Statement from MC Canada’s Executive Ministers on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Prayer offered by MCEC Truth and Reconciliation Working Group

 

As we honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation across Canada, we encourage our congregations and church members to make this a day for listening to Indigenous voices, learning from our Indigenous neighbours and siblings, and seeking to do our part as Mennonites to move further along the path of truth toward reconciliation.

We recognize the harms churches have committed in the name of Jesus to Indigenous people and communities, and we acknowledge our role as Mennonites in some of these harms. We also recognize that harms continue to be committed against Indigenous people and their lands by powerful forces in our society. May we stand with them in love and solidarity until true reconciliation is fully achieved.

Doug Klassen
Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Canada

Tim Wiebe-Neufeld
Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Alberta

Garry Janzen
Executive Minister, Mennonite Church British Columbia

Leah Reesor-Keller
Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada

Michael Pahl
Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Manitoba

Josh Wallace
Interim Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Saskatchewan

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The Truth and Reconciliation Working Group of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada has offered the following prayer for use by congregations:

Prayer for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Holy God of Truth and Justice,
God our Creator, Redeemer and Source of all Love,
God incarnate in Jesus, the Great Reconciler,
God present with us as your Holy Spirit,
God in whose Image all our brothers and sisters
are made. All of them…
those in our family and those of other
cultures, nations, and faiths.

When our relationship with You is broken by sin
your Son Jesus provides The Way back to a right relationship with you.
You reconciled us to yourself through Jesus Christ
and entrusted the work of reconciliation to us.                                              (2 Corinthians 5:18)

You have given reconciliation as the model for the healing of relationships.
Help us to be seeds of reconciliation in the broken relationship
between Indigenous peoples and the country of Canada.
Help the church to truly reflect in concrete ways your Great Love
which includes Indigenous peoples in their beauty, strength and resilience.

Help us to listen with “ears to hear” the truth of the full impact                    (Mark 4:23; Luke 8:8)
of Canada’s residential schools on our Indigenous neighbours.
For it is when truth is acknowledged the path of reconciliation can begin.
Help us always to be open to learning what we do not yet know.

We cannot truly comprehend the pain of Indigenous people and communities
resulting from generations of forced attendance at residential and day schools,
resulting from generations of forced separation of children from their parents,
resulting from abuse suffered by children at the hands of their care givers,
resulting from grief when children did not return home but remained in unmarked graves.

We cannot truly comprehend the grief,
but we commemorate their grief with our respectful silence and prayer.

Our prayer consists of longings we cannot put into words,                           (Romans 8:26)
longing for healing, longing for respect, longing for resurgence.
May your Holy Spirit work through the longings of all people
to bring us to the path of reconciliation opened for us by Jesus.

Amen.

September 30 has been marked as “Orange Shirt Day” by Indigenous people in Canada since 2013. Learn about the origin and meaning of Orange Shirt Day at https://www.orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story.html. In 2021 the government of Canada designated September 30 the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Mennonite Church Canada, its predecessor organizations, its regional churches, and its Anabaptist partners have offered statements of apology and solidarity with Indigenous peoples over the past several decades. For a collection of these statements through 2020, see Be It Resolved: Anabaptists and Partner Coalitions Advocate for Indigenous Justice, edited by Steve Heinrichs and Esther Epp-Tiessen (https://www.commonword.ca/ResourceView/82/23205).