Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman — What Does It Mean to Be a Black Catholic?

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.

Sister Thea Bowman Cause for Canonization website

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? ...

A Movie You Might Have Missed #62: Night Train to Munich

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Charters: I bought a copy of Mein Kampf. Occurred to me it might shed a spot of light on all this... how d'ye do. Ever read it?

Caldicott: Never had the time.

Charters: I understand they give a copy to all the bridal couples over here.

Caldicott: Oh, I don't think it's that sort of book, old man.

When the Germans march into Prague, armour-plating inventor Dr Bomasch flees to England. His daughter Anna escapes from arrest to join him, but the Gestapo manage to kidnap them both back to Berlin. As war looms, British secret service agent Gus Bennet follows disguised as a senior German army officer. His ploy – not unpleasant one – is pretending to woo Anna to the German cause.

This was a complete pleasure. Why is this gem not better known? My daughter rented it to see what Carol Reed's other movies were like (besides The Third Man). Night Train to Munich has witty dialogue, spy story action, suspense, a romantic hero who is detached and narcissistic, unexpected plot twists, and two bird-brained Englishmen who drive the plot in unexpected ways. (Their reaction to learning that England and Germany is at war is priceless.)

When you consider that this was made in 1939 (in theaters in 1940), then the continual, subtle jabs at the Germans become even more interesting. It's like Ernst Lubistch's To Be or Not to Be in using humor to make points but, of course, completely different.

A Water Conduit, A Scene in Sado

A Water Conduit, A Scene in Sado by Kawase Hasui

 

Well Said: Straight thinkin' is a delusion

From my quote journal and a book I reread fairly often because it is so much fun, The Pirates of Ersatz by Murray Leinster.

Hoddan began suddenly to see real possibilities. This was not a direct move toward the realization of his personal ambitions. But on the other hand, it wasn't a movement away from them. Hoddan suddenly remembered an oration he'd heard his grandfather give many, many times in the past.

"Straight thinkin'," the old man had said obstinately, "is a delusion. You think things out clear and simple, and you can see yourself ruined and your family starving any day! But real things ain't simple! They ain't clear! Any time you try to figure things out so they're simple and straightforward, you're goin' against nature and you're going to get 'em mixed up! So when something happens and you're in a straightforward, hopeless fix—why, you go along with nature! Make it as complicated as you can, and the people who want you in trouble will get hopeless confused and you can get out!"

Hummingbird and Apple Blossoms

  Martin Johnson Heade, Hummingbird and Apple Blossoms

 I love this because how many times I have seen a hummingbird perched just so, guarding the precious bit of yard and nectar from encroachment!

A Movie You Might Have Missed #61: Cat People

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

To kiss her meant death.

Sketch artist Irena Dubrovna (Simon) and American architect Oliver Reed (Smith) fall in love and marry after a brief courtship. But Irena believes that she suffers from an ancient curse and won’t consummate the union for fear that she will turn into a panther compelled to kill her lover.

I see why this is one of Roger Ebert's Great Movies. We watched it because it was the first hit by famed producer Val Lewton and the movie that saved RKO from financial ruin. This little gem cost about $140,000 but made $4 million in two years. In 1942. Talk about a blockbuster!

The overtones of inevitable inherited evil, the use of light and shadow, the wonderful sets, and the unspoken simmering sexual tension (not even a kiss for her long suffering husband) all add up to much more than 73 minutes of routine old horror film.

We wanted to find a city like the one they lived in, also — with that cozy, overstuffed pet shop and the quirky Sally Lunn restaurant. Where else can you get Chicken Gumbo with a cheese plate to finish?

God does like dunces

There is no doubt that God does like dunces, repugnant as it is. I think it is like the lower classes—everyone loves the simple gaffer until he starts telling us what he heard on The Brain Trust the evening before. We are all very lower class to God and our cleverness and second-hand scholarship bore him hideously.

Evelyn Waugh, letter

I think the bit about boring God hideously is a reflection of Waugh and not of God, who is never bored by his creations ... however much they may bore us personally! But I do like the overall point.

Le Chef de l'Hotel Chatham, Paris

Le Chef de l'Hotel Chatham, Paris; William Orpen

I love his mustachios!

Street Vendor, Ahmedabad

Edwin Lord Weeks, Street Vendor, Ahmedabad via Gandalf's Gallery

 

Joy of Life

Joy of Life, Remo Savisaar

 

Ukranian art — “God is in her midst and does not move.”

Elizabeth Lev is a Catholic art historian whose writing I have  enjoyed every time I read Roman Pilgrimage by George Weigel.  She's got a good piece for The Pillar about how Ukranian art is cultural memory. The whole thing is great, interspersed with wonderful photos. This is the kicker, though.

The Virgin Orans, in the “Unbreakable Wall”
of St. Sophia’s cathedral. public domain

Perhaps the most important work of art in Ukraine sits inside St Sophia, the icon of the “unbreakable wall,” an 18-foot-tall mosaic of the Mother of God, hands raised in prayer. She has withstood centuries of raids, fires and bombing, unshaken and unharmed.

The inscription next to her is from Psalm 46: ‘God is in her midst and does not move.” She invites believers to invoke the Lord in this difficult hour, “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”

Go read it all at The Pillar.

Sun, Water

 

Sun, Water by Duane Keiser

Cheat's Souffle with Three Cheeses

Here's a little something that makes a truly delicious Lenten Friday meal. Or, a great breakfast or brunch dish too. Serve it with rolls and a salad (green or fruit, depending on what time of day it is).

She doubled the deference which before had charmed him ...

She doubled the deference which before had charmed him, calling out his conversational powers in such a manner as to surprise Pitt himself, who, always inclined to respect his own talents, admired them the more when Rebecca pointed them out to him.

William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

This made me laugh. It is this humor that keeps me reading Vanity Fair.

Study Head of an Old Woman

William J. Forsyth - Study Head of an Old Woman [c.1883-84]

I'd respect today's modern, abstract artists a lot more if I thought that they could turn out something of this quality before they turned to a different style.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc by William Blake Richmond, 1900.

 

The Old Books With Grace Podcast

 I just discovered the Old Books with Grace podcast recently and had only sampled a couple of her initial Julian of Norwich episodes. I know — Julian of Norwich — when she says "old books," Grace isn't kidding. 

Grace is a medievalist, scholar and teacher. She has a very accessible style and I liked what I tried. I was going to wait to recommend it until I'd tried some other offerings from her Persuasion series.

However, she began a Lenten series which I think a lot of people would benefit from — Virtues and Vices. Certainly it is good for me to listen and think about.

There will be an episode a week through Lent so it is early in the series and is easy to catch up.

God's word is a living spring

Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? We lose more of it than we grasp, like those who drink from a living spring. For God’s word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colors, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out.

St. Ephram

This was one of the Office of Readings selections sometime recently. This expresses so well how I feel about scripture.

The Norseman

The Norseman, Walter Crane, 1893

I love this illustration. It makes me think of all the wonderfully illustrated children's books from long ago. I'm going to look for more from Walter Crane.

Newlyweds

Newlyweds in Rogers, Texas circa 1900

More about this can be found at Traces of Texas, which never fails to brighten my day with the many Texas photos and quotes that are featured.