Sept. 30, 2013, was the beginning of Orange Shirt Day – Every Child Matters, honouring Residential School Survivors, their families, and those who never returned home. Bill C-5 received Royal Assent on June 3, 2021, which established the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a federal statutory holiday.
Reconciliation means the action of restoring friendship and harmony. It comes from the Latin reconciliare, meaning to bring back into agreement. The Latin root word is concilium, a gathering or meeting. Reconciliare combines re (back or again) with conciliare (to bring together or unite).
In the 14th century the usual meaning of reconciliation was in reference to the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. Penance consisted of three parts: contrition (feeling inner remorse for breaking God’s law), confession (admitting sins to a priest), and satisfaction (performing pious works to mend the spiritual mess caused by sin). Through this sacrament people were restored to friendship and harmony with God. The Protestant Reformation (16th century) was concerned about the lack of focus on the work of Christ and faith in Christ in penance, as reconciliation was practiced in the Roman Catholic Church.
In ancient Greek the word katallagay meant to change, to make something other than it is. St. Paul used katallagay for what Jesus Christ did to bring reconciliation and restoration of friendship with God. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19 ESV) A modern translation of the Bible (God’s Word 1995) has “God has done all this. He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn’t hold people’s faults against them, and he has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others.” Reconciliation implies changing the current fractured relationship into one of friendship and working together.
Synonyms of reconcile can include integrate, harmonize, align, conform, and accommodate.
Integrate can mean to end the segregation of and bring into equal membership in society or an organization. Immigrants can find it a challenge to integrate into Canadian society.
Harmonize implies bringing into consonance or accord. Extreme political opinions are very difficult to harmonize but need not create fear and hate of others.
Align suggests arraying on the side of or against a party or cause. She aligned herself with the protesters against the government’s position on clean energy.
Accommodate means to bring into concord. With the existence of US tariffs, Canadian businesses are in the process of accommodating to this new and constantly changing reality.
The final film role of Henry Fonda (1905-1982) was as Norman Thayer in On Golden Pond (1981). He and Katharine Hepburn both won Academy awards as lead actors in the movie. Henry also had the joy of playing alongside his daughter, Jane Fonda. The movie is about reconciliation between parents and their daughter. The Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes lists it as a 91% movie. Other famous Hollywood movies about reconciliation include Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Remember the Titans (2000), and Manchester by the Sea (2016, given 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).
When considering National Day for Truth and Reconciliation you might watch Our People Will Be Healed (2017). In his 59th film, Alanis Obomsawin reveals how a Cree community in Manitoba has been enriched through the power of education. You may also be interested in Our People Will Be Healed on the National Film Board website (nfb.ca/film/our-people-will-be-healed). NFB also has Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair (2021) and Zaagi'idiwin (2018) among many other Canadian films dealing with the theme of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Reconciliation starts to happen as we learn more about each other and desire friendship and healing.
Columnist John Kreutzwieser loves to research words and has an interest in the usage, origin, and relevance of words for society today. Greek and Latin form the basis of many words, with ancient Hebrew shedding light on word usage.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com. Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
