Think about your favorite song as a child. Where did it come from? Who sang it? Did it bring you comfort or joy, or a sense of the sacred? If you have children or grandchildren of your own, chances are you have sung that same cherished and sacred song for them.
Now, imagine your children have grown up and forgotten the song. And their cousins, friends and their own sons and daughters don’t remember it either. The song has been passed down for generations, but it’s at risk of being lost forever.
It’s a heartbreaking thought. For Navajo grandparents, it’s a very real fear. And it’s not just a song that they fear will be lost. It’s their language, stories, culture and Catholic faith—such as this artwork depicted in Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Navajo Nation—which are all in danger of disappearing.
Catholic Extension Society recently created a program to help parents and grandparents pass on their faith and sacred traditions to their children. A large portion of the participating parishes come from various Native communities supported by Catholic Extension Society throughout the country.
St. Pope John Paul II often spoke on the reciprocal relationship between faith and culture: “The incarnation of the Word was also a cultural incarnation,” he said in a 1982 speech to the University of Coimbra.
A couple years later he spoke at a gathering of Indigenous peoples and Inuit at the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré in Quebec, a centuries-old place of worship and pilgrimage in North America. He said, “During Her long history, the Church Herself has been constantly enriched by the new traditions which are added to Her life and legacy. And today we are grateful for the part that the Native peoples play.”
Catholic Extension Society’s new program brings families and Church leaders together to discuss what they treasure most in their faith and cultural traditions, and how they might find new ways to share these gifts with their children and grandchildren. After this community-wide discussion, participants make a concrete plan and act on it with our financial support.
Listen and learn
One such listening session occurred in May at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Fort Defiance, Arizona, located on the Navajo Nation.
It gathered parents, catechetical leaders and Native elders in the community, along with Brother Maynard Shurley, a homegrown Navajo Franciscan friar and Catholic leader.
Following Sunday Mass, over 50 people filed into the parish hall. They arrived prepared to answer questions including “What are your challenges when it comes to passing on the Catholic faith to your children?” and “What wisdom of the cultures do you feel needs to be passed on?”
Urgent call from elders
The meeting was emotional, but fruitful. Elders, who are revered in Navajo culture, were particularly concerned with youth not learning their songs, stories, language and culture—all of which are vehicles for passing on the Catholic faith.
Click to hear one grandmother, Arlene Hickman, tearfully share her worries:
“I used to always think, what’s going to happen? What’s going to become of this?”
Another woman passionately stated:
“We have to keep this going! We can’t let it die out! It’s very important. Like they said, our tradition, we have to hang on to it. The songs that we sing, we are blessed to be singing those songs.”
Other members shared broader community struggles that make it difficult to connect their children with the Church, such as lack of transportation and few healthy activities for youth, leading to detention, drug use and other distractions.
“We need help,” said another grandmother, Helena “Linda” Yazzie. Her husband, Leonard Yazzie, a 20-year military veteran, passionately shared his own experience in raising his children. He emphasized the importance of sharing stories with them.
He said that when he was young, he decided to become Catholic when he first experienced a priest saying Mass in Navajo:
That really just did something to my being. The way he said the Mass, everything was Navajo. I was sold.”
“And that’s when I decided that I was going to the Catholic church,” he continued. “And to this day I’m Catholic.”
He taught his children about the Catholic faith and Navajo culture at the same time, by telling nighttime stories, especially during camping trips. His children, who continue to attend church, tell him they still remember those stories and thank him for the way he raised them.
“It’s what we need to do as parents. Get involved. Tell them stories. Do things with them and tell your stories while you do that. Tell them about the lay of the land, the flowers, the trees, how we interact. That’s our culture—how to pray, what to say. When you’re looking at the night sky, tell them about the stars … my grandpa taught me that.”
Creating an action plan
Following the listening session, parish leaders worked with families to come up with a three-year plan to pass on their faith and culture to the next generation. The new program aims to uplift entire families, enabling elders and parents to celebrate and embrace their faith and culture alongside the youth.
Catholic Extension Society will support exciting new events and programming to be part of a community-endorsed action plan for the parish, which includes the following:
- Elder storytelling and prayer nights
- Navajo rosary nights that coincide with the liturgical seasons
- Navajo choir concerts
- Family game nights
- Monthly grief support meetings
- Bible study and retreats for parents
- Healthy living seminars
- Incorporating more Native traditions in Mass, including wearing moccasins
Moccasins, a footwear made of deer hide, is a particularly special tradition.
“If we do wear our moccasins, we are closer to Mother Earth,” explained Victoria Begay, a Navajo Catholic parishioner. “[There is] no other barrier, no plastic, no metal.”
Catholic Extension Society is honored and deeply moved by this Navajo Catholic faith community’s response to the program.
During the listening session, one elder shared a few phrases in Navajo that captured the spirit of how they are moving forward, together: “Relationship. We need to say hello. We need to have each other.”
The program is allowing this community to embrace their deepest truth: that as Navajo people, they are beloved sons and daughters of God. What’s more, God has spoken to their hearts through their unique language and culture.
As a reminder of this truth, parishioners at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church only need to look to their statue of Mary and Jesus appearing as Navajo mother and child.
As this program helps families embrace both the gift of faith as well as the gift of their Navajo identity, we hope that Navajo grandmothers will no longer shed tears of despair about the future. Rather, there will be tears of joy as they watch their families embrace God’s divine love made available to them in their Native tongue and sacred traditions.
