The image of Pope Francis, all alone on the side of the lake, imploring God for healing, will surely remain as an iconic image of this penitential pilgrimage.

Read the full text of Pope Francis’ homily at Lac Ste. Anne, a pilgrimage site in Alberta, Canada, long known as a place of healing among Indigenous Peoples.

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

“It was an achievement on the part of the Indigenous community to convince Pope Francis to come to a First Nation community and humble himself before survivors in the way he did,” Phil Fontaine said.

A very sunburned literary editor looks back on some Catholic Book Club columns of yore.

Celebrating the feast day of Jesus’ grandparents, Pope Francis not only urged people to honor their elders, but he asked them to think about what they will hand on to future generations.

“The ideal bishop does not exist,” Sister Reungoat said. But he has to be a shepherd who is “close to the people entrusted to him, he has to know how to involve priests, laity and religious, and people of different generations.”

A Reflection for Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Jim McDermott, S.J.

Pope Francis condemned Canada’s residential school system as “a deplorable evil” and asked forgiveness of the Indigenous Peoples for Christians participation in it.

“They want to hear the Holy Father say it was the Catholic Church that was ultimately responsible for what descended on the peoples of our country, the first peoples.”