TAKING CARE OF OUR ANCESTORS
Bowing in repentance and forgiveness
Continued from Part 1: Introduction
In our many efforts to comfort God's painful heart, one way is to reflect and act on hereditary transgression which is transgressions inherited from one's ancestors through the blood lineage, as mentioned in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:5. In addition, there is a collective violation of Divine Law that one is partially responsible for in other specific groups' historical trauma. The Bridge of Peace Ceremony allows individuals and groups who represent specific racial, religious, political, and regional backgrounds to actively confront the historical, hereditary, and collective painful sufferings endured in history to give birth to individual and ancestral healing, and hope for the future.
The atrocities that the Catholic Church brought to the First Peoples in North, Central, and South America are too painful to recall. This Bridge of Peace for me was very meaningful because I crossed the Bridge with Archbishop George Augustus Stallings representing Catholicism. I cried because there is so much enmity and pain; and there are 300 or more tribes that are extinct because of the religious strife between Catholicism and Native Spirituality which was never acknowledged. We are so fortunate to try to emulate repentance and forgiveness that really reflect we are all children under God no matter how we look, no matter what race, no matter what color.
Crossing the Bridge of Peace hand in hand
This Bridge of Peace was a formal national ceremony held in the beautiful Washington Times ballroom. May it never cease until the Kingdom of Heaven is accomplished on Earth. Every day we have opportunities to cross a spiritual bridge of peace in our lives that can relieve the painful heart of the Creator, our Heavenly Parent, who endures the discords of humanity. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, and we can comfort our ancestors. It is a victorious feeling when we know we have overcome our personal limitations. Also it is a powerful prayerful life, when we can accomplish this reconciliation within ourselves and multiply it by helping others cross a bridge to peace in their lives.