The Courage to Speak
This week, I’m excited to share a story of courage from a heroine I did not know much about. I had heard her name mentioned before, but I learned about her bravery from writer and historian Jemar Tisby in his book The Spirit of Justice. At the end of this article, you’ll find a link to Tisby’s Substack and a video featuring other courageous men and women.
Story of Courage
Thea Bowman was born in the Mississippi Delta, the granddaughter of slaves. She attended Catholic school and asked to become Catholic when she was 9.
Choosing her own religion was not the only groundbreaking thing Bowman would do. Responding to God’s call, she became the first African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She became a teacher, eventually earning her PhD and teaching at the college level.
A website dedicated to Sr. Thea included the following:
Sister Thea Bowman’s life was always one of Gospel joy, enduring faith, and persevering prayer even in the midst of racial prejudice, cultural insensitivity, and debilitating illness. Her personal holiness witnessed to the faith and endurance of her ancestors, the hope expressed in the Spirituals, compassion for the poor and marginalized, her devotion to the Eucharist, and the radical love embodied by St. Francis of Assisi. Asked how she made sense of suffering, she answered, “I don’t make sense of suffering. I try to make sense of life…I try each day to see God’s will…”1
Her entire life’s work was done within the structure of the Catholic Church, following the Holy Spirit where it led her.
In 1990, the USCCB (all of the Catholic bishops in the U.S.) invited Sr. Thea to speak at their meeting on what it meant to be Black and Catholic.2
Imagine the butterflies in her stomach as she prepared her remarks, knowing that she was an African-American Catholic speaking about her faith experience to a room filled with mostly White bishops. Put yourself in her shoes. Imagine also that you are dying of cancer, confined to a wheelchair because the pain in your bones no longer allows you to walk.
In the video of her speech, at about the 8:00 minute mark, the camera pans out over the audience and you get to see for the first time what Sr. Thea is seeing as she speaks. What would it be like to be the only woman speaking to a room full of men in black suits and white collars?
Cancer did not weaken her voice. Fear did not dim her courage.
She speaks about the need of the Catholic Church to welcome all people and incorporate the rich traditions of other cultures into the practice of our faith.
Her entire talk is worth watching. Toward the end, at about the 28:00 minute mark, she does something remarkable— she rouses the bishops to sing.
Dr. David Dault, in a blog post on the Franciscan Media website, called her a Prophet of Change. He noted that, “At her funeral Mass, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston remarked: ‘She challenged us to own our individuality yet pleaded for us to be one in Christ. This was her song, and no one sang it more eloquently than Sister Thea Bowman.’”3
While silence is golden and listening is important, there are times when we are called to speak. May we each have Sr. Thea Bowman’s courage to speak of our own experiences to inspire change.
Etymology of the word Courage
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Courage as: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. 4
My favorite thesaurus website, Word Hippo, includes these definitions of courage:
The quality of being brave or confident without being reckless or thoughtless (synonyms: fortitude, backbone, confidence, audacity, heart)
The quality of having a firm determination to do something (synonyms: tenacity, spunk, gutsiness)
The root of the word— Cor— comes from Latin meaning heart. This seems important as courage does seem to come from a place deep within, a place that needs to be nurtured and tended.
https://www.sistertheabowman.com/biography/
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/sister-thea-bowman-prophet-of-change/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/courage#h1