We agree—and so does science. Studies show that prayer can regulate our heart rates, lighten our moods, and increase our life spans. Even more importantly, prayer and meditation can bring us to a place of authentic peace. And considering what we endured in 2020, peace of mind has been elusive.

We at St. Anthony Messenger would like to remedy that. Starting with this issue, we’re launching a new column called “Let Us Pray.” Four authors will take turns writing it month to month. They offer a variety of voices and life experiences, but their core mission with this column is the same: to share their experiences with prayer so that we, too, may deepen our own prayer lives. In fact, Deacon Art Miller, whose profile you can read, is one of the featured authors of this column.

We hope that “Let Us Pray”—indeed, everything you read in St. Anthony Messenger—will bring you peace.

It’s linked by this frequent invitation in Catholic ritual: “Let us pray.” Do those assembled expect actual prayer to follow? Does it? I confess of myself: not always! I have come to the assembly intent on prayer, but I stray, I idle, I dream, I waver, I focus, I fiddle. You may be much better at this, but I’m grateful if prayer has occupied the larger part of my time in a place of worship! Alone in my space for personal prayer, it’s much the same.

Let Us Do the Desert

On the cusp of Lent, I echo the nursery chant: “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” My personal plague is falling down and failing any resolutions I make. When I lamented this to a confessor, he suggested short-term resolutions, a day or a week or some shorter span I might be able to manage.

I now realize that managing isn’t the idea at all. I’m not meant to manage Lent, but to slog through, to intend, to hope, and, most of all, to remember. I am remembering that Jesus wandered in a desert, wanting to face up to the mission that lay ahead. He was gathering courage, practicing self-discipline, acquainting himself with loneliness, and facing the devils of distraction, desire, and desolation. Not to put too fine a face on it, but me too.

I’ve come to believe that Lent is not about doing. It’s about not doing. It’s not about trying, but letting ourselves take that ramble through the desert. Prayer is the backbone of Lent. I reject Satan, however evil manifests itself in my desert. I affirm my belief that I can make it through, and that prayer is that way. And prayer is not primarily doing; prayer is letting, allowing, even embracing the mysteries.

Let Us Skip Sandcastles

When I traveled through the Mojave Desert, I saw firsthand that deserts are far from empty. Jackrabbits and Joshua trees abound near caverns, abandoned silver mines, and prickly pears. My own Lenten desert has a large population of distractions and delights. My prayer is similarly populated. My current motto: Let it be. Let me begin. Let me finish.

This year, I am wandering the Mojave in my mind and heart. If you’ve experienced the Judean wilderness or Jordan’s Wadi Rum, go there. Just go. Jesus stayed for 40 days. I’m staying just one day—actually one fragment of a day—at a time. I’ll sit down. I’ll be quiet. I’ll stay. No timers, no music, no script. I just mean to stay until I know where I am. I may be in a cavern. I may be in a field of wildflowers. I may be lost in a barren sandscape. When I know where I am, I may say, “Let me finish,” or I may say, “I’ve got to rush off.” But I will have been in the desert of Lent, a place where Jesus has been and where the divinely human awaits.

I’m not asking for insights or visions or comfort. I’m just repeating: “Let us pray. Let me pray. Let me finish or refinish.” Or I may be silent. The less of a rule I make for myself, the less likely I will fail to observe it. I don’t want to box out any possibilities. I want to be open to uncertainty. I want to be in the desert, but not be deserted, please God.

Let Us Not Look for Statistics or Accomplishments

What am I doing for Lent? I blush to say, “Nothing.” This is so hard. I love to do two things or more at once. It offers me a kind of dizzying pleasure. But let us pray that our Mother Church repeats and repeats.

This Lent, I’m planning to respond. I’m going to allow nothingness to reign in my desert of prayer. I’m going to hope to run into Jesus in my Mojave, but I’m not counting on any revelations. I have realized that let and Lent are two words separated by a single letter. Or not.

Prayer in the Desert

God of the desert’s wildness:
Let me linger with you.
I am here.
I bring no baggage, no petitions, no worries.
I ask you to continue what you have begun in me,
to forward my faltering self,
to strengthen my irresolute self,
to sit here with me in this desert.
Amen.

