Fr Peter Harris
his Sunday we are asked by our Bishops to reflect and pray on Racial Justice in our world today.
Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark, who was one of our own Bishops here in Westminster Diocese has written about this Sunday:
“This coming Sunday, we’re going to be celebrating Racial Justice Sunday in the Catholic Church across England and Wales. We might ponder, why do we do this? And I think there are two very simple reasons.
The first is that we want to celebrate the great richness of culture, nationality, language the great diversity that makes up the Catholic Church. Catholic means universal. It’s a Church for all people, for all nations across the world.
In any Catholic Church, you’ll find people from different parts of the world, and it reflects to us the great tapestry of people, of nationalities – just that great sense that we are together as one in Christ. That beautiful mosaic requires everyone to be part of it, so we’re celebrating, principally, something wonderful about the rich diversity of our humanity that is reflected beautifully in the Catholic Church universally internationally, but also in our parishes here in England and Wales.
I think there’s a second reason to why we need to mark this day, and that’s because, although we’ve made incredible strides forward in how we overcome things like racism and injustice, there are still things that need to be addressed. I met recently with some young people, and they shared with me some of the difficulties they experienced today – not 20 years ago, 100 years ago, but today – they face discrimination because of their heritage and their culture.
It’s very important that we as a Church take this opportunity to affirm the dignity of every person, the place of every person in the life of the Church, and that there is no place for racism, there is no place for racial injustice. We must speak as one people with one voice because we are one in Christ.
One of the challenges for us is to think not just about the ‘heart’ in this question of appreciating people of different cultures and nationalities, but also to think about the ‘mind’.
In a sense, we could say, “yeah, we’ve got to love everyone.” I mean, that’s true. It comes from the Gospel. It’s the commandment of the Lord Jesus. But we also need not just to broaden our hearts, to love, but we need to broaden our minds to understand and to recognise that in the cultures of others, in the languages and traditions of others, there is something enormously enriching for the whole of the world.
What none of us should do, I think, is live with a very narrow focus, that the world is about ‘me’ and where I live, my town, my country – it’s not – the world is about all of us.”
Prayer
Catholics are encouraged to mark the day by praying the words of Pope Francis:
Come, Holy Spirit, show us your beauty,
reflected in all the peoples of the earth,
so that we may discover anew
that all are important and all are necessary,
different faces of the one humanity
that God so loves.
Amen.
Image – ctbi.org.uk