And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 08:11:39 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Lac Ste Anne: R.C. pilgrimage
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Wednesday, July 28, 1999
Clerics say they're buoyed by growing turnout as 30,000 aboriginals make
pilgrimage to lake Site has importance for Catholic Church and First
Nations alike
Mitch Cooper
The Edmonton Journal
LAC STE. ANNE, Alta. - About 30,000 aboriginals are gathering on the shore
of Lac Ste. Anne, 70 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, for the 110th annual
pilgrimage to the lake.
First Nations people from all over western and northern Canada and the
United States began converging on the weekend and will complete their
pilgrimage Thursday.
Lac Ste. Anne has been a gathering place for aboriginals for centuries, but
for the past 110 years, the Roman Catholic Church has organized the
pilgrimage that draws thousands of mostly aboriginal people camp on the
lakeshore for five days of spiritual services.
Throughout the week ,many take a pledge to abstain from alcohol, and daily
religious services are conducted in both English and Cree, blending
Catholic and aboriginal religious traditions.
"This is a special place," said Lucy Iron, 49, who travelled from Waterhen,
Sask., with four generations of family to the same campsite where she her
parents brought her when she was a little girl.
Over the years there have been claims that the lake has been the source of
miraculous physical cures, and many people claim it induces spiritual and
psychological healing as well.
Ms. Iron said she has seen the waters work for her.
"I haven't always been the person you see before you now," she said,
flipping steaks on a grill over an open fire.
"I have been led astray by alcohol and the (pain) of a marriage breakup."
She also talks of a friend, told by doctors that she was terminally ill
with cancer last year, who has returned this year, apparently cured.
And when her daughter, Rea, fell into a near fatal fever-induced coma as a
baby, Ms. Iron said that water from the sacred lake was used to awake the
child. Rea is now nearly 20 and has a daughter of her own.
"That was my miracle," said Ms. Iron. "Now I believe."
While some may be renewed by being near the lake, Rev. Martin Bradbury said
it was being near the faithful that bolstered his spirits.
Father Bradbury is one of dozens of priests on hand to perform blessings,
conduct mass and hear confessions.
"It's energizing," he said. "You see some physical healing here but the
real thing is the spiritual healing. That's the real gift.
You know, you hear all this stuff about faith being lost, but when you see
40,000 people come to pray together, you know faith isn't dead, nor is God."
And he said that despite mistakes of the past, the fact the number of
pilgrims keeps growing is a sign that the church can appreciate and embrace
the spiritual values of another culture.
"None of us is greater than the other and you really see that here."
Last evening, as pilgrims waded into the cool water, Bishop Peter Sutton of
Le Pas, Man., delivered the formal blessing of the lake.
The pilgrimage was founded and has been organized by the Oblate
missionaries since 1889 after members of the order, who concentrate on
ministering to the poor and the marginalized, noticed that the lake was
considered a special place by First Nations people. The Oblates have had a
mission at the lake since 1843.
Father Jean-Marie Lestanc organized the pilgrimage after he said he heard
the voice of the Virgin Mary asking him to do something for her mother.
He renamed the lake Ste. Anne in tribute, but the Cree people knew the lake
as Kisemanito Sagahigan, or Lake of the Great Spirit. The Stoney people
called it Wakamne, or God's Lake.
For centuries before the arrival of Europeans and Roman Catholicism, Lac
Ste. Anne was a spiritual, social and economic gathering spot for aboriginals.
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP
JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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