It’s a hot summer day in Chicago, 1927. Black band members gather at a recording studio to await their lead performer, “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis). They are planning to record several songs in one session, and Ma’s manager, Irvin (Jeremy Shamos), becomes increasingly nervous when his artist fails to show. Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne) is the demanding and greedy owner of the studio who wants to squeeze as much from the popular singer as he can for as little money as possible.

The band members gather in an airless room to eat lunch and rehearse, but the older musicians seem annoyed by the young horn player, Levee (Chadwick Boseman), who writes his own music and restyles one of Ma’s songs from blues to jazz. As they wait around telling stories, tensions rise. When Ma and her girlfriend, Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), and her nephew, Sylvester (Dusan Brown), arrive, the singer refuses to begin until Irvin provides her with a cold Coca-Cola and agrees to let Sylvester introduce the song on the record. Because Sylvester stutters, the whole production can only grind slowly ahead in the suffocating heat.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s adapted script, by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, is based on the Tony Award-winning 1982 play by August Wilson. It is part of The Pittsburgh Cycle, 10 plays by Wilson that explore the 20th-century African American experience—and the only one that features a real character (Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, 1886-1939).

The 2016 film version of Wilson’s Fences was like watching a play on the big screen, but Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a superbly produced film with incredible cinematography by Tobias A. Schleisser. Both films are produced by Denzel Washington. Davis’ performance is all-consuming and mesmerizing, as she stands her own with the white-run recording industry and belts out the blues (Davis actually provides the vocals for “Those Dogs of Mine” about her sore feet).

Chadwick Boseman, in his last film role, is a hopeful, charismatic, and tragic figure. His performance soars. The soul-searing soundtrack is produced and curated by Branford Marsalis, who adapts some of Ma Rainey’s original songs. Racial tensions, power struggles and injustices, creative differences, and the very souls of these artists are at the heart of this film, which is the best of 2020.

Not yet rated, R, Language, suggested lesbian relationship, violence.

Pieces of a Woman

Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is a Boston executive married to construction worker Sean (Shia LaBeouf). They are expecting their first child, a girl, and Martha chooses a home birth, though her mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), disapproves. They go to all the classes and prepare for every eventuality, but when Martha goes into labor, her midwife cannot come. Instead, a new midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), assists. Martha’s labor is progressing well, but when the baby’s heart rate drops, Eva calls for an ambulance. Despite all efforts, the baby dies during birth.

In the year that follows, Martha and Sean must navigate their relationship, the role of Elizabeth in their lives, and the decision to prosecute Eva for malpractice. This is where director Kornél Mundruczó excels in vividly bringing Kata Wéber’s screenplay to life.

The images of water are a motif throughout the film, suggesting that water is the womb of life. The couple must sign papers for a new car and more papers for the home birth, giving the impression that life is all business. But they learn that the real business of life—living and loving—is fragile and requires the freedom of forgiveness to move ahead. The progress of the bridge that Sean is building marks the passage of time and the suggestion that healing after tragedy is possible.

Kirby’s performance is deeply felt and nuanced, while LaBeouf is believable as the father whose loss is just as devastating.

Not yet rated, R, Dramatic depiction of labor, graphic nudity.

Minari

A young Korean immigrant couple in the 1980s, Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Yeri Han), and their two children, Anne (Noel Cho) and David (Alan S. Kim), move from California to Arkansas after 10 years in the United States. Jacob believes that growing Korean vegetables will have a market as the Korean immigrant population increases. But he makes decisions without Monica’s input, and this causes a strain in their marriage.

During the day, Jacob and Monica work at a hatchling plant. They send for Monica’s mother, Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn), to look after the children. David, who has a heart murmur, thinks she isn’t a real grandma because she uses profanity and doesn’t bake cookies. At night, Jacob works the farm, which is doing well until the water dries up. A local man, Paul (Will Patton), is like a biblical prophet who performs exorcisms wherever there is a problem and helps Jacob whenever he can. When Soonja arrived from South Korea, she brought minari, a water plant similar to American watercress, and planted it near the creek. Just when the family seems to lose everything, her thoughtfulness brings them hope.

