibility for our history.” (npr.org)

May this trend continue to take hold across our land as we open ourselves to the deep spirituality of our Native brothers and sisters in the manner of Chief Seattle who said:

“All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man…the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports…” and “Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

A Year of Mercy

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Christian, discrimination, God, healing, Holy Year of Mercy, Jubilee of Mercy, love, mercy, mercy of God, Pope Francis, reawaken, Roman Catholic, tenderness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, vigilant, violence

Pope Francis has become a model, not only to Roman Catholics or Christians, but for people the world over who respond to his message of humility and love for all people as well as for the world in which we live. To point up the necessity for us to consider how we are responding to this essential message, Francis has called for a Holy Year of Mercy which begins today. Here are some excerpts from his homily for the occasion on which he announced this special year.

…Our prayer is all the more intense and becomes a cry for help to the Father, who is rich in mercy, that He may sustain the faith of our many brothers and sisters who are in pain. At the same time, we ask for the grace of conversion of our own hearts so as to move from indifference to compassion…Many question in their hearts: Why a Jubilee of Mercy today? Simply because the church, in this time of great historical change, is called to offer more evident signs of God’s presence and closeness. This is not the time to be distracted; on the contrary, we need to be vigilant and to reawaken in ourselves the capacity to see what is essential…to be a sign and instrument of the Father’s mercy. For this reason, the Holy Year must keep alive the desire to know how to welcome the numerous signs of the tenderness which God offers the whole world and, above all, to those who suffer…

Juxtaposed with all the violence and discrimination in our country and throughout the world, it is easy to agree that the message of Pope Francis is not only timely but crucial if we are to ever heal the wounds of the world. There will be much more to say in reflection on the concept and practice of mercy as the year unfolds, but for today, in this season of waiting for a new birth grounded in love, it is enough to believe that we are able – each of us and all of us – to do our part to realize the goal set forth today, to be the mercy of God in our time.