When Something Changes, Something Changes

A reflection on Orange Shirt Day 2026

On September 29, I went in for my weekly shift at St. Joe’s Café, a welcoming space that offers two meals daily operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph. At the Café we were remembering Orange Shirt Day on both the 29th and the 30th. Volunteers wore orange shirts. Our staff created a web with orange ribbons for people to write the name of someone they wished to remember. Just before opening, I was speaking to a volunteer at the front door. He was a former student of mine in high school some 40 years ago. In those days a few of the teachers and students, with the help of contacts in Moosonee, began to run a summer camp for the “Indian” children in the bush about 20 kilometers outside the town. Some relationships have lasted over these many years. He asked one question before we opened our doors. “Did you know anything about residential schools when we were there some 40 years ago?” we both shook our heads in some kind of disbelief that we knew nothing. Not a thing.

Some 13 years ago, First Nations people with the inspiration of Phyliss Webstad began commemorating Orange Shirt Day to remember the history of residential schools, to commit to changing the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples and recognize the harm created by the attempt to erase a culture.

On September 30 I was going for a noon time walk in a parklet that serves as a playground for a local school. It was around noon. Suddenly, across the parklet about 50 students between the ages of 6-8 began to race toward the swings and slides. Every one of them wore an orange shirt. The principal must have directed the teachers who reminded the students. The parents rummaged through drawers and found orange shirts. Some of them were specifically created for the day. Some were Halloween shirts or other team shirts. The point is they were all orange and people were intentional. I wondered what these children were learning about the history of other children. The counterpoint of carefree children reminded of other children who were not carefree was obvious. The hope that those running and jumping children and their teachers and parents inspired brought hope of an enlightened history moving toward real change.

And I was reminded that when something changes…something changes.

-Sister Margo Ritchie, csj

Image: chris robert @chris_robert/Unsplash

Mercy in the Making: How We Meet Our Moment in History

Poet and philosopher David Whyte makes some pretty provocative statements about the human race, about God, about mercy. He thinks in terms of decades and centuries somewhat reminiscent of the newest book by John Paul Lederach’s, “the centuries wrap round us.”

1.      Does our human conditioning of the past become a present-day obstacle in our evolution into the future? What is the role of stillness on a collective level?

2.      How do we humans discover our common call of belonging to and with each other?

3.      He presents a view of God who refuses to step in [and is unable to], wave a magic wand and solve the dilemmas we are in.

This last point is not really all that new. Walter Brueggeman, author and theologian spoke about this decades ago when he clearly asserted that “What God does first and best and foremost is to trust us with our moment in history.”

David Whyte, along with many of us, wanders through the days sometimes wondering if we are in fact trustworthy. That wondering is followed by,

“How do we make practical choices now that lets mercy guide us?”

-Sister Margo Ritchie, CSJ

Image: NADER AYMAN/Unsplash

Partners in Hope: Supporting Housing, Dignity, and Community in London

On the Closure of House of Hope

The Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada partner with London Cares Homeless Outreach and Regional HIV/AIDS Connection. Across London, organizations have worked deliberately to build a community where everyone can access the housing and support they need to live with stability and dignity.

House of Hope is a vital part of that housing continuum. For many residents, it bridged the gap between encampments or shelters and more stable supportive or affordable housing. Closing this deeply supportive housing creates a serious void and leaves both residents and staff facing renewed uncertainty and distress.

Too much of the time and energy of London Cares leadership—and of many across the social service sector—is consumed by securing, protecting, and renegotiating funding. That outlay of energy is needed in supporting frontline staff, and helping residents move toward stability. This work strengthens not only the lives of House of Hope residents, but the well-being of the wider London community.

Displacing residents and staff is an avoidable setback to the Whole of Community Response to Homelessness. We trust that the province and the city along with those most affected can resolve this together. At a time when communities are already under strain, preserving effective supportive housing is both necessary and do-able.

-Sister Margo Ritchie, csj

image: Adam Papp/Unsplash

Read about it here.

As Morning Breaks...

I received an email from a friend in the United States two days ago.

Some days I awake, simply ready for the new day. Other times, like today, I wake up feeling “old” or a certain fatigue. For sure the terrible stuff going on in the country and world are part of it. A sense of how long it will take before the “new” begins to reveal itself. So many conflicting values are still in the way.

Yesterday, early morning, the sky did its ordinary magic colouring the sky in pinks and fuschias.

Today, everything is blanketed in thick fog with no noticeable sign of lifting.

This pattern of sun and sky seems to mirror my friend’s personal human experience. And this alternating experience is common to us all. In fact, we might say that it helps us know we belong to each other. More deeply, we belong to earth.

I am reminded of a hymn that we sing on Holy Saturday, that “hold one’s collective breath” day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in the Christian tradition. That immobile space between tragedy and hope. The words of the hymn go like this:

As morning breaks

I look to you

I look to you O God, to be my strength this day

As morning breaks.

Perhaps this moment of our experience on the planet also calls us to look to each other to be our strength this day. Perhaps we can also look to sun and sky, to river and ocean to be our strength this day. Perhaps in these discouraging days, we are more surrounded by what might give us strength than we have imagined.

As morning breaks…

-Sister Margo Ritchie, CSJ

IMAGE: Zetong Li/Unsplash

All That A Life Can Bear

This morning, as I sit quietly looking out my window, the sky begins to paint itself deep pink verging on red. The colour bleeds into the expanse of the sky and within minutes, the magic recedes again into blue-grey sky. I know that this will happen again and again for the watching.

As I look down at my iPad, news breaks of war in Iran. The United States have cemented their bond in a joint attack on Iran. The goal explicitly and somewhat confusingly expressed is regime change. People are both exhilarated in the hope of some form of liberation and terrified. They realise that to kill the Ayatollah and a few visible leaders is not the end of a violent and repressive system. The world is holding a common collective breath.

“The world is holding a common collective breath.”

Time to shift and get ready to see my brother who is hospitalized after a stroke leaving his right and dominant side severely compromised. We are close. I watch as he works hard and methodically to open a single serving milk carton solely using his left hand. He lifts the milk carton with the same hard-working left hand and drinks. One more mission accomplished for now.

These three events all within the opening hours of a Saturday morning in late February, 2026. They are clearly not unique to me. They are common in their own way to all of us.

These questions surface:

• How much can the human nervous system bear?

• How much of life can we digest in these short time frames?

• And most importantly, how can we become safety and belonging for and with each other?

-Sister Margo Ritchie, csj

Images: Victoria Morgan/Tim Christopher Klonk/Unsplash