At the end of Pope Francis’ long penitential pilgrimage to Canada, the first words that were publicly spoken come to mind: “It is a great honor to welcome you among us. He traveled a lot to be with us on our land and to walk with us on the path of reconciliation ». Chief Wilton Littlechild is speaking, one of the elders of the Cree tribe, his name is Usow-Kihew i.e. Golden Eagle, former student of the Ermineskin residential school and member of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation.
They had already met in April in the Vatican and it was he who on 25 July in the clearing of Maskwacis opened the dance of this apostolic journey of the Pope and up to the stop in Québec was present, in a discreet and tenacious way, at the same time. all events and meetings. A living icon of dignity combined with humility and simplicity, this is Littlechild who, interviewed by Vatican News, immediately grasped the spirit of the Pope’s journey which is not “a point of arrival” but a first step towards a future of healing, reconciliation and hope through walking side by side. He is a very respected leader among his people, you can also understand it from the number of people who ask him to be photographed together and he, with gentleness, always agrees with a smile.
It was he who, representing the other elderly people, struggling up the stairs of the stage (he walks with the help of two crutches), brought the plumed headdress that the Pope wore and everyone understood that a true relationship, beyond the formal friendliness.
In the cathedral of Québec at the end of vespers, Francis and Winton greeted and hugged each other like two old friends and the Pope, as if responding to a request for blessing, made a sign of the cross on his forehead with his thumb while the sharp eyes of ‘elderly chief Cree expressed gratitude and pure happiness. In that very rapid scene, away from the spotlight, Wilton was truly, at the same time, Golden Eagle, with all the pride of her face framed by the splendid headdress, and Littlechild, a small child who senses the truth and overflows with joy. “He traveled a lot to walk with us,” he said to the Pope, but those words basically apply to him too. Both, in fact, have problems walking: one with crutches, the other in a wheelchair; yet this they did, they walked together, starting from very far away and carrying a very heavy burden on their shoulders.
In that first brief greeting, Littlechild said he had heard almost 7,000 testimonies from former residential school students and acknowledged, seeing him at work, looking him in the eye, that the Pope too “listened deeply and with great compassion to the testimonies that they told of the way in which our language has been repressed, our culture has been stolen from us and our spirituality denigrated. He felt the devastation that followed the way our families were destroyed. ” These two elderly people who struggle to move have chosen to walk, together, mostly in silence. Wilton saw Francis pray in silence on the shores of Lac Ste. Anne, that lake that has been there for millennia, perhaps since the creation of the world and which recalled in the pastor of the Catholic Church the image of the Lake of Galilee, where the Christian adventure took its first steps.
There is a source to draw from to bear the burden of life that at times seems overwhelming, a source that allows us to start again, every day. There’s that beautiful character of Bison Rind, the old Cheyenne chief in the famous movie The little big man (which in 1970 marked a change of direction in the narrative, until then “Manichean”, of the epic of the West), which always greets the meeting with his white friend Jack Crabb with the words “my heart flies high like a falcon”. The acceptance of life (and the life of the other) as a gift is here the source that gives back the strength to every man to face his own destiny happily.
In the homily for vespers in the cathedral, the Pope spoke of Christian joy “combined with an experience of peace that remains in the heart even when we are beset by trials and afflictions because we know that we are not alone but accompanied by a God who is not indifferent to our fate. Like when the sea is rough: on the surface it is stormy but deep down it remains calm and peaceful ».
Speaking to the young Inuit in Iqaluit in the last of the public meetings of this long journey, the Pope invited him to walk upwards. “You are made to take flight, to embrace the courage of truth and promote the beauty of justice.”
These are words addressed to all young people, Catholics and non-Catholics, and also addressed to his friend Wilton Littechild, whose heart, on hearing them, will surely have flown as high as an eagle.
from Andrea Monda