Lifting every spirit

Bernadine Karikari watches and waits pew-side at Holy Name Cathedral as daughter Jennifer completes her homework.

The Karikaris, parishioners of St. Columbanus, have come to the first night of the Black Catholic Revival, a three-day, three-site event held in September “to fellowship with other Catholics.”

“As far as the singing,” said the elder Karikari, “I don’t know if it will be quite what people say comes from the Baptists, but I think it will be great.”

Talk to black Catholics and some—“don’t quote me”—will speak about the tightrope they feel they must walk between praising the Lord in a spiritually-fulfilling way and not being accused of indulging in “Baptist music.”

Depending on who’s speaking, black Catholics both criticize and crave the style of music best described as Gospel.

“No, all that rocking and clapping. That’s not Catholic,” said one man, asking that his comment not be attributed.

Yet, it was the revival’s music that attracted so many people off the sidewalk on State Street and drew them into the pews with Karikari.
“This is my kind of music,” said a petite white woman, shopping bag in hand, as she rushed inside the cathedral.

Deneen Taylor of St. Sabina Parish, song leader for the Black Catholic Revival Mass Choir, spoke over the joyful noise. “Worship takes us into relationship with the Lord,” she said.

Sheila Adams knows that music has the power to reach beyond the doors of the church to evangelize.

Adams, director of the African-American Ministry in the archdiocesan Office for Ethnic Ministries, not only enjoys this black profession of faith, many times she has started off her Sunday clicking on the radio to listen to music of love and inspiration.

“For myself, and a lot of cradle Catholics, it doesn’t have to be Gospel music, because most of us weren’t brought up on Gospel. But it needs to be something that’s going to stir the soul,” said Adams.

And it is about more than the music, said Adams, who has attended Catholic weddings that have incorporated the principles of Kwanzaa, the African-American feast of harvest, into the ceremony, and where couples “jumped the broom,” a custom with African roots.

Adams noted, often to create such a liturgy one must convince a pastor or liturgy team that it is essential to express their soul, both black and Catholic.

“It is about creating an environment … about having pieces of the ‘Motherland’ around. Many black churches will have kente cloth, they’ll dress the altars in cloth from Africa or, in the Haitian community, with pieces from their culture. You’ll find parishes with crucifixes that have a black corpus and statues of the Black Madonna and child because you want to be able to enter a church home and find symbols that represent you,” said Adams.

She added, “Art is very important.”

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