THIS CURIOUS THING: AFRICAN-AMERICAN CATHOLIC LITURGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Most Reverend Wilton P. Gregory, D.S.L.
Archbishop Gerety Lecture at Seton Hall University, November 4, 1987
Quite unexpectedly during the past generation, we have discovered a
treasure in witnessing the curious wedding of the Catholic liturgical
renaissance and a renewed interest in the cultural heritage of
African-Americans. The off- spring of this unusual union is most
commonly referred to as Black Catholic Liturgy.
We can certainly chart the genesis of the present liturgical renewal
from the mandates of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. But
whence this new interest in the Afro-American cultural heritage and what
prompted their union and what of the future of their progeny? The
answers to these questions are as much speculative as they are
historically observable. It would be prudent on my part as well as
intellectually honest to acknowledge that I begin this presentation with
an hypothesis: that the contribution of the Black Catholic Liturgical
development is and will continue to be a boon to the life of the wider
Church in the United States if not beyond.
The Second Vatican Council called for a general reform of Catholic
liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium, Art. 21). And this reform was to admit
the inclusion of certain cultural elements within the liturgy itself (Sacrosanctum
concilium, Art. 37). In drafting and approving this particular dimension
of the impending liturgical reform, I can only speculate whether the
Council Fathers realized the full impact of their wisdom. Most observers
at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy: Sacrosanctum concilium, on the 4th of December, 1963, 1 am
certain, understood that such cultural intrusions into the Roman Rite
would generally come from those lands and peoples that then constituted
the "Mission Communities of the Church". (Sacrosanctum concilium, Art.
38) There was already an expressed concern that significant ritual
variations between neighboring regions ought to be avoided. (Sacrosanctum
concilium, Art. 23)
The great Western cultures of the Church had already offered their
contributions to the Roman Liturgy. Indeed, the Roman Liturgy as it was
celebrated at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution on the
Liturgy was already the hybrid creation of Judeo, Grecian, Roman,
Gallican, Celtic, Iberian, Anglo, Saxon, and a number of other early
European cultural ancestral communities. Perhaps the Council authors
envisioned only the gentle and perhaps limited inclusion of certain
tribal or regional cultural variations which would allow the Roman Rite
to reflect a modest accommodation to specific contemporary peoples. I
sincerely doubt that they had foreknowledge of a significant
contribution coming from one cultural community living, albeit on the
edge of one of the major Western nations in the world.
African-Americans have lived on the edge of American society for nearly
four centuries. Always present, but rarely given the full status of true
contributors to the American community, Black Americans at the time of
the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council were just beginning to
rediscover a rich heritage that had been born in this and but fruitful
space afforded us on the American horizon. In August, 1963, several
months prior to the issuance of the Liturgical Constitution, Black
Americans had staged a massive protest demonstration in Washington, D.
C. We were in the thick of the Civil Rights Revolution. One of the
effects of that struggle would be the rapid rediscovery of a heritage
that had gone largely unnoticed for generations. At various periods in
our history, African Americans had achieved certain Renaissance moments
during which we began to focus more attention on our cultural
achievements. Occasionally people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner
Truth, Hiram Revels, Marcus Garvey, or W. E. B. Du Bois had struck a
bold blow for Black cultural and civil significance, but generally they
were only bright stars quickly being eclipsed by the dark night of
slavery and/or publicly sanctioned segregation and discrimination. Along
the way, a great many Black people had succumbed to the terrible legacy
of slavery and racism and had begun to actually accept the premise that
we offered little in the way of cultural gifts and that we possessed few
artistic treasures with which to enrich the American community. The
Civil Rights Movement began to change such poor self-images. The
aftermath of the federal and local legislation was an era of Black
Power, Black Self-Determination, Black Awareness.
We had entered the age of Roots!
