On All Saints' Day, Black Catholics celebrate heritage, hear call to be pilgrims of hope, holiness

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (OSV News) -- At St. Augustine Parish, South Bend's only historically Black Catholic church, plans for an All Saints' Day celebration Nov. 1 had been thoughtfully made.

The goal was to celebrate the saints but also to expand everyone's understanding of saints. Who are the saints? How did they become saints? And what do the saints mean to us today?

Deacon Mel Tardy warmly welcomed and thanked those attending the half-day event that the parish called "A Season for Saints! How to be Pilgrims of Hope and Holiness in Our World Today."

He explained that it would feature a keynote address by Father Kareem Smith, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, who is president of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus. Following the keynote, there would be a working brunch, group discussions and faith-sharing, and a concluding All Saints' Day Mass.

Deacon Tardy also pointed out that November is Black Catholic History Month and this day would also honor Pope Francis' request to celebrate hope in this Year of Jubilee
Before he introduced Father Smith, Deacon Tardy pointed to a ceramic statue of a bird on a pedestal nearby. The bird is called a Sankofa, he said, and is an important West African symbol that American Black Catholics should know about. The bird, he said, always has its head turned backward, symbolizing care and attention to the past even while its feet are pointed forward.

"Today, we are going back to fetch our history and to see what our ancestors have done," Deacon Tardy said. "The idea is that you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been. If you want to destroy a people, you make them forget their history. That happened during slavery. We were told to forget who we were."

At this All Saints' Day event, he explained, "attention would be paid to calling on our spiritual ancestors to be with us -- both our biological ancestors and our ancestors in faith -- the saints."

Father Smith in his keynote immediately picked up on Deacon Tardy's point about the importance of knowing our own histories.

"If you go to Ellis Island," he began, "you see where people whose ancestors emigrated from Europe can look up their loved ones and find their names. Black Americans have no Ellis Island! And we cannot go to the bottom of slave ships that have sunk into the sea to find our family names that were carved into the boat. Therefore, there's an important need in our lives to know and discover our history. That includes the story of our salvation."

In fact, he said, Black Catholics should be reminded that they have a very long and beautiful Catholic heritage and history.

"It's in the Bible ... in the Acts of the Apostles," he explained. "The Ethiopian eunuch is riding along in his chariot. He was a 'somebody' driving along when Philip was moved by the Holy Spirit to go up to that chariot and share the good news of the Gospel! I love the response of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts (Acts 8:26-39)! He said, 'What stops me from being baptized now?'"

And that very day, as we know, the faith of Jesus Christ reached the shores of Africa.

Sts. Augustine of Hippo and his mother, Monica of Thagaste, he added, were also early followers of Jesus in Africa. Today's Black Catholics should know and remember that there is a rich history and long lineage of Black saints.

Much closer to our own times, Father Smith continued, are the inspiring American stories of Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) and Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman (1937-1990).

They are both, he said, American Black saints "in the making" as their causes for sainthood are being studied by the church. Toussaint and Sister Thea, who was a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, are among seven Black Catholics with active sainthood causes -- dubbed the "Saintly Seven."

According to Father Smith, Toussaint was born into slavery in Haiti, then sold and brought to the United States where he found remarkable success as a hairdresser in New York. His heart was so loving and his faith so deep that he even took care of the woman who was his slave owner after her husband died, and she became ill.

As Toussaint became professionally successful as a hairdresser, he founded homes for poor Irish girls in New York. He also gave generously to the New York Archdiocese when the first St. Patrick's Cathedral was built.

"Nonetheless," Father Smith pointed out, "Toussaint was only allowed to worship there one time and had to sit in the very back because he was Black. And he was almost turned away on the day of the cathedral's dedication."

Sister Thea "taught us that as a nation to be fully Black and to be fully Catholic was not a contradiction but a gift!" he said. Born in Canton, Mississippi, she was an educator, musician and liturgist who ministered extensively to Blacks and to Black Catholics.

A favorite saying of hers, he said, was that believers must "remember who we are and whose we are." Sister Thea died of breast cancer at age 52, just months after addressing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from a wheelchair. She talked about and sang about Black culture and social justice, challenging the church to greater inclusion.

As Father Smith began to conclude his remarks for this All Saints' Day celebration, he reminded everyone that all of them were also called to sainthood.

"Saints are not marble statues," he pointed out. "They are walking, breathing proof that God still visits his people. This season of saints is a time to remember that sanctity is not a thing of the past but a present call. We live in a world of shutdowns and scarcity of food where division seems easier than unity, and despair easier than hope. We must be pilgrims of hope and holiness, walking down the roads of our world, carrying not fear, but faith."

"We are being invited," he said, issuing a challenge, "to be the saints of our day, of our time. When the church canonizes a saint, it does not say, 'Here is someone that you cannot imitate.' That would be useless. It says, 'Here is proof that holiness is possible.'"