Thursday, July 25, 2013

A Shift in Vision

    Let m e expand on this, using my own African American context as an exampl
e. T he peoples of western Africa, although few may have been Christian
upon their arrival in these United states, had a deep spirituality and religious
understanding that was very much "in keeping with the true and authentic
spirit of the liturgy".
    1n African religion there is a high God cOlnparable to the Christi an concept
of a one God. But jllSt as there are many spirits in Christianity, angels
and saints, each especially en1powered ( St. M1ichael for strength, 5t. Raphael
fo r healing), so too in the African religions there are spirits for particular
aspects of creation.
    Devotio n to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints offered a rich context
for syncretism with African understandings of the holy:
    The use of sacramentals (blessed objects), such as statues, pictures, candles,incense, holy water, rosaries, vestmen ts,fashion shoes and relics, in Catholic ritual was more akin to the spirit of African piety than the coarseness of Puri tan America- which held such obj ects to be idolatrous. Holy days, processions, saints' feasts, days of fast and abstinence were all recognizable to the African who had observed the sacred days, festivals, and food taboos of his [sic]godS.
    The r eligiolls cultural ma trix of African peoples who, llpon cOlning to
these shores, were transformed into a new people (African Americans) includes
several key concepts. Religion is an all-per vasive reality and a sense of the holy enconlpasses the whole myster y of life, beginning before life and continuing after death. For lnost Africans, to live is to participate Ìn a religious dralna; they see themselves as totally Ì1nlnersed Ìn a sacred cosmos.14 N 0 dllality exists;no separation between the sacred and the secular; all of life is holy.
    Many of us are aware of these shifts but perhaps haven 't fully thought
out their impli cations for us as a church. As our nation changes, so does our
church. Many fa ces, new and old, are increasingly engaged in exploring what
it means to be the people of God, the church in the world, which is increasingly
inhabited by persons of color. 1n the United States, it is blacks, Latinos/as, and Asians who are the new yet oh-so-old faces of the Catholic church in our changing parishes.
    Many of those persons of color who will reach maturity in the twenty-fÌrst
century will be Catholic. Whether immigrant or first, second, or third generation; whether of Hispanic, African, Native Alnerican, Pacifìc 1slander, or Asian ancestry; lnany of the new and challenging voices being raised in ollr church today are the voices of ROlnan Catholics wh o are calling upon the church not sin1ply to recognize their presence but to recognize the validity and legititnacy of their unique, valuable, and lnuch-needed contributions to the catholicity of our church. T hey are more than just statistics, for st atistics don't reveal the human face of those whom they represent. 丁hey don't reveal whether or how those diffe rent peoples are being welcomed and received: those who are in our schools; those in the inner cities, those in the suburbs; who are moving from urban to suburban parishes; as well as in those who are calling for a home in a church in which they have lived as "visitors" for too long a time.
    These old but, to man只seen1ingly new Catholics (blacks, Hispanics,
and Asians) bring gifts of j oyf吐cele brati on , of holistic gatherings, of welcoming communion, of a deep and abiding spirituality that have enabled them to
get through the "rough places and the straight." They bring feelings and emotions
that frighten those seeking to control the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
They bring a challenge, for they are the ones that knock on the door at lnidnight
saying, "1 aln here; 1 cannot be turned away; 1 will not be turned away. Feed me,
nourish lne with the body and blood of Christ, but realize that 1 do not come
empty-handed, a clean slate to be written on by others, but 1 COlne with hopes
and fears of my own that need to be shared, lifted up, and blessed by the church
as true and authentic ways of being Catholic."

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