Welcome to the Saint Patrick Catholic School Chapel Reflection podcast brought to you by Saint Patrick Catholic School in Norfolk, VA.  This week, principal Steve Hammond meditates on the meaning of Lent and reminds the students of the importance of African American History Month and the lessons we can be mindful of about eradicating racism and bigotry in our lives.

 

A transcript of the reflection is below:

Gospel
Lk 9:28b-36
Jesus took Peter, John, and James
and went up the mountain to pray.
While he was praying his face changed in appearance
and his clothing became dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,
who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,
but becoming fully awake,
they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.
As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,
“Master, it is good that we are here;
let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
But he did not know what he was saying.
While he was still speaking,
a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,
and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.
They fell silent and did not at that time
tell anyone what they had seen.

In this Gospel, God allows Jesus to reveal himself to Peter, John and James on a mountain top.  The Jesus that these three men know was changed.  His appearance was changed while he was praying and his clothes became dazzling white.  And the Gospel says that Jesus was conversing with two of the greatest prophets, Moses and Elijah.

God is always working through Jesus but Jesus has a hand in it. Jesus is in close relationship with God.  Jesus prayed and prayed often.  And the kind of praying that Jesus prayed was sustained, centered, open prayer.  Prayer that established a connection directly to God and allowed Jesus to be a pure channel of God’s will.  This is a lovely example of what happens when we give ourselves totally and without reservation to our God.  God will transform us!  We become dazzling, new.  We become more like God.

And this starts by praying.  How often do you pray? Every morning?  Every day?  All times during the day?  When you want something?  When you are hurting?  I would ask you to pray and to pray daily and well.  Ask God to assist you to do His will.  Put your shoes under your bed, so that when you get them in the morning, you will be on your knees and it will be a reminder to pray.  When you crawl into bed at night, say your prayers.  Become a channel to God through prayer and be transformed.

There is much more in this Gospel.  Remember this is LENT where we reflect upon our own sins and develop a plan to eliminate them from our lives.  This is black history month when we reflect upon the history of African Americans in this country and the agony and the ecstacy of race and the remarkable climb of a people that began in slavery and has ascended to the point where we have an African American president of the United States. It is a remarkable and an exciting story.

To get to this point, many people have put their bigotry, prejudice and racism away. They have seen their own ignorance and have been transformed into new people.  And that is what I would like to speak to this morning.  At Saint Patrick Catholic School, we are building a place that can teach the world to live without hate, bigotry and racism.  We are called to be the light to the world.

Definition of terms.  All scholars begin with defining terms. So: what is bigotry?  What is racism?  What is prejudice?

So, now let us speak to the vile attitude and behavior of racism and bigotry.  When we think of racism today at this moment in time, we usually think of the conflict between blacks and whites… that is, African American individuals and Caucasian individuals.  And this tends to be our focal point because of the deep scars of slavery, the sin of slavery which started in this country hundreds of years ago.  It was and is wrong, deeply wrong, that humans should enslave other humans.  Our country will have to live with the effects of the terrible sin of slavery until we can together climb into a fresh, clean and “post racial” world.  It is such a world that we are building at Saint Patrick Catholic School. But remember, slavery still lives in the world and we are called to speak out against it.

Science tells us that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  It’s certainly holds true with racism and bigotry.  When someone receives an evil action, many times he or she attempts to “get back” at the individual.  Getting back is not only decidedly against Christ’s commandments, but it sets up a cycle of violence that will continue unless someone of intelligence and courage breaks that cycle through negotiation, non-violence, forgiveness, compassion and love.  In this old world of ours, the cycle of violence is as clear as adding two and two together.  Breaking that cycle of violence is a lesson that you must learn and you must understand if you are to become wise… if you are to become a Christian.

Yet even in the short history of our nation we see bigotry and racism against virtually every ethnic and racial group that has inhabited this good country.  Let us consider: native Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Muslim Americans, Catholic Americans and certainly, hitting close to the Irish namesake of this school, Irish Americans.  All of these groups and many more have suffered tremendously under the sin of racism and bigotry.  It is a sin of judging a person by appearances.  It is important to know that Christ asks us not to judge a person in any way!  But many human beings ignore that and judge another person by what someone else says of him/her or by a “stereotype.” This is abjectly wrong.  Stephen Covey says in his second habit of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “First, seek understanding; then seek to be understood.”  When we seek understanding, deep understanding, as it applies to other people what we invariably discover is that they are not so much different than ourselves.  When we understand them as human beings with essentially the same gifts and gaps that we possess, we relate to them as individuals, as brothers and sisters of the same family.  We can see in them God’s grace and beauty.  When we first seek understanding and truly take the time to do so; that is, getting to know people as individuals, then we can love them.

Yet this does not happen without taking the time and energy to “first understand.”  And in this world, busy and as complicated as it is, we most often do not take the time to seek deep understanding of another human being, another ethnicity, another culture, another race.

