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[Tom]

Afro-Centric Mass celebrates Black History Month, culture

By TRACIE SIMER
Jackson Sun
February 6, 2010
http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20100206/LIFESTYLE/2060303

Created as a way of welcoming Catholics of every persuasion, the Afro-Centric Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church also has become a celebration of Black History Month.

Patsy Turner, who chairs the Multi-Cultural Committee at St. Mary's, said this is the 17th year for the Afro-Centric Mass, which will be held at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. A short performance by the St. Augustine Gospel Choir will precede the service, shortly after 10 a.m.

Jackson originally had two Catholic parishes, St. Mary's and St. Joseph's Catholic Church, a mostly African-American parish, Turner said. The bishop of the Memphis diocese closed St. Joseph's in the 1960s and expected those congregants to attend St. Mary's, Turner said.

"But they didn't feel welcome," she said. "In the early '90s, I began to look around and noticed virtually none from St. Joseph's were at Mass. So we decided to bring them back in a welcoming way with an Afro-Centric Mass."

The St. Augustine Gospel Choir from Memphis has performed at each Afro-Centric Mass at St. Mary's since the beginning. Nubian drummers will provide the procession and recession music for the service, and Father Anthony Clark will lead the service, Turner said.

Clark is from the same order as St. Mary's Bishop J. Terry Steid and is the director of Multicultural Ministries for the Memphis diocese.

The event is an opportunity for the Catholic church to celebrate the African culture within, Turner said.

"It's an exuberant, lively Mass," she said. "African worship is about using all the senses, hearing and feeling. This is also our way to honor Black History Month, and Feb. 7 honors the National Day of Prayer for African-Americans and the African family."

Sean Bledsoe, a member of St. Mary's and the multicultural committee, said the Afro-Centric Mass has become a tradition for the local parish.

"It's really enhanced the African-American culture, not only within the church but in the entire community of Jackson," he said. "It's amazing how closely related our worship in the Catholic faith is with the origin of the church."

Many Africans attend St. Mary's and add to the cultural experience, Bledsoe said.

"It's educational," he said. "It's a traditional Mass that has African culture encompassed in that as well, with Nubian drummers and the music that is played. The gospel choir brings a different spiritual experience based around the African-American culture of gospel music."

Bledsoe, a convert, married into a Catholic family who attended St. Joseph's. Today, Jackson's local parish has been brought together, he said.

Turner said the diversity of St. Mary's has grown since the early years of the Afro-Centric Mass.

"We do have members who come regularly," she said. "As I look out at our parish now, I see a really nice amount of African-American worshippers there. We have regained many of our African-American Catholics in our liturgy. We've found our African-American Catholic brothers and sisters very pleased with what we were doing."

The reaction has been favorable from the start, she said.

"There was a real enthusiasm about what was done," she said. "We even have some come from the community to the Mass who aren't Catholic - like Sheriff (David) Woolfork, who always comes for the day."

[And now...]

[rogator]

Anybody else remember Missa Luba?
African music, Traditional Latin Mass.

[Bogdony]

I'd have to see it for myself before I could have an opinion. I must admit, I get a bad vibe from the story.
_________________
What don't kill you will make you more strong!

[ghebreyesus]

There is nothing "african" in an Afro-centric" liturgy. Africa is not a country or culture, but a continent. Its like saying "let's have an Asian-centric liturgy. What would that mean if we have liturgies in several rites in the Middle-East, and then the Chinese? And the Indians? And the Russians? It would destroy the meaning of "asian", and leads to a "pick and choose" mentality that paralells the pick and choose theogies of today. If they want an "african-centric" Mass let them just do an Ethiopian [Ge'ez-Rite] Mass.
There is no doubt in my mind that these "afro-centric" liturgies and programs and events are unlying an ideology. An ideology of "liberation" that seeks to create a false unity that does not exist [i.e. an "african" homeland and people] to mobilize people who would not have a commonality for a "community" consciousness to develop along lines of an ACORN or leftist CCHD community-based groups to struggle against an enemy against Socialist Change and Socialist Justice [i.e. traditional communities and traditional institutions and their supporters]. This ideology seeks to "liberate" and identify them, these newly re-constituted or self descrbed "African communities", with "liberation" against community activist communities against traditionally solidly pure Catholic communities.

