By Rita McInerney

“We black Catholics have gifts to offer and to share,” Bishop James P. Lyke, O.F.M., auxiliary bishop of Cleveland, Ohio, told the opening session of the 15th annual workshop in Afro-American Culture and Worship held in Atlanta from July 21 through 26. Sponsors were the National Office for Black Catholics (NOBC) and the Commission for Black Catholic Concerns of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

The gifts were offered and shared for six days: at rehearsals and workshops on music, African and Caribbean dance for Afro-American liturgy, congregational movement, evangelization, spirituality, vocations and family.

At the opening session of the convention, Bishop Lyke spoke on the pastoral, “What We Have Seen and Heard,” issued by the 10 black bishops of the United States on Sept. 9, 1984, the feast of St. Peter Claver.

The bishop stressed that the pastoral seeks to offer a black input into the task of evangelization. He said the pastoral was a call and a challenge for black Catholics to take responsibility for the implantation and spread of the faith. At the same time he was critical of some attitudes and omissions in the Church in recognition of black Catholics.

“Black Catholics have the highest regard for the sacraments, traditions, and historical values of the Church. Black Catholics appreciate the sense of community and the concern for social unity and justice contained in Church teaching...Black Catholics recognize the universal breadth of the Church and her solidarity with Christ in true worship of the Father.” “But these same black Catholics noted that all too often the Church has been slow in the forefront, slow to make the necessary changes, and relate to the needs of today and of each unique culture. Ideologically, liturgically, financially, administratively and numerically, the Church is still too white.”

“Clergy reflect racist attitudes or are not sensitive to black people, or are not committed to the radical preaching on justice. Parishes lack good programs for young and older black people, and parish councils are not efficient enough to respond to black needs. The Church fails to attract and train enough black lay people for leadership service and lacks a sincere drive and commitment to black vocations. These are some of the things black Catholics are concerned about.”

Using Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s “seamless garment of Christian values” as an example, Bishop Lyke urged there be “a seamless garment of concern, of conscious and efficacious efforts, to incorporate black Catholics within the structure of the Church, at decision making levels, diocesan pastoral councils, committees, boards, agencies. Is there an outreach to include black Catholics in areas that affect the whole Church, or are they called on only when we deal with a ‘black issue’?”

Welcoming the 300 workshop participants were Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan and Father Bruce Wilkinson, chairman of the Commission for Black Catholic Concerns in the archdiocese. The choir of Our Lady of Lourdes parish sang.

Bishop Lyke followed up on Monday morning, July 22, with a session on “Evangelization Through Liturgy: Authorization and Encouragement.” His listeners, alert and receptive after a moving prayer service featuring the choir from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in New Orleans under the direction of Shirley Stewart, greeted his remarks with fond respect.

His talk ranged over several aspects of worship including preaching, choirs, and altar adornment. While acknowledging that there is a lack of good quality homilies in black Catholic churches which could be improved with more participation in preaching workshops, he said. “Our people don’t want our ordained people imitating black preaching styles...our people respond to the quality and character of the priest. You can have a great preacher who doesn’t visit the sick or go into the school...If our people had the choice they would take a dry sermon from a priest who visits the sick” and attends to the other duties of a man of God.

For example, he said, the preaching style of Father Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., who teaches theology at St. Meinrad’s Archabby, in Indiana, while of monastic style, had great content. “What he has to say! If you listen you will be moved to change. You can have a rousing sermon but if it doesn’t get you to think, examine your life, it’s not a good homily.”

With a lively delivery he described the church that “burns” and the church that “freezes.” In the first, the parishioner can’t remember after Mass what the sermon was about but always had a “good time.” In the church that “freezes” the preacher gives a lecture or essay that only appeals to the mind. There is balance needed, he said, of heart and mind.

“In Roman Catholic liturgy there are two important places in the sanctuary,” Bishop Lyke stressed. “The altar and the pulpit (sacrifice and Word). When I walk into a Church if the altar is the last thing I see the liturgy is not Catholic.”

The presider’s chair must have dignity and strength, he added. “It should not be a throne. It must be simple, without a canopy. It should say that the person presiding is serving the community.”

Altars should not be “relics from the rectory” and should not be covered with flowers from the Saturday wedding, he said.

Flags and banners have no place in the sanctuary, he said. Very often, the bishop said, the altar becomes the place to hang “our favorite banner.” Such banner “homilettes” as “You All Come-We Are Family” don’t belong. And for preaching the Word, a lectern won’t do. It doesn’t have the dignity “deserving of the Word of God” that a pulpit has, he said emphatically.

“The sanctuary should have awesome simplicity. Everything else serves that.” The same applies to the choir. “You are there to serve in a participatory way. If the congregation is not singing then the choir has done something wrong.”

“The Word of God is being proclaimed,” he reminded in warning against use of outside material during the liturgy. “Martin Luther King would turn over in his grave if he thought his sermons were being used in the place of Scripture,” he said, while conceding that some poetry or readings might be appropriate after Communion.

He declared the flashy or “over tasteful” appearance of some choirs. And the sanctuaries where “all you can see is choir. It’s all right for Patti LaBelle at the 50th anniversary of the Apollo. Whatever we do should serve the liturgy.”

“When a choir is positioned behind the altar, wearing beautiful robes, big crosses and capes, the altar is lost. We are then being faithful to the Catholic dimensions of our worship.” The bishop’s workshop was one of several dozen held at the Atlanta hotel over five days.

A Mass of Reconciliation Friday night, July 26, at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hapeville, concluded the convention. The liturgy was a vibrant marriage of spirituality, music and movement with the celebrants on the altar, the pews and the choir section united in an outpouring of love for God and each other.

Father Michael Woods, pastor, welcomed NOBC members from all the country and people from other parishes in Atlanta. A liturgical drama recalling the lives of black popes and saints was enacted by young members of NOBC. Father Bruce Wilkinson and the priests and deacons concelebrating with him were welcomed in an African dance performed by Chuck Davis and his troupe. The pulsating beat of the drum and the full voices of choir and congregation rang out in the African cadences of the hymn.

Father Wilkinson in his homily on St. John’s Gospel of the Good Shepherd, reminded his listeners of the need to rid their lives of confusing voices because the “only thing that makes us happy is what we receive in His Spirit...He calls us to be people committed by our faith.”

Davis and his white clad dancers returned for a dramatic liturgical dance at the Offertory with music composed by Roger Holliman. Composers Avon Gillespie and Roderick J. Bell also contributed sacred music for the liturgy.

For both the signing of the “Our Father” and the recessional hymn, “We Shall Overcome,” the people moved out of the pews and joined hands in the aisles.