It is difficult to reconstruct an entire heritage within one generation,
especially a heritage that had been systematically destroyed, forbidden,
and belittled. The Middle-Passage, as the journey from Mother Africa to
this new homeland has been termed, was the beginning of the obliteration
of the African Past. Africa is a continent of cultures and tribal
differences which are as rich and varied as are the customs of any
vastly distributed peoples. But on the slave ship, such cultural
differences were of little consequence. language, tribal origin,
religious practices, were counted as nothing. Sterling Stuckey, in a
fascinating book: Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations
of Black America, (1987 Oxford University Press) has attempted to
reconstruct the foundation of the Black cultural heritage from the many
diverse tribal and regional differences that distinguished the slaves
and their posterity. What he surmises is that through a whole host of
oppressive factors, tribal differences soon took second place to the
primary need for nationhood and survival which produced the Black
American Culture(s) of today. There are vestigial remnants of the
earlier tribal cultures that are identifiable even today in language,
familial structure, musical compositions, and other observable sources.
While anthropologists, social scientists and historians, and students of
the African-American experience attempt to unravel the secrets from
generations of distortions and neglect, more than a few Black Americans
are now basking in the rediscovery of our heritage -from wherever that
heritage may be rescued.
We are also simultaneously beginning to appreciate the continual
accretion of the African-American community with new peoples from the
Caribbean island nations, Africa, and other homelands which can and do
boast of African peoples who also have developed distinctive cultures
and heritages and now bringing those gifts to our American community. We
must carefully and enthusiastically welcome these new peoples with their
gifts. More than ever before, to speak of the contemporary
African-American community, one must also include a breadth of peoples
and customs - all of which truly share in the African traditions, but do
so with individual and specific backgrounds.
It was the Church's call for liturgical reform and the excitement of
African- Americans rediscovering our lost or denied heritage that set
the stage for what we now know as Black Catholic Liturgy. It was, of
course, never the case that Black Americans had no cultural gifts or
treasures with which to enrich the American society. In truth,
musicians, artists, dramatists, poets, and craftspersons have long found
in the Black Community both worthy subjects to study as well as
colleagues in the artistic fields. Black American music, with the
exception of perhaps Native American music which is still much to be
explored, has been considered by some to be the only truly indigenous
music of American society. We are a people who have produced poets at a
time when it was against the law to teach us to read and write. At
almost every juncture in the development of the American nation there is
the unexplained presence of a African-American making some bold
contribution to this nation's cultural resources.
No one institution in Black America has been such a prodigious seedbed
for Black cultural expression as has the Black Church. There are those
people who refer to the Black Church as the only true Black controlled
institution in America. The Black Church is the term which refers to the
conglomerate of religious traditions in which the Black American
professed adherence. The Black Church is more than a denomination or
gathering of denominations. It is the singular institution which was
simultaneously social advocate, legal authority, political party,
professional guide, educational and moral benchmark, and spiritual and
emotional therapeutic moment, in addition to being a religious assembly.
All of these functions were not seen to be in conflict. The Black Church
is the storehouse of Black culture. While the Black Church, viewed as a
cooperate institution, is clearly circumscribed within a Protestant
religious tradition it is far richer than any single denomination. And
the religious traditions which have been given expression within the
Black Church are, in many cases, trans-denominational and reflective of
a people rather than a particular credal position. This is blatantly the
case with the music which was fashioned in and for the Black Church but
which is scripturally established upon the experience of a class of
people who were withstanding social, political, and economic pressures
of an extraordinary nature.
In 1964, Catholics in the United States were anxious to be about the
business of implementing the liturgical changes. While there had been
American Catholic devotional books and hymnals in use as far back as
John Carroll, the first Archbishop of Baltimore, the mid and late
Nineteenth Century increase in new non-English speaking Catholics during
the successive generations had made a single language approach to
liturgical development all but impossible (John A. Gurrieri, 'Catholic
Sunday in America: Its Shape and Early History", pp. 75 Sunday Morning:
A Time for Worship, ed. Mark Searle, The Liturgical Press, 1982). It was
in August, 1964 when the first widely publicized Mass in English was
celebrated during the Annual Convention of the Liturgical Conference in
Saint Louis' Kiel Auditorium that a certain Father Clarence Joseph
Rivers, Priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati led the assembly in a
Communion hymn God is Love that a new era was born. Clarence Rivers is
uniquely the Father of the Black Catholic Liturgical Movement. He more
than anyone else took the first steps which brought Black American
melody, rhythm, tempo, and style to music which was composed for
Catholic Worship. More than any one element, music has made a sizable
contribution to the development of a Black Catholic Liturgical
tradition. But there were other elements also to be considered. The
Constitution on the Liturgy called for the renewal and the expansion of
the proclamation of Sacred Scripture (Sacrosancturn concilium, Art. 51)
African-Americans are steeped in a tradition of Scriptural reading,
prayer, and citation. The Nineteenth Century African-American had a
particular affinity for the Hebrew Scriptures with their clear themes of
liberation and deliverance (Gayraud S. Wifmore, Black Religion and Black
Radicalism: An Examination of the Black Experience in Religion, l972,
Doubleday, pp. 51-53).