And here is the rub.  Once we do have a deep understanding and our prejudices erode as they inevitably must with men and women of good will we have developed a new belief system.  And with this belief system, our behaviors will change.  It is inevitable.  Remember, my friends, our behavior rides on the tracks of our beliefs.  So we believe… so we feel… so we act! If we change our beliefs, then we change our lives!  What will happen then is also inevitable.  With our new, fresh, resurrected beliefs, we will begin to negotiate our differences with other people.  Yes, we will still have differences, the world is still a sinful world, but, we will have that perspective, we will have the understanding, we will have the wisdom, we will have the grace to treat each other not superficially, not by the exterior but by the interior which is our soul filled with God’s love and grace.  Oh happy day!

When you do this, do not expect the world to understand.  You will be demeaned, you will be disparaged, you will be alienated, and ostracized.  If you look into history, you will see it as plain as rain water.  Those people who stand up for the right thing, who confronted racism, they will be challenged by their society and culture.  But we are called, as Catholics, as Christians to do nothing less.  We are called to stand up against people making fun of others, insulting others, making biased policy against others, because of their exterior!

My admonition to you this morning is to do three things: the first is to judge not!  It is not your’s to judge someone else.  Remember, when you attempt to judge someone, when you point your finger at someone, three more point back at you!

The second is first, seek deep understanding.  That is before you do anything, find out as much about the individual or the situation as you possibly can.  Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us that God gave you a soul, that is (1) an intellect, a brain, a capacity to think deeply and he also gave you (2) free will… the ability to choose.  Use them!  This is what makes us truly human, fully human!  Our intelligence and our ability to choose. Do not settle for anything less.

And the third thing is that once you have a deep understanding,… ACT!  Do something about it! Go and negotiate the difference is that you have with that other human being.  Most of the time when we are in conflict with another person or people, we, as human beings, tend to run from it.  We avoid the conflict.  This aspect of human psychology is as common as dirt.  It is called AVOIDANCE. But what you are called to do is not to run from it but to go closer to the person you have in conflict, to get nearer and to negotiate your differences with them.  Sit down with them and find out what they want, compare it with what you want and then find common ground.  Is this so difficult?  Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is amazingly frustrating.  But if we are to claim our Christianity, if we are to embrace Christ as our Lord and our Savior, then we are called to be and to do nothing less.  This is your lesson today.  Whether you are five or whether you are 105.

Let me close with a story.  This is a story of our school’s own namesake: Saint Patrick Catholic Church which stood in Norfolk in and before 1857.  In those days before the Civil War and during the middle of the great potato famine in Ireland, many of the people in this country showed great bigotry toward African Americans as well as Irish Americans.  It was a time of great tension and of great strife.  Many African Americans were still in slavery and Irish Americans were reviled by much of the American public.  Signs that said “Irish need not apply” for jobs, was commonplace in shop windows and factories.  And during this time in Norfolk, there was an Irish pastor of Saint Patrick Catholic Church near where St. Mary’s now stands who allowed African Americans to worship alongside white Americans in his Parish.  It was unheard of!  It was shocking!  It was reviled.  And because of the courage of this one Irish Catholic priest, much of the community turned against him personally and because of this, a certain group of people burned down Saint Patrick Catholic Church.  Burned it to the ground and left its smoldering in its own ashes.  It was an act of intense bigotry and racism.  It was a sad and mournful day.

But, not too many years later, the Basilica of St. Mary’s of the immaculate conception arose from those ashes.  The beautiful Basilica of St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception which every one of you should visit at some time, stands now as a testament to the resilience, determination and the loyalty of the people of that day.

And, in the wisdom of our own school board, they named this school after that old church called St. Patrick’s.  Why did they do so?  Because they wanted the school to also rise of the ashes of the burned and destroyed Saint Patrick Catholic’s Church of 1857 and stand as a testament that racism and bigotry are not a part and will not be a part of this school!  They made a testament that in this school, all are welcomed, all are welcomed, all are welcomed!  They made a testament to that we would, as a school, always:

1.  Not judge another human being, 2.  Seek intelligent, deep understanding of our relational challenges and 3.  Compassionately and intelligently negotiate our differences.

When you think of Saint Patrick Catholic school, your school, Wolfhound Country… know this … we stand together, hand in hand, heart to heart, shoulder to shoulder as a community built on the values of wisdom, of compassion, of deep understanding, of the capacity to solve our problems what ever they may be!  In our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ this is who we are!  Claim it!  Do not settle for less in your personal lives!  And set your boundaries so that other people know what you stand for and what you will not stand for!

This is who we are; this is what God calls us to be!  As a take away this morning, I ask you to reflect upon this in your journey portfolio and to develop one goal that will help you remove all bigotry and racism in your life.  During this time of Lent, it is an excellent opportunity to reflect upon erasing the prejudice and all forms of bigotry in your life.  You are called to be more, to a higher destiny.

It begins with you.  And it begins now.  Do so and be transformed! Don’t lose the opportunity.

 

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