Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, left an indelible mark on her community and on her Church. She lovingly taught young people about the joy of being Christian, she challenged her church to accept her as “fully black and fully Catholic,” she embraced her suffering with a willing spirit and she called all to a living faith.
I never heard of Sister Thea Bowman until her cause for sainthood was opened in 2019 but I was captivated by her sweet expression and the story I read in the National Catholic Register which I encourage you to read.
I was reminded of her by The Pillar's fine piece which includes a video of her speech to the American Bishops in 1989. Do go watch it. Hearing her deliver this is wonderful.
Here is the transcript which the USCCB has posted for reading over. Here's a bit.
... What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? It means that I come to my Church fully functioning.
That doesn’t frighten you, does it? I come to my Church fully functioning. I bring myself; my black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African-American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility - as gifts to the Church. I bring a spirituality that our Black-American bishops told us (they just told us what everybody who knew, knew), that spirituality is contemplative and biblical and holistic, bringing to religion a totality of mind and imagination, of memory, of feeling and passion, and emotion and intensity. A faith that is embodied incarnate praise - a spirituality that knows how to find joy even in the time of sorrow – that steps out on faith that leans on the Lord. A spirituality that is commoner – that tries to walk and talk and work and pray and play together. Even when we’re busy, we’re busy around and we want to be find Him, where we want to reach out and touch Him. Where we can talk to Him. Don’t be too busy y’all. A spirituality that in the middle of your mass or in the middle of your sermon we just might have to shout out and say “Amen”, “Hallelujah”, “Thank you Jesus!”.
A faith that attempts to be spirit-filled. The ol’lady say, “That if you love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart and your whole soul, and your whole mind and all your strength then you praise the Lord with your whole heart and soul and mind and strength and you don’t bring him any feeble service. If you get enough fully functioning Black Catholics in your dioceses they’re going to hold up the priest and they’re going to hold up the bishop. We love our bishops y’all. We love y’all too but see these bishops are our own – ordained for the Church universal, ordained for the service of God’s people. But they ours - we raised them. They came from our community and in a unique way they can speak for us and to us. That’s what the Church is talkin’ about with indigenous leadership – the leaders are supposed to look like their folks. Ain’t that what the Church says? ...
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