This is a film about seeking the American dream, yes, but it is even more about life, family, and faith. Minari, which is in Korean with English subtitles, is enjoyable and inspiring on every level.

Not yet rated, PG, Loss, death, grief.

More than simply a call to give up creature comforts, Lent invites us to confront our vulnerability and embrace our brokenness.

Ash Wednesday tends to get a bad rap. At first glance, the beginning of Lent each year doesn’t seem to have a very uplifting message. When we receive ashes on our foreheads, we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return. But “returning to dust” doesn’t sound all that positive, does it? Death isn’t something we like to think about, much less celebrate, in our liturgy and prayer.

If we take a closer look, though, we find that the message of Ash Wednesday has far more to do with life than with death. It’s much more about what it means to be human—on this side of death’s door, not only beyond. Being human means being both blessed and broken, and Ash Wednesday is a special invitation to look at our own brokenness in a way that can bring healing, strength, and courage.

Of course, brokenness is never the goal, even if we can encounter God through the process. We don’t set out to come up short, make mistakes, or feel “less than.” But we often do, a reality that is one mysterious thread within the intricate tapestry of human life. We have another word for this kind of brokenness, one that captures our essence as incomplete all on our own. That word is vulnerable.

Embracing Vulnerability

Vulnerability has become something of a buzzword in recent years. A simple online search of the word turns up countless videos, articles, and book titles. But what does it really mean?

To be vulnerable is to be exposed, to be open. Being vulnerable means that the parts of ourselves that are not strong and beautiful are visible to others. Brene Brown, research professor at the University of Houston and best-selling author, has become something of a cultural icon as a “vulnerability guru.” In her words, vulnerability is “having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”

Have you ever tried something new without being sure it would turn out OK? Then you have been vulnerable because you allowed failure to be a real possibility. Have you ever forgiven someone who betrayed you? Then you have been vulnerable because you opened yourself to being hurt again.

Have you ever asked for help? You have been vulnerable because you risked having your weaknesses exposed. Have you ever loved another person? You have been vulnerable because you took a chance on the other person not returning that love.

Life affords us many opportunities to choose to accept vulnerability. We can choose to share our feelings in a relationship without knowing how the other person will respond. We can choose to take a chance on a new career path, knowing that we may not succeed. But we aren’t always able to choose the kinds of vulnerability we experience. Life also forces us into brokenness entirely against our will.

We are thrown into a terrible, frightening vulnerability when our closest friend moves far away, when our kid drops out of school, when we learn about the affair, when the biopsy results come back positive. Never in a million years would we choose these or many other challenges thrust upon us.

Jesus had a lot to say about this kind of vulnerability. In fact, the beatitudes are the blueprint he laid out to help us honor our broken parts as a means of growth and transformation. He taught that being vulnerable—in other words, being poor or meek, feeling sorrowful or persecuted—is an opportunity to encounter the divine.

Suffering has a way of stripping us of our ego and false notions of self-sufficiency, which makes room for an experience of the divine. In accepting our faults, challenges, and pain, we create a space for God’s grace to work its inscrutable magic in our lives. Being vulnerable is the door through which we must travel to become the best, most authentic versions of ourselves.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is how we accept our brokenness. The dust of Ash Wednesday is a powerful reminder of the vulnerability that is part of our spiritual DNA as human beings.

Rethinking Repentance

If Ash Wednesday today can remind us less about death and more about the mystery of vulnerability in life, then does the traditional focus on repentance still make sense? Absolutely! But it may call us to rethink its purpose.

John the Baptist preached repentance, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” It’s easy to see his prophecy as an apocalyptic warning of imminent damnation if we don’t get our collective act together. But an interpretation of repentance that’s more consistent with the God of love and mercy is less about warning and more about promise. John’s message doesn’t have to be his way of threatening us into good behavior, a New Testament version of “Wait till your father gets home!” Instead, it can be an invitation to make room in our hearts and lives for a God who wants to fill up our empty spaces and doesn’t take no for an answer.