Black Americans are familiar with the words of Sacred Scripture in song,
paraphrase, and in a most effective way in sacred oratory. The Black
Preacher was and is an institution of long standing within our
community. Poet, musician, folk narrator, prophet, dramatist, humorist,
moralist -no one title is capable of capturing the full breath of just
what the Black Preacher does and has done in relation to the Black
worship assembly. (Henry H. Mitchell, Black Preaching, 1970 Lippincott.)
In 1964, and I dare say perhaps even occasion- ally in 1987, many a
fervent and loyal Black Catholic spent Sunday evening tuning in the
radio - now perhaps cable television adds image to sound - to hear a
rousing Black Preacher bring a Black assembly to spiritual ecstasy.
The Sunday Assembly in the Black Church is a full social occasion. It
might include, in addition to a worship service, fellowship, societal
meetings, dining, and community problem discussion and solution. The
Black Church community is and has been an association which included
many concerns which could be and eventually were all brought together in
worship. Consequently the time factor has never been an insurmountable
obstacle. Preachers preached for as long as the "spirit prompted."
Generally following worship patterns that were reflective of a free and
charismatic tradition, the tempo was determined by the spirit rather
than being subject to a fixed ritual. Even in this matter there is
considerable variation since the Black Church is broad enough to embrace
more structured and formal worship traditions as well as more
Pentecostal and charismatic patterns. The ministries within the assembly
were certainly much more diversified than those to be found in the
typical Catholic parochial community in 1964. Black Church traditions
might include male and female ushers, nurses, deacons, musical soloists,
people who offered testimonies to the power and presence of God acting
in their lives, attendants, and guest pastors. These ministerial offices
allowed a great many people to have a more active role in the Sunday
worship. The assembly was animates with a spirit of direct involvement
in the act of praise and worship.
When the constitution on the Liturgy called for active participation as
the primary concern in the reform of the Liturgy (Sacrosanctum
concilium, Art. 14), many Black American Catholics were already familiar
with a type of active participation -a tradition which at times
overlooked another concern of the Constitution which insists that active
participation is always understood according to the variety of orders,
offices, and ministries which distinguish the members of the assembly.
(Sacrosanctum concilium, Art. 26)
We are presently at a juncture in the reform of the liturgy in some of
our Black Catholic assemblies where we are attempting to reconcile
Article 14 of Sacrosanctum concilium which calls for active
participation in the Liturgy and Article 26 of the Constitution which
circumscribes that participation according to the office and ministry of
the participant. There is such a treasure to be shared from the
African-American Religious Tradition in spirit, life, hope, joy, music,
preaching, and spiritual depth, yet these treasures must be brought into
dialogue with the equally venerable Catholic worship traditions of word
and sacrament, proclamation and sign, sacred sound, touch, smell and
sight. We Black Catholic Bishops wrote in our Pastoral Letter on
Evangelization
What We Have Seen and Heard:
"From the standpoint of evangelization in the Black Community, the
liturgy of the Catholic Church has always demonstrated a way of drawing
many to the Faith and also of nourishing and deepening the faith of
those who already believe. We believe that the liturgy of the Catholic
Church can be an even more intense expression of the spiritual vitality
of those who are of African origin, just as it has been for other ethnic
and cultural groups... "Through the liturgy, Black people will come to
realize that the Catholic Church is a homeland for Black believers just
as she is for people of other cultural and ethnic traditions. In recent
years, remarkable progress has been made in our country by many talented
Black experts to adapt the liturgy to the needs and genius of the
African-American community. In order that this work can be carried on
more fully within the Catholic tradition and at the same time be
enriched by our own cultural heritage, we wish to recall the essential
qualities that should be found in a liturgical celebration within the
Black Catholic community. It should be authentically Black. It should be
truly Catholic. And it should be well prepared and well executed..." pp.