[Land of the Irish]

[et cum spirit 220]

I am working a '62 Missal to make these "Afro-centric" ceremonies obsolete - Latin on the left, Ebonics on the right.

[St. Elmo]

[gpmtrad]

[ghebreyesus]

Africa has a traditional Liturgy called GE'EZ- Rite. It is the indigenous Rite of Egypt, which spread South to Ethiopia, and Eritrea. What need to create a Rite other than to artifically inorganically develop na "sense of Community to get people hyped up and organized for ACORN and CCHD- which are store fronts for left agitation. It is not for True Worship that they are given this identity, but to foster political ends--unity for all descendants of peoples that ought not to have felt "included"-- because the reality of "African-American", is not that it is "Catholic American with a Black skin color", but rather it includes a longing or nostalgia for returning to some artifical "roots" that point not to Christ, but to their alleged "long-lost tribal" primitive PAGANISM, of which they should somehow fell "pride" about. Instead, the Community brainwashers and demogogues bring these poor people back into the darkness of the cave away from Christian civilization in order to deceive them, rather forward into the light of Christ freedom. For the REAL TRUTH, the leftists fear WILL MAKE THEM TRULY FREE.
The REAL AFRICA- such as CHRISTIAN and APOSTOLIC Ethiopia, is not what these Community "activists have in mind.Suppose we tell our brother "African Americans" that they go back to their Ethiopian Christian roots" where paganism has been repudiated, by a hierarchy that does not allow or even tolerate Contraceptives, Divorce, or EVEN ANNULMENTS OF ANY KIND!!! A Church that considers the Protestants AN ENCROACHMENT ON THEIR NATIVE PEOPLES AND CULTURE.
They would say:
"Oh! Well that's not all of Africa! And besides its not "Inclusive"" The Question is "INCLUSIVE TO INCLUDE THEM INTO WHAT?"

[Tom]

A scene from the Afro-centric Mass:

[Clarebw]

[Dionysius]

[spasi i sochrani]

[ghebreyesus]

The GE'EZ rite in Washington I have not seen myself. But the drums and instruments are used much more sparingly in Ethiopia or Eritrea. Singing as shown in the Utube video is generally reserved for non-liturgical religious singing outside the Churchor in Church before or after the Divine Liturgy [aka "Mass"] or in the back of the Church during a Mass, as a background for the Altar Sacrifice. The only 3 instruments are generally used traditionally-are used sparingly-are drum, to represent the slapping of Christ at the hands of the Roman soldiers, hand cymbals which are raised up and then down, to represent the falling and getting up at His walk up Golgotha, and sticks being hit on the floor, [or xylophone at later times] representing Christ's beatings and blows for us. Plus the human voice, which is God's favorite musical instrument, which He Himself created. The musical instruments were introduced by St. Yared, around the 7th century AD, supposedly by him being transported to heaven and given to him by the angels to export and develop the Church in Africa.
I emphasize: none of Ethiopian Orthodox tradition was imposed on them by missionaries or colonialization. They were never colonized.
The Ethiopian Orthodox generally do not like to have their liturgies taped since they are mysteries.
The Catholics are much more lax in application of rules.
Anything not from this organic tradition is unnatural and inorganically grafted or imposed. Nobody needs a politically motivated Neo-African pseudo-culture. Its degrading for everyone.

[et cum spirit 220]

[Bogdony]

Maybe Obama will convert to Catholicism. We have an Afro-centric Mass and he has a doctorate from Notre Dame! I'm sure the RCIA program will explain to him that it is perfectly fine to be pro-abortion, pro homosexual, and Catholic.
_________________
What don't kill you will make you more strong!