Repentance isn’t all about feeling guilt and shame for our shortcomings. The word’s Latin root, paenitentia, has several nuanced shades of meaning, but they all boil down to one thing—a sense of “lacking.” Repentance, then, is an acceptance of the fact that we do not hold all the cards, that we are not “enough” all on our own. Put another way, it’s a way of embracing our vulnerability and brokenness. The dust of Ash Wednesday reminds us that life is larger than our individual experiences of it. We are not in control.

A Focus on Giving

Being broken means that healing is needed, so the age-old Lenten practices of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are not only relevant today but also perhaps more needed than ever. It’s in giving up our reliance on those things we don’t absolutely need, giving to those in greater need than ourselves, and giving in to God’s presence in our lives that we are able to look our own “lacking” straight in the eye. It’s how we become aware of both the blessing and the brokenness of our human condition.

Giving up: Fasting, a spiritual practice that has declined in popularity over the years, has made a comeback in a less-than-spiritual way. “Intermittent fasting” is all the rage lately on nutrition websites and in best-selling books. But when fasting is understood not as a weight-loss technique but as a way of letting go of our reliance on things we don’t actually need, it can be a powerful form of prayer. It’s fine to give up desserts for Lent if that helps us reflect on the things we can do without. Perhaps it can be more powerful, though, to “fast” from gossip or unnecessary spending or an insistence on having the last word. Fasting is a way to experience our own “lacking” in a transformative way.

Giving to: Almsgiving, which means the giving of money or food to those in need, is another traditional Lenten practice. This, too, is relevant for us today during Lent—and all year long—because it is how we recognize that we aren’t the only ones who are vulnerable. The world is full of others just like us in our lacking. They may be vulnerable in different ways than we are, but by reaching out to them in their need, we bear witness to their pain. By standing in solidarity with their brokenness, we take steps toward being healed of our own.

Giving in: Prayer as a spiritual practice never goes out of style. Not only during Lent but throughout the entire year, prayer is a powerful way of participating in divine community. By lifting our own broken pieces and those of others in prayer, we attest to—rather than run from—the vulnerable parts of our lives. Prayer connects us with each other and with God. This sacred unity connects our individual broken pieces with those of others, creating a beautiful new kind of wholeness.

Our Lenten Invitation

Too often, we approach Ash Wednesday with liturgical gloom and doom. It’s the “black sheep” of the family of dark solemnities in the liturgical calendar, failing even to garner status as a holy day of obligation. But when painted in this light, it’s easy to miss its beautiful invitation to claim our brokenness, embrace our vulnerability, and stand in solidarity with all those who do the same.

God is ready to heal our woundedness, to make us more whole than ever before. Ash Wednesday is our call to make room for the divine dance to work its sacred magic within us.

No more documents. No more commissions. Deacon Art Miller says what the Church needs to do to confront racism is to act.

Each of us has a narrative that has helped form who we are. Those stories are made up of pleasant experiences as well as tragic and harsh realities. For Deacon Art Miller, the latter have played a large part in shaping both his life and ministry.

Miller grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he lived with his parents and three of his four siblings. For the most part, it was a typical life for a young kid—school, playing outside with friends, and spending time with family.

Typical, that is, until the summer of 1955 when one of Miller’s neighborhood friends grabbed the attention of the nation in a horrible way. That friend was Emmett Till, the 14-year-old young man who was brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman during a trip to Mississippi to visit relatives. It has been noted that, due to a speech impediment, Till often whistled when he began speaking.

Three days later, Till’s bloated body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. According to reports, Till had gunshot wounds in his head, his body bore the marks of a severe beating, and his fingers were crushed. Barbed wire had been tied around his neck and weighed down with a 70-pound cotton gin. At his funeral his mother, Mamie Till, insisted on his casket being open so people could see what had happened to her son.

Emmett Till’s death served as a catalyst for the burgeoning civil rights movement. It also served as a catalyst for Miller’s lifelong advocacy for civil rights and justice. He recalls his personal connection with Till in his book, The Journey to Chatham: Why Emmett Till’s Murder Changed America (AuthorHouse).

His life shaped by that experience, Miller set his sights on making a change. He became active in the civil rights movement and, in 1963, he was arrested during a street demonstration of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His arrest, he says, was “for not being obedient to what was wrong.” He was 17 years old at the time.