30-31
Father River's bold beginning was wise beyond perhaps even his initial
intention. He fashioned music that was clearly African-American in
sound, tempo, rhythm and spirit, while at the same time it subscribed to
Catholic worship traditions in meaning, use, and message. Following his
lead, a number of Black Catholic parishes gradually at first began using
Black Spirituals, Gospel Songs and Anthems, generally without much
knowledge about the music, its origin, its original use and its
relationship to other forms of African-American music. In truth, a great
deal of research has been accomplished by ethnomusicologists since the
1960's. As part of the growing interest in things black, we have
discovered that the religious music of Black Americans is a complex and
sophisticated topic (Thea Bowman, "The Gift of African American Sacred
Song" in Lead Me - Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal, 1987
G.I.A. Publications)
Rapidly thereafter, splendidly robed Gospel choirs were introduced, the
Permanent Diaconate was restored in the Catholic Church in 1972 adding
another Ordained ministry for many parishes, other ministries which may
have originally been found in some Black Churches were gradually
introduced into some Catholic parishes. Today we are now witnessing a
group of Catholic Priests, Deacons, and lay Ministers who are becoming
quite skilled in the rich style of classic Black evangelical preaching.
Clothes from Africa, the African- American colors of Black, Red, and
Green found their way into Catholic vestments and church decorations.
More than a few Amen Corners have been introduced into Catholic
celebrations. Sculpture and graphics which depict Christ, the Blessed
Mother, and the Saints in unmistakably African-American visage and garb
adorn many of our Catholic parishes. While the use of these
African-American items was gradual at first, some African-American
artifacts or environmental recognition are now found in most Black
Catholic parishes.
The humble beginnings which Father Rivers' genius offered have resulted
in a small but growing number of musicians and artists who are
fashioning wonderful new music and works of art which are designed for
the Catholic Liturgy but clearly reflective of the African-American
heritage. Musicians like Rawn Habor, Grayson Brown, Roger Holliman,
Eddie Bonnemere, Leon Roberts, and others have begun to compose music
for Catholic worship using the liturgical texts and exhibiting a clear
and beautiful African-American spirit and style. Artists like Sister
Angela Williams, Mr. Larry Venzant, and Mr. Jerzy Kenar are offering
splendid examples of the development of a Black Catholic Liturgical
artistic tradition (Regina Kuehn, "A Black Parish Affirms Identity",
Liturgy 80, Vol. 17, No. 5, July 1986, pp. 2-4) While these artists work
to assist the worship life of Black Catholic communities, it is not
uncommon to hear or see their works used with great joy in White
parishes. This is a clear indication that the renewal which has the
Black Catholic community as its source is simultaneously offering the
wider Church an expression of the Catholicity which marks our Faith and
the transcultural beauty of truly gifted artists of any particular
culture or generation.
The Liturgical renewal in the Black community was part of a deeper
spirit of renewal in our community. The National Office for Black
Catholics which was established as an independent Church structure by
joint agreement on the part of laity, religious, and clergy in 1970
provided a forum for bringing together ministers and professionals to
examine the phenomenon and to encourage the growth of the Black Catholic
community. One of the first projects of the National Office for Black
Catholics was to establish a department of culture and worship. This
agency sponsored a number of annual summer workshops offered throughout
the United States beginning in Detroit, Michigan in 1971. These
workshops were fertile occasions for pastoral staffs to experience and
share creative approaches to liturgical inculturation. (Gertrude Morris,
"The History of the NOBC Liturgy Workshops'. Freeing the Spirit, Vol. 7
No. 1, Spring, 1981, pp. 5-7). The National Office for Black Catholics
also began publishing Freeing the Spirit in August, 1971 as a pastoral
journal for the development of and to review the Black Catholic
Liturgical renewal.
The National Office for Black Catholics sponsored a joint conference
with the Liturgical Conference at Catholic University of America in
February 1977 on the topic: Worship and Spirituality in the Black
Community. The presentations from that conference were later published
as This Far by Faith: American Black Worship and Its African Roots.
