By Michael Howard | OSV News
More and more Catholics are discovering Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, and that’s a beautiful thing. I think of her — and her cause for sainthood — especially when reflecting on the recently published “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: A Report on U.S. Black Catholic Dreams toward a Just Church.”
This isn’t just because the 35th anniversary of her death is coming up on March 30, or because of her eagerly awaited canonization, or her seminal 1989 address about the Black Catholic experience to the U.S. bishops’ conference. It’s because if it wasn’t for a chance encounter with Sister Thea 30 years ago, I might not be Catholic today.
First, I will share some background. As a teenager, Sister Thea joined a school opened by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration from La Crosse. Through her years of formation and education, many of her sisters tried to restrain her spirituality, openly expressing hatred towards her Blackness.
When I met Sister Thea at the Rejoice Conference in Washington, D.C., I was visiting Protestant churches in search of a friendlier church community and freer expression of praise while still participating in Catholic Mass. Sister Thea encouraged me to express my love for the Creator in a way that was true to me. Then I witnessed her joyfully dancing to express her devotion to God. I knew then that I could experience joy praising God in the Catholic Church.
Our experiences weren’t unique, but perhaps our perseverance was. Black Catholics leave the church at a higher rate than the national average, according to Pew Research Center. “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down” seeks, in part, to understand why. The report is the result of 3,000 hours of dialogue with 380 Black Catholics, and I was honored to be one of them. Reading the final report is bracing, but foreseeable. Two of the strongest throughlines to emerge are the need for culturally relevant clergy and religious formation and the need to return to Gospel-informed radical love.
Sister Thea’s ideas are illuminating on both points. At the 1987 Religious Formation Conference, Sister Thea proposed future ministers ask their congregation: “To what extent do they believe that you are serious about understanding them — their history, their experience, their culture, their heritage, their art, their music, their styles of prayer, their styles of meeting, their songs, their dances, their modalities of relationship?”
Sister Thea called upon prospective ministers in the Catholic Church to avoid propagating a spiritual hierarchy that asserts one culture’s way of worshipping as best. Far too frequently, ministers formed in the Roman Catholic Church accept new assignments without an openness to learning the cultural practices of their new parish. Instead, they seek to conform worship practices to their own culture of origin, which often relates to whiteness. Perhaps they are uncomfortable with or frightened of embracing other cultural practices, but this is where Gospel-informed radical love enters and Sister Thea’s concept of “Cosmic Spirituality” is key.
Sister Thea said that a Cosmic Spirituality means “we come together, bringing our gifts, bringing our histories, bringing our experience, bringing our positives and negatives, our arts, our skills, our teaching and learning methodologies — all of them — all that we have and all that we hold.” In this spirituality, we recognize that the one, living God permeates the entire cosmos, animating and profoundly connecting the splendid diversity of all creation.
Pentecost is a poetic symbol of Cosmic Spirituality. One Spirit descended so that all might speak their true, native tongue and still be united in their understanding. The event didn’t erase difference. It was made more beautiful and even transcendent by it.
We see another example of Cosmic Spirituality in St. Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians: “I have become all things to all, to save at least some” (1 Corinthians 9, 22). St. Paul abandoned his cultural and financial status to evangelize effectively. Good evangelization happens when we learn to embrace the spiritual traditions of each respective culture.
One of my own experiences of Cosmic Spirituality is close to my heart. Before my mother transitioned to the Gates of Heaven, she reverted to her native language, Spanish. For weeks the family was unable to communicate with her. I decided to play spiritual music sung in Spanish. The songs brought me peace by being still and open to the Spirit. Do I know Spanish? No! However, I felt a fire within like the day of Pentecost. My mom smiled at the inspired lyrics sung in Spanish while I responded in English, “Praise the Lord!” We praised God together in two different languages, truly in unity.
A Cosmic Spirituality feels God’s presence in all creation, transcending racism, sexism, classism, any “ism.” One Spirit descends on all in God’s cosmos. The resulting diversity in our Spirit-given creative gifts is God’s design to make us the most effective coworkers for His vineyard.
I pray for ministers with Cosmic Spirituality who will wait on the Lord to guide them. I pray we embrace the Spirit that God breathed into all of us, appreciative of our many cultures. In Servant of God Sister Thea’s words we pray, “Oh, Father, give us the spirit of transformation [so] that your glory may be revealed to all the Brothers and Sisters, to the whole cosmos, to the limits of the universe.”
Professor Michael Howard is the founder of Eat the Scroll Ministry, which educates the church on the traditions of Black Catholics. He teaches at Loyola Marymount University, the University of Dayton and the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life.
Pictured above: Sister Thea Bowman, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration from Canton, Mississippi, who was nationally known for her work to advance the life of her fellow Black Catholics in the church, is pictured in a 1985 photo in Jackson, Mississippi. She died March 30, 1990. (OSV News photo/Beatrice Njemanze, Mississippi Catholic)