It was not, however, the last time Miller would get himself into what he calls “Gospel trouble,” playing off the phrase of the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis.

Ghosts of Hate

But there is a lifetime between those incidents. And it is a lifetime during which Miller says that, wherever he goes, he is “always consciously aware that I am Black and the impact of that.” He calls it the ghost of hate and says “it is the reality that follows me wherever I go. And no one sees it but me.”

He recalls a story from 1957 when he and his mother were walking home after the pastor said he did not want Black people in his congregation. Miller’s family had recently moved into the parish.

On the way home, Miller says his mother was gripping his hand tightly and saying that no one was going to push her out of her Church. She began attending daily Mass and sitting in the front pew.

“I began to understand we had to fight to be Catholic. . . and no one was going to prevent me from being Catholic,” he said in an interview with the Catholic Transcript, magazine of the Archdiocese of Hartford.

After college, Miller went into the Army where he constantly experienced incidents of racism. The only time it wasn’t evident, he says, was out in the field in Vietnam. But when he came home after the war, the reality of racism returned. Miller says he couldn’t get a cab to stop for him, despite the fact that he was in uniform. Eventually, a white police officer stopped one for him.

Miller says that ghost—based on experiences such as those—creeps up in situations such as when he goes to the store or his grandchildren’s school. It’s there when he first encounters someone. And it is the reason that he and his wife don’t go to unfamiliar restaurants in certain neighborhoods.

And while that ghost never leaves him, he says, “My ability to love gives me control over my spirit. I can’t allow profound disappointment to hinder what God has put within me.”

Answering the Call

When he was 12, Miller thought that he was called to be a priest. Unfortunately, the priest at his parish was racist and wanted nothing to do with him.

Then, Miller says, he discovered girls and the rest is history. Miller and his wife, Sandy, have been married for 49 years, and they have four children and eight grandchildren. He worked for years in the insurance industry before retiring and starting on a new path.

Miller recalls his travels through various parishes over the years as his family moved. At those different parishes, he had experiences that he now sees as God nudging him along. Miller and his family eventually landed at an Afrocentric church in Connecticut, where he says he met a wonderful priest.

“After about three months, he came up to me with some papers and said, ‘Fill this out; you’re supposed to be a deacon,'” recalls Miller. Despite initial hesitation, a few months later he found himself in the program for the diaconate.

“The reason I’m a deacon, honestly, is because God kept asking,” he says.

After his ordination, Miller was assigned to St. Michael Church in Hartford’s North End, which has been a center of ministry to African American Catholics since the mid-20th century. He then moved to St. Mary’s in Simsbury, which is located in a predominantly white suburb. And he brought his particular version of preaching, complete with “a lot of movement and hallelujahs,” along with him. It was not always welcomed.

He says that even though the parishes are only seven miles apart, “they are seemingly polar opposites. Yet the craving for hope in the divine God is still the same. The fragility of the human spirit is still the same.”

In 2005, he was appointed director of the Archdiocese of Hartford’s Office for Black Catholic Ministries, which has since closed. Its work has been taken up by the archdiocese’s Office for Catholic Social Justice Ministry. In June 2020, that office hosted a yearlong virtual conference in response to the US bishops’ 2018 pastoral letter on racism, “Rooted in Faith, Open Wide Our Hearts.”

These days, though, it may be easier to ask Miller what he’s not doing as opposed to asking what he is involved with. He serves as a certified spiritual director and works with various organizations, such as COMPASS Peacebuilders, a youth violence mitigation and reengagement program in Hartford. He also mentors former gang members regarding things such as education. He and his wife run Deacon Art Miller Ministries, where they work with women who are homeless or are about to be homeless to help them financially or emotionally. And, if that’s not enough, he also serves as the chaplain at Hartford’s Capital Community College.

Talk Less/Do More

At their meeting this past November, the US bishops voted 194-3 to renew its Ad Hoc Committee against Racism for a second three-year term. The committee, which was put in place in 2017, focuses on addressing the sin of racism. When asked about the committee only being ad hoc, Miller says, “Maybe it would make a significant statement that they have this regular committee on racism. The fact that it’s ad hoc means it will end. Racism hasn’t ended for 400 years.”

