The fruits of Black Catholic spirituality
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| Contemplative, holistic, communal, joyful. Photo by Haley Rivera on Unsplash |
Before Black History Month closes, I want to reflect on an element of Black history that has played a significant role in my faith formation these past seven years: the fruits of Black Catholic spirituality.
As a white person who lives in a Mid-Atlantic state and attends a historically African-American parish, I navigate the histories and complexities of those relationships through my church's Minkisi Ministry, an interracial, contemplative prayer, action, and African heritage ministry spreading the Good News. Named after a Kiswahili word that means 'healing objects,' our group sees ourselves as instruments of God's love and peace, bearing witness to and praising the movement of the Spirit.
Under the vision and leadership of church elder Cecilia Braveboy (a tremendous source of inspiration and friendship in my life), the ministry not only calls out the institutional Church’s history of racism and compels us to follow the Gospel's call for inclusive, all-embracing love, but it does so while joyfully centering the Black Catholic experience. As I've learned with Cecilia and my fellow Minkisi members over the years, the journey toward racial justice and healing is exhausting, empowering, and enduring. And such a journey requires a particular blend of fuel found only in Black Catholic spirituality.
In 1984, the then-10 Black bishops in the United States issued a pastoral letter, What We Have Seen and Heard, that spotlighted and affirmed how "the Black presence within the American Catholic Church is a precious witness to the universal character of Catholicism." They outlined four major characteristics, rooted in African heritage, that Black Catholicism offers:
Contemplative
What the bishops wrote: "Every place is a place for prayer because God's presence is heard and felt in every place. [...] God's power breaks into the 'sin-sick world' of everyday. [...] Black spirituality has taught us what it means to 'let go' and 'to lean on God.'"
How I've experienced this gift: By far the hardest fruit for me to practice personally, I am in equal, inverse measure struck by its transformative power. My fellow Minkisi members often share how they are leaning on God, and their faith and trust touches a nerve deep within me every time. How might I let this power break through in my own life, and how might I let it work through me to participate in healing a sin-sick world?
Holistic
What the bishops wrote: "For us, the religious experience is an experience of the whole human being— both the feelings and the intellect, the heart as well as the head."
How I've experienced this gift: What absolute freedom in this gift—the concept that our experience of the Divine is not confined to any one practice or building, any one outlet or community, not even to our own bodies. Black Catholic spirituality has encouraged me to look more often through the eyes of my heart and in doing so connect with God in a less cerebral, more instinctual way.
Communal
What the bishops wrote: "Worship must be shared. Worship is always a celebration of community. [...] One prays and acts within and for the community." (And community also, they note, "means social concern and social justice.")
How I've experienced this gift: My sure-to-be-lifelong journey toward anti-racism is sincere but halting. Keeping community at the center reminds me that this critical effort is not the vocation of a chosen few, but rather the work of the chosen many. Together, we are stronger and more durable in being Christ's hands and feet on earth.
Joy
What the bishops wrote: "Joy is first of all celebration. Celebration is movement and song, rhythm and feeling, color and sensation, exultation and Thanksgiving. [...] This joy is a sign of our faith and especially our hope. [...] If we do indeed feel a profound joy, we shall know that we have heard and that we have understood; and we are thus enabled to share our Good News. [...] One who is joyful is impelled to love and cannot hate."
How I've experienced this gift: My favorite gift of Black Catholic spirituality ... and, to be honest, one I hadn't considered as deeply before joining Minkisi ministry. Music, dance, visual art, poetry: All these exuberant expressions demonstrate how creativity invites, reveals, and glorify God. Despair and hopelessness wither us. Joy, however, waters us.
I will never have the direct lived experience of a Black Catholic, but I am grateful for the privilege and opportunity to witness, learn from, and participate in the Black Catholic spiritual gifts. As the bishops conclude in their letter, let us "heed the opportunities that are ours today. Let us not deprive the Church of the rich gifts God has granted us."
Happy Black History Month, my friends.
Prayer #418: "What We Have Seen and Heard"
A found poem inspired by the Pastoral Letter on Evangelization from the Black Bishops of the United States, 1984
Conscious of the need to hear the Word,
ever ready to listen,
we feel the urge to speak that Word ...
Not only preaching but witnessing.
Not only converting but renewing.
Not only entering the community but building it up.
To be universal is not to be uniform;
our gifts are our part in the whole church.
And no matter the present tragedy,
we know the liberating hand of God.
This is the gift we have to share:
to teach others the value of such freedom
and work to see its benefits are denied to none.
Amen.
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Seeking to work for greater justice in the world? Check out the chapter titled "Justice: How Can I Help?" in my book, Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists, for prayerful and poetic inspiration.