By Sr. Teresita Kambeitz, OSU
SASKATOON, Sask. — Sr. Bernadette Feist, OSU (Ursulines of Prelate), was this year’s recipient of the St. Philip Neri Award presented by Catholic Missions in Canada in recognition of long-time service in Canada’s missions.
The presentation was made May 8 at the “Tastes of Heaven” CMIC fund-raising gala in Toronto.
Feist has served in Indigenous ministry for 54 years, including eight years of teaching in the Chipewyan community at LaLoche, Saskatchewan, was followed by 45 years of pastoral ministry in the Qu’Appelle Valley in the Archdiocese of Regina beginning in 1979.
She immersed herself in First Nations spirituality by making an eight-day sweat and fast and learning the culture, symbols and rituals. She viewed her ministry as listening to “Qu’Appelle” (who calls?) and as responding to requests by creating the environment to reinforce the Indigenous experience of faith.
In 1985 she was appointed director of the Valley Native Ministry Program and was responsible for pastoral ministry at 27 reserves in the archdiocese. Supported by funds from Catholic Missions in Canada, she conducted formation programs, sacramental preparation, weekend liturgies, and funerals, and tended to many other pastoral concerns such as supervising the rebuilding of six churches that had fallen into ruins.
She formed the Archdiocesan Native Pastoral Council, and along with First Nations people set up a weekly lunch program in 1993 as well as a second-hand store called “Too Good to Be Threw.”
She helped to operate the Museum of the Lebret Indian Industrial Residential School and mapped the graves in three parish cemeteries. Her records indicate that in her first 20 years as director, she was present at over 800 wakes and funerals.
In 1993 she began printing a monthly newsletter called “Gathering the Four Winds,” with a circulation to 120 subscribers.
For 12 years, she coordinated the “twinning” of Native Ministry with 18 Catholic Women’s League groups that donated clothing, funds, and other goods.
She has worked with four archbishops and numerous Oblate, Jesuit, and diocesan priests, local and international, in the challenges of integrating their cultures with the varying cultures of First Nations people.
Now living in Saskatoon, she is writing a book about her pastoral ministry amongst First Nations People.
