Black History Month Mass
St. Matthew Church
February 4, 2025
I’m glad to see so many of you here today representing so many Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Thanks for coming to celebrate Black History Month and to pray for an end to racism and progress in achieving racial justice.
History is important. It matters. Black History matters. It is important to know about the lives of people who lived before us. To know what they faced. To know how they struggled. To know the heroes. Black History Month is designed to help us do that –whether you are in elementary school, high school, or beyond.
It is important that we face up to injustices of the past, especially slavery. No one is anyone else’s property. No one owns another human being. We are made in God’s image. We are his people. We belong to him. The truth is that God loves each of us and has endowed us, as the Declaration of Independence says, “with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Almost 250 years later, our country is trying to live up to that ideal.
History has more than its share of villains. The slave traders and slave owners, sadly, some of them Catholic. Those who made it hard for emancipated slaves to break out of poverty and servitude. Those who put into place Jim Crow laws and turned a blind eye to oppression and violence against Black people. Among the villains are people who were indifferent. Who couldn’t be bothered. Who just wanted the status quo.
But there were heroes. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King; Jr. Rosa Parks; Frederick Douglas; Harriet Tubman; Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. DuBois; Thurgood Marshall. Every one of these were great citizens and heroes. They helped break down barriers. They paved the way for progress. They devoted their lives to making our country more just and equitable.
Some of these heroes were Catholic. We call them the “Saintly Seven”. Mother Mary Lange, who educated young women of color in Baltimore prior to the Civil War and founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The others are: Pierre Toussaint, Henriett Delille, Fr. Augustus Tolton, Julia Greely, Thea Bowman, Martin Maria DePorres Ward. In November we celebrated Black Catholic History Month. I hope you learned about these remarkable women and men of color who are on track to be recognized as saints in the Catholic Church.
They lived in different times and had different callings. Three of them were religious sisters. Two were lay people. One was a priest. All of them sought to follow Jesus and to serve his Church, and did just that in spite of discrimination and racism. Each of them gave everything to serve Christ and his people. Each of them is a hero, a role model for us.
Black History Month is a good time to refresh your knowledge of them. We need to know who they are what they did. We need to pray that they will be recognized as saints. And we need to ask their prayers and imitate their virtues.
History shows us villains and heroes. We honor our those who laid the foundation for the civil rights movement and those who taken up the cause of racial justice down to our own day. They are people who helped make the world a better, more just place. But the true heroes of history are the saints, the saints God has raised up from the Black Catholic community. They are praying for you. They are rooting for you. They love you.
Here’s how you can honor them. During Black History month, resolve to write a chapter of history of your own. Resolve to develop your God-given talents, make good use of the Catholic education you are receiving, ask for God’s help and the help of your parents and mentors in becoming the very best possible version of yourself. Become one of those heroes who is willing to make sacrifices to make our country a better place, a place that is just and compassionate, a place where everyone has the opportunity to live happy, productive lives. We are equal in the eyes of God. May we be equal in the eyes of the law. May we be equal in one another’s eyes. You are being called up to write a new chapter in history. Through the intercession of the Saintly Seven, may it be a glorious chapter of history, a chapter that those who come after you will celebrate. May God bless you and keep you always in his love.