Father Rivers was a frequent contributor to the NOBC workshops and to
the journal Freeing the Spirit as well as conducting a number of
workshops on his own. He composed many additional musical pieces and
authored a number of works on African-American culture and music
including: Soulfull Worship (1974) and The Spirit in Worship (1978). The
1970's and early 1980's saw a great excitement as Black Catholics came
together to share our triumphs and our discoveries. We were clearly
taking the task of liturgical renewal seriously.
Renovation of a physical space, composition of new music, professional
workshops are always easier projects than the renewal of the human
spirit or the conversion of personal attitudes. Just as the liturgical
reform was not universally applauded, so too the inculturation of the
liturgy according to our African-American religious heritage has
alienated, confused, and angered a number of Catholics -both White and
Black!
Perhaps one of the last myths that we must all confront and overcome as
an American society is the myth that wishes to view all
African-Americans as a monolithic group of peoples. We are a complexus
of peoples representing diversity in region, education, socio-political,
economic, and cultural influences. In a word, we exhibit the same types
of social and attitudinal stratification that marks other people. Black
Catholics, like all other Catholics fall into several difficult to
categorize religious ideological and experiential groupings. Therefore,
when we speak of Black Catholic Liturgy, we are necessarily speaking of
a complex and broad ritual development that must embrace a wealth of
musical traditions, ministerial involvement, styles of assembly
participation, and, of course, artistic expressions. If we have learned
anything during this past generation it is that the Black Catholic
Community must respect and value its own diversity if we are to live
according to the catholicity which we claim as our religious heritage as
much as the cultural treasures we are anxious to share with our fellow
Catholics for the building up of the One Church of Christ.
Some of our Black Catholics do not understand nor appreciate the
introduction of these elements from our cultural heritage into their
parish worship life, taught as they were to identify them solely with
the Protestant denominations wherein they were first used. We must be
careful in accepting any element in an uncritical manner from another
religious tradition because of the real possibility of also accepting
credal or ecclesial positions that run contrary to the truth of our
Faith. Nonetheless, the caution should not simply be imposed on African
American religious items and the development of Black Catholic Liturgy
as though this development poses a unique or singularly dangerous threat
to the unity or truth of our Catholic Faith. At the same time that Black
Catholic parishes were beginning to rediscover some of the music of our
ancestors, Catholic parishes in general were borrowing liberally from
the music of other religious denominations as well as from secular
musical sources with sometimes little concern for words or the
positioning of such music within the Liturgy, which, on occasion, were
at least heterodox. Nonetheless, we must remember that the culture of a
people is always found wherever the people have been welcomed to express
themselves -and for African-Americans the Black Church was the place of
greatest welcome for many generations. White the great treasury of Black
Religious music is a special gift to our society and to our Church, we
must never forget Father River's original insight to create new works
out of the splendor of our heritage for use in the contemporary
liturgical moment in which we live. In short, we need to both use old
songs and create new music for Black Catholic worship in 1987 .
There are concerns beyond the music that is employed from the Black
Church. After all, African-American religious music is singularly
scriptural in origin and thus belongs to the wider font of Christian
traditions in which our own Catholic Church has an originating place of
honor. The style of participation is another point of concern. Catholic
worship is hierarchical in structure as it reflects the Church's nature.
Catholic worship is also Sacramental in its ritual pattern. The
proclamation of the Word of God and its inspirational and enlightened
exposition in the homily are only the first part of a two part worship
fabric. Some people note that Black Catholic Liturgy occasionally
exhibits a heightened celebration of the Liturgy of the Word but a less
richly developed Sacramental response. We have much to do to achieve a
balance which respects both the gifts of the African-American community
and the worship tradition of the Roman Rite.
In 1984, the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy established a standing
sub- committee for Black Liturgy, of which I have the privilege of
serving as the first chairman. This sub-committee of bishops, clergy,
religious, and laity serve as a sounding board and a catalyst for the
Bishops' Liturgy Committee to assist the Bishops in being aware of
specific and general concerns which confront the Black Catholic
assembly. Recently we have completed a document which will be issued
shortly of a reflective analysis of the current options for liturgical
accommodation for the Eucharistic Celebration. We have also begun work
on a document which will attempt to explain the overall wisdom and
phenomenon of Black Catholic worship traditions.
