Stories within our History

As time passes, more and more of our Canadian story is coming to light. A significant part of our nation’s story encompasses the unique yet not so uncommon stories of individuals.  The historical account of British Home Children is one such little known part of Canada’s history.

You may ask, “Who are the British Home Children?” The Government of Canada’s website answers the preceding  question in the following manner. “Between 1869 and 1939, over 100,000 children were sent from Britain to Canada through assisted juvenile emigration. These migrants are called “home children” because most went from an emigration agency's home for children in Britain to its Canadian receiving home. The children were mostly placed with families in rural Canada.”

Children of all ages, both boys and girls were sent across Canada from England to spend their early life respectively as farm workers and domestics. Although Canadians believed them to be orphans only two percent actually were parentless. Because there was no social system to help parents or sole parents who had fallen on hard times through difficult circumstances these youngsters were often surrendered into the care of organizations. Dr. Barnardo’s Homes was one of the largest of these organization.

Inspired by true events, The Forgotten Home Child is a moving and heartbreaking novel about place, belonging, and family—the one we make for ourselves and its enduring power to draw us home.

Some of these children were blessed to ended up in loving families. Unfortunately, this was often not the fate they experienced.

I learned more about this aspect of Canadian history and the experiences of these children through reading The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham.  An inspired story based on a composite of true events touching the heart and highlighting the phenomenon of finding one’s family identity beyond blood ties.

An enlightening read that I would very much recommend.

- Sister Nancy Wales, CSJ

Tent Dwellers and Foot Washers

As we savour the mystery and blessings of Jesus’ Resurrection  may we turn our thoughts and attention to the words of Isaiah to discover the manner in which we as Easter People are called and challenged to live out the message of this good news.

Enlarge the site of your tent,
    and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;
do not hold back; lengthen your cords
    and strengthen your stakes. Isaiah 54:2

More than ever in our current times we are challenged to enlarge our tent, symbolically to extend hospitality and refuge to one another.

Ironically, Robert Ingersoll, although nicknamed “the Great Agnostic” reminds us , as I presume Jesus, the Risen One would that we rise by lifting others up. In what ways are we being called to lift the spirits of one another?

This generosity of spirit is set as an example for us by Jesus as he washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. He calls upon us to wash one another’s feet. (John 13:1-17)

As renewed Easter People let us be welcoming tent dwellers and warm-hearted foot washers for those we encounter.

-Sister Nancy Wales, CSJ

RESURRECTION

Wesley Tingey/Unsplash

RESURRECTION

by Ronald Rolheiser

I never suspected resurrection

To be so painful

To leave me weeping

With joy to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb

With regret – not because I've lost you

But because I've lost you in how I had you –

In understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh

Not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.

I want to cling, despite your protest

Cling to your body

Cling to your, and my, clingable humanity

Cling to what we had, our past.

But I know that … if I cling

You cannot ascend and

I will be left clinging to your former self ...

unable to receive your present spirit.

---

For some reason, we needed all the time legally given to a parent to name our daughter, or perhaps as I think back, the name chose her.  She was Kristina, our little spark of the divine child on this earth.  She died at the age of 15 on Easter Sunday such that if we mark linear and not spiritual time, we experience the anniversary of her death twice each year.  A dear spiritual companion hoped that one day we would no longer associate Easter Sunday with her death but with resurrection.  And a dear friend sent me Rolheiser’s poem some time later.

But thirty-three years later, I know that a coin’s two sides co-exist in symbiotic relationship. The seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter – are all contained within each other as well, held in a continuous flow of life and death.  Even our thoughts and beliefs would not exist without the teacher who led us to them. Surely, we would not know the Resurrection if Christ had not experienced the Crucifixion. The continuing miracle of Kristina’s life and death as One is our family’s ongoing, sacred lesson in the unity of All.  

Christ has died.  Christ has risen.

-Susan Hendrick, csj Associate