Miller says he is tired of committees and statements. What he wants to see, he says, is action. “They need to do something. And I don’t mean issuing another paper. We need to form a community of action.”

There has been progress in the Catholic Church when it comes to dealing with systemic racial issues, Miller says, but he feels we’re going backward.

“The Church is a direct reflection of our society, and our society is institutionally racist. The problem is our Church is supposed to redirect and heal our society and our society is supposed to be a reflection of the Church, but it isn’t.”

The Church, Miller says, is like a locker room. “The locker room is where you go to listen to the coach to figure out the game plan, to read the playbook, to figure out who your teammates are, and what your position is. After the locker room you have to go out and get in the game. Then we have to come back the next week to gain our strength to go out into the world where the game is played. We rely on what we’ve learned, what we’ve been taught.”

The Smell of the Sheep

Miller takes his personal experiences and perspective to public forums, houses of worship, schools, and universities across the country. He also attends marches and rallies, offering his perspective as a Black man. Far too often, though, he says, “I’m the only Catholic clergy at any of them. Period. The Church does not get involved in the street.”

The young people, he says, just as during the civil rights era, are a driving force for change. He tells the story of a particular Black Lives Matter rally he attended in Simsbury, Connecticut, about a month after the death of George Floyd. At some point during the rally, about 100 young people gathered in the middle of a busy street and were blocking traffic.

The police chief asked Miller for his assistance, so the deacon walked into the street and told the group, “I have been doing this for decades, and you don’t know what you are doing. You need to get out of the street and follow me so I can teach you.” The group followed him and listened to him tell them about how to protest in peace and how to make change. “If I had not been there, if the Catholic Church had not been there, I don’t know what would have happened,” says Miller.

He says that, too often, people use their dislike for the Black Lives Matter movement as a reason to not get involved. Miller says: “Then tell them what you do care about. Say, ‘I’m here because Black lives matter. I don’t agree with the organization, but I agree with the statement.’ Or go and do something else. There are all kind of organizations.”

In October 2015, Miller was arrested for the second time in his life when he and about a dozen other protesters knelt and blocked traffic as part of a “Moral Monday” demonstration in an effort to raise awareness that Black lives matter.

In an interview with the Hartford Courant days after his arrest, Miller said, “I’ve never wanted to look back on my life and see that I was on the wrong side of justice.”

He is not afraid to speak his mind when he sees the Church failing, either. He has even challenged his own archbishop, Leonard P. Blair of Hartford. After the killing of George Floyd, Miller says he heard from the heads of many of the different faith traditions in the area but not his own archbishop. Miller wrote to Blair expressing his disappointment, especially since Miller is the only African American deacon in the archdiocese. The two eventually met and the archbishop sent a letter to the priests of the archdiocese recommending that they read a piece Miller had written.

But beyond that, Miller told the archbishop: “I want you to come out with me into the streets. And I don’t want you to wear your collar, because your collar is power.” The archbishop agreed but has not been able to do so because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Miller says he will hold the archbishop to his promise, though.

That is because he believes, “If God were to give us an 11th commandment, I believe it would read: Thou shall not be a bystander.”

Resources

The National Black Catholic Congress
NBCCongress.org

National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life
BlackCatholicsForLife.org

US Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee against Racism
usccb.org/committees/ad-hoc-committee-against-racism

February is Black History Month in the United States. As such, it’s a great time to recognize the contributions of Black Americans in the Catholic Church. Here are six Black women and men of faith who have each left a deep and lasting legacy in the Christian tradition.

Venerable Augustus Tolton

Augustus Tolton was born on April 1, 1854 to a father and mother who were both enslaved. In hopes of gaining the family’s freedom, his father escaped to the North to fight in the Civil War, where he was one of 180,000 Black soldiers who died as members of the Union Army. Augustus’ mother managed to cross the Mississippi River with her children and gain freedom in Illinois. Augustus grew into a deep love for the Catholic faith and desired to be a priest; when no seminary would accept a Black man, his local parish priests began his informal theological education.