Obviously, one very difficult factor to be considered is the attitude
which may still prevail for certain Black Catholics that not only are
our religious cultural gifts non-Catholic in origin, they are inferior
in quality and nature. This is always an unfortunate attitude. One can
certainly understand a person who does not particularly care for a style
of music or a type of behavior in worship or a method of preaching or a
form of art, but to find difficulty with a people's cultural heritage as
inherently inferior or without redeeming value would be a sad commentary
indeed. Patience and magnanimity are the most important qualities which
must guide our progress in this enterprise. The importance of
individuals must never be overlooked, while the good to be accomplished
for the Church in service to the Black Community must never be held
hostage because of individual disagreement over the wisdom or worth of
our liturgical growth. If the Church is to grow within the Black
American Community, it must invest itself in the wonderful task of
recognizing the gifts of Black people. The Church cannot remain a
stranger to the African-American traditions, but she must adorn herself
with the works of beauty which have been fashioned by our people as an
expression of the dignity which we received from the One Creator of us
all.
Recently there has been much progress in the development of the Black
Catholic Liturgical traditions. In the fall of 1987, the GIA Publishers
issued the long-awaited Black Catholic Hymnal: Lead Me -Guide Me. The
hymnal was a joint project of the Black Clergy Caucus, The Knights and
Ladies Auxiliaries of Saint Peter Claver, the National Association of
Black Catholic Administrators, the Black Sisters' Caucus and a group of
artists under the able direction of Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, Auxiliary
Bishop of Cleveland. The work was widely reviewed and the product of
extensive consultation. It represents the first attempt to gather a
selection of the treasury of Black Religious music (traditional and
contemporary) and to arrange it for effective and proper use for the
Catholic Liturgy. It is a triumph of the first order.
There is a growing phenomenon of Revivals which are everywhere growing
in popularity. These liturgical celebrations of Scripture, Music,
Preaching, Prayer, and Fellowship trace their origin to the period of
the Great Awakening of the Nineteenth Century, but certainly follow an
equally venerable tradition of Catholic Mission Preaching which was
wide-spread only a generation ago. At the time of the composition of the
paper, the work of Diana Hayes, S.T.D. Candidate at the Catholic
University of Louvain, "Black Catholic Revivalism-The Emergence of a New
Form of Worship". Journal of the Inter- denominational Theological
Center, Vol. 14 (Fall 1986-Spring 1987) Nos. 51 and 52, pp. 87-107 has
not been received in this country.
In May of 1987 over 1600 delegates from throughout the United States of
America gathered at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.
C. for the Sixth National Black Catholic Congress. This assembly,
building upon the earlier five Congresses of the last century, brought
the Black Church together to discuss and plan for our future and to
address the needs that we experience in common. The liturgies of the
Congress were spectacular expresses of the sophistication of the Black
Catholic Liturgical development and its widely accepted approbation by
Black Catholics from throughout the United States.
In January, 1988, the United States Catholic Conference will establish a
Secretariat for Black Catholics. This office will be another indication
of the presence of Black Catholics in the heart and mind of the Church
in the United States and the affirmation of the development of our
singular gifts for the life of our Church.
However, all of this is not enough; there are issues which still need to
be addressed. Racism and its terrible effects on all of us is still too
present and too common. Some urge even greater freedom to express our
cultural gifts within the Liturgy. Some insist only a Black Rite will
finally solve all of our issues. Some argue that greater freedom to
experiment is necessary. The Church has certainly embarked upon a
wonderful adventure -one whose full course has yet to be completed -but
one which is already bearing much fruit.
The simple fact that people are excited, and some perhaps are even a bit
impatient, about the possibilities and the future development of the
Roman Catholic Liturgy in dialogue with the African-American cultural
heritage is a hopeful sign. Who would have thought that so much could be
accomplished within one generation. Like Countee Cullen:
I doubt not God is good, well meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels his awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
YET DO I MARVEL, Countee Cullen
Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, D.S.L.
Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago
