Thea Bowman: Champion of Black Catholic Identity
Friday, July 24, 2026
The publisher and author Robert Ellsberg introduces Sister Thea Bowman (1937–1990):
Thea Bowman was one of the great treasures of the American Catholic church. As a Franciscan Sister, she managed to integrate the resources of her Catholic faith with her identity as an African American woman. Ablaze with the spirit of love, the memory of struggle, and a faith in God’s promises, she impressed her many audiences not just with her message but with her nobility of spirit. No one she encountered … could fail to catch a measure of her joy and gratitude for the gift of life. She was a particular inspiration to the black Catholic community, helping them to assert their pride of place among the People of God, while also encouraging them to enrich the wider church with the gifts of their distinctive culture and spirituality. [1]
In 1987, Bowman addressed leaders in the American Catholic Church on the theme of “Cosmic Spirituality,” grounding her message in the diversity of our lived reality:
Your conference theme is cosmic spirituality … and it’s the cosmos, the universe, the world in all its diverse spirituality for which we are preparing ourselves and our congregations. Cosmic spirituality means we’re going to have to learn new languages. We’re going to have to learn new rhythm. We’re going to have to learn new ways of glorifying the Lord…. We learn cultures and customs and languages of faith, we learn cosmic spirituality by sharing, by sharing prayer and song and ritual and story, by involving ourselves and participating, by giving and receiving.…
We are the children of the cosmos, the children of the universe … called and sent to transform the cosmos….
Cosmic spirituality means we come together, bring our gifts, bringing our histories, bringing our experience, bringing our positives and negatives, our arts, our skills, our teaching … all that we have and all that we hold….
When you come into my community, my town, my world, will you see God’s glory revealed? When you go to my brothers and sisters, in beautiful Hawaii, will you see his glory? When you experience, when you share the hungers of Ethiopia, the blood flow of Guatemala and Nicaragua, will you see his glory revealed?…
If you believe that you, like Jesus, are called by the spirit to share the spirit in the world to call forth the giftedness of God’s people, say Amen. If you believe that God is able to work in all the brothers and the sisters, in the ones you customarily write off because they don’t read right, they don’t write right, they drink too much, they smoke the wrong thing, they don’t walk right, they don’t talk right, their sexual preferences are not in agreement with the ones you claim. If you believe that God is able to transform the water of my reality into purest wine, if you believe there’s nothing God can’t do, let me hear you say Amen. [2]
References:
[1] Modern Spiritual Masters: Writings on Contemplation and Compassion, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Orbis Books, 2008), 131.
[2] Thea Bowman, “Cosmic Spirituality: No Neutral Ground,” in Twentieth-Century Apostles: Contemporary Spirituality in Action, ed. Phyllis Zagano (Liturgical Press, 1999), 151, 152, 155, 156.
1.
“Our personality is what shows up when we don’t.”
– Russ Hudson, Author on the Enneagram
It seems as though, over the past several years, I have been engaged in an ongoing learning experience about human personality, specifically my own.
The Enneagram has been one of the tools I have come across for self-knowledge and self-compassion. Since learning that I am an Enneagram 5w4, I have come to understand my tendency to do deep dives into topics, withdraw when I feel emotionally overwhelmed, and be drawn to dark/beautiful music, art, poetry, etc.
When I am not present to the moment, my personality will fall back on the normal habits of an Enneagram 5w4, with all its good and all its bad.
However, when I am present as myself, I don’t need to go on autopilot and can allow myself to be challenged, to grow, to explore new things, and even surprise myself with what I can do or try.
Chances are, the same is likely true for you. It is probably the same for all of us. If we are present to the now, as ourselves and not our “programming,” we might be surprised by the life we experience!
2.
“Union with God is not achieved by climbing but by descending.”
– Therese of Lisieux, French Carmelite Nun
Too often, we do not find God because we are looking too “high.”
It may be that God is waiting for us in the “low” places.
What if God is waiting for us among the poor, the destitute, the meek, the poor of spirit?
What if we are missing God because we are too focused on the rich, the well-off, the proud, the strong in faith?
Or, what if the God we have been wanting to meet is actually waiting for us in the deepest caverns of our heart and soul? What would happen if we never took the time to spelunk such depths within our innermost parts?
This is the mystery of the Cross: God is actually most to be found in the places we least want to find God.
3.
“God, the prophets imagine, is always doing a new thing, creating a way where there is no way, bringing life out of death, light out of very real darkness.”
– Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Scholar
Prophets are masters at imagination.
They do not only