Black Spirituality: Shining Light on Family & Marriage

Transcription

1 March 3-5, 2016 Presenter: Kathleen Dorsey Bellow, D.Min. Black Spirituality: Shining Light on Family & Marriage Black Spirituality upholds community as an essential human value. Family, according to Pope Francis is the foundation of society and the Church. In this session participants will explore ways in which the community-building traditions of Back Spirituality can encourage, nurture and inspire the people of God in the contemporary vocations of marriage and family for the life of the world. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Mk12:30-1 FAMILY - The Domestic Church: The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the procreation and education of children it reflects the Father s work of creation. It is called to partake of the prayer and sacrifice of Christ (CCCC 2205). FAMILY: heart of the human community ; for us the family has always meant grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the godparents, all those related by kinship or strong friendship. This rich notion of family was not only part of an African tradition but also our own African-American experience. ; The sense of family in our own African-American tradition can easily be translated into a richer sense of Church as a great and all-embracing family. (The U.S. Black Bishops, WWHSH)

2 AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE is rooted in 1) African traditions, 2) Black Church - Biblical God and God s people), 3) U.S. experience Middle Passage, Enslavement, Island/Latin influences, segregation, integration and struggle for liberation; and 4) everyday life. SPIRITUALITY: a key component of human culture, expresses a people s particular beliefs about how and why the world was created and describes its own understanding of humanity s place in that universe. Spirituality inspires human religion, which based on shared understandings of the Holy, provides the community moral direction. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY In What We Have Seen and Heard (1984, U. S. Bishops): Communitarian Holistic Joyful Contemplative In Full of the Spirit: Five Spiritual Gifts of African American Catholics (2014, C. Vanessa White) God on Our Mind People of the Book Joy, Wholeness, Contemplation All are Welcome Called to Do Justice In Sr. Thea Bowman: Shooting Star (1993, Celestine Cepress, FSPA, ed.) Spirituality is at once God-awareness, self-awareness, and other awareness. Spirituality is faith lived It encompasses the totality of personal and collective responses to religious belief- relationships, morality, worship, and daily living. As Christians we strive to understand and to act in a way that makes us part of the reality that is the will and purpose of God. NOTES

3 Black Spirituality: Shining Light on Family and Marriage March 4, 2016 Kathleen Dorsey Bellow, Presenter Maulana Karenga, in The Theory of Kawaida, identified seven African American values - the NGUZA SABA - to be celebrated at Kwanzaa and throughout the year: UNITY: To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. SELF-DETERMINATION: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves instead of being defined named, created for and spoken for by others. COLLECTIVE WORK and RESPONSIBILITY: To build and maintain our community together and make our sister s and brother s problems our problems, and to solve them together. COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS: To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together. PURPOSE: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. CREATIVITY: To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it. FAITH: To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Don t forget about your ancestors who taught you God s message. Remember what kinds of lives they lived and try to have faith like theirs (Heb13:7). Our connection with our elders is a deep and ancient one. We honor our elders most when we use their gifts to build a life filled with integrity and accomplishment.

4 March 3-5, 2016 Presenter: Kathleen Dorsey Bellow, D.Min. African Value Systems - Mbiti/Egbulem African and African American Moral Virtues - Paris The Preeminence of God & Religion sacred cosmos created and preserved by a Supreme God Sacredness of Life & Act of Living all life is sacred importance of balance and right relationships A Unified Sense of Reality world is sacred and profane cultural creations reflect and are relevant for the whole of life: work, play, worship Sense of Family, Kinship and Community highest goal: preservation & promotion of community Place and Role of Ancestry honored ancestors continue to teach and lead their people Oral Tradition communication involves words, art, music, actions, rhythm Beneficence: love and respect for others - ultimate goal is community; hospitality: sense of family extended Forbearance: patience/tolerance in the struggle for survival the wisdom of waiting on the Lord Practical Wisdom: excellent thought that guides good action; discernment acquired by example and practice knowledge of cultural traditions, good listening, openmindedness decides with the best interests of the community in mind Improvisation: human ingenuity in the day to day activities of ordinary life gives new meanings to old traditions embraces young and old to enhance the whole community Forgiveness: habitual exercise of reconciliation required for ongoing life of family, community seeks restoration of spiritual balance upset by selfishness Justice: community is responsible for well-being of its members for the preservation & promotion of community principle of inclusive equality

5 Black Spirituality: Shining Light on Family and Marriage March 4, 2016 Presenter: Kathleen Dorsey Bellow, D.Min. Resources Billingsley, Andrew. Climbing Jacob s Ladder: The Enduring Legacy of African- American Families, with a Foreword by Paula Giddings. New York: Simon and Schuster, Bowman, Thea, ed. Families: Black and Catholic, Catholic and Black. Washington: Commission on Marriage and Family Life, Department of Education, U.S. Catholic Conference, Catechism of the Catholic Church. Cepress, Celestine, ed. Sr. Thea Bowman, Shooting Star. Saint Mary s Press: Winona, Egbulem, Chris Nwaka. The Power of Africentric Celebrations: Inspirations from the Zairean Liturgy. New York: The Cross Publishing Company, Family Life. Archdiocese of Baltimore. Hattery, Angela J. and Earl Smith. African American Families. Sage Publications: Los Angeles, Howze, Joseph L. et. al. What We have Seen and Heard : A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization From the Black Bishops of the United States. Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, Lumas, Eva. Chapter Three: The Nature and Goals of Africentric Catholic Catechesis in God Bless Them Who Have Their Own: African American Catechetical Camp Meetin : A Gathering to Chart a New Course, Therese Wilson Favors, ed. Department of Education, United States Catholic Conference, Lyke OFM, James P. So Stood Those Who Have Come Down Through the Ages: A Pastoral Reflection on the Family in the Black Community. Diocese of Cleveland, 1986.

6 Marriage and Family. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. March Mbiti, John. Introduction to African Religion. London: Heinemann, Monsignor Ray East on African American Catholic Spirituality. March Accessed October 28, Paris, Peter J. The Spirituality of African Peoples. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project. A Religious Portrait of African Americans. January 30, Accessed October 28, Wimberly, Anne Streaty, ed. Honoring African American Elders: A Ministry in the Soul Community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, White, C. Vanessa. Full of the Spirit: Five Spiritual Gifts of African Americans in Authentically Black, Truly Catholic. U.S. Catholic (August 2002: 40-41); reprinted