Finally, in 1878, he was admitted to the Franciscan College in Quincy, Illinois, and after that studied for two years in Rome. Augustus was ordained in 1886 and served for two years in his hometown of Quincy before living out the rest of his ministry in St. Augustine’s Church (later to become St. Monica’s) in Chicago. He died at age 43 of heat stroke. Father Augustus Tolton was the first American Catholic priest publicly recognized as Black at the time of his ordination.

Servant of God Thea Bowman

Thea Bowman was born in 1937 in Mississippi and was raised Protestant until she informed her parents that she wished to become Catholic at age 9. Flourishing under the tutelage of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Thea grew to become both a mystic and an academic. She herself joined the Franciscan Order and also earned a PhD from the Catholic University of America before teaching at Xavier University, where she helped found the Institute for Black Catholic Studies.

Thea was so gifted in interracial connection that she was asked by the diocese of Mississippi to develop outreach to nonwhite communities and serve as an intercultural advisor. Thea was an outspoken advocate for the integration of non-European traditions within the Catholic Church, and frequently wore African dress and sang traditional African spirituals in her presentations. In 1989 she was invited to speak before the US bishops on the subject of Black presence in the Catholic Church and received a standing ovation at her speech’s conclusion. Only months later, Thea Bowman died of cancer at age 52.

Venerable Henriette DeLille

Henriette DeLille was born in 1812 in New Orleans as a free woman of color. At 24, she experienced a deep conversion of heart and decided to devote her life to God. Six years later, with the help of two friends, she cofounded the Sisters of the Holy Family as a religious order for African American women who desired to serve God by educating slaves, caring for the elderly, and tending to the sick. At the time of its founding in 1842, such an organization was not yet legal for African American women.

Henriette and her friends took in elderly women who needed daily care, and in doing so they opened the first Catholic home for the elderly in America. The Sisters of the Holy Family are also well known for their devout care of the victims of the yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans. Henriette DeLille died in 1862 at just 49 years old.

Venerable Pierre Toussaint

Pierre Toussaint was born in enslavement in Haiti in 1766 and moved to New York City with his master while in his twenties, where he was apprenticed to a hairdresser and found he was adept at the trade. His success grew as he styled the hair of many prominent white women, and upon his master’s death, he worked to support his master’s widow and fellow house slaves.

He was freed in 1807 and four years later married Marie Rose Juliette, whose freedom from slavery he had purchased. The couple adopted Pierre’s orphaned niece and went on to open their home to other orphans as well, educating them all. Pierre and Marie were known for nursing those sick with yellow fever and donating faithfully to many charities. Pierre outlived both his wife and daughter and developed a reputation for mercy, generosity, and his commitment to the Eucharist through daily mass. He died in 1853.

Servant of God Mother Mary Lange

Mother Mary Lange was born Elizabeth Lange in 1784 in Cuba to refugee parents from San Domingue. In the early 1800s the young woman immigrated to the United States, where she settled in Baltimore and learned that there was no option of free public education for Black children in Maryland. Burdened by the need, she began educating the children of the Haitian refugees and former slaves in her community out of her own home.

Elizabeth cherished the opportunity to devote her life to God through serving society’s most vulnerable children. In 1829 she founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence and as the Mother Superior, she took the name Mary. The sisters housed and educated orphans, nursed the terminally ill during the cholera epidemic of 1832, and took in the elderly. The Oblates were the first official religious order for women of color in the United States. Mother Mary Lange, the first African American Mother Superior in the nation, died in 1882.

Servant of God Julia Greeley

Julia Greeley was born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, sometime between 1833 and 1845. As a small child, her right eye was permanently damaged by a slave owner’s whip. After gaining freedom through the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Julia traveled state to state with the white families for whom she worked, finally settling in the Denver area, where she lived independently by finding odd jobs around the city.

Julia became known for her sacrificial giving to those in poverty. Despite having very little herself, she devoted much of her time collecting food, clothing, and other necessities for those who had even less. Julia became Catholic in 1880 at the Sacred Heart parish in Denver and had a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, distributing Sacred Heart literature at fire stations all over Denver and talking to firefighters about the love of God. In 1901 she became a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. Julia Greeley died in 1918 on June 7—the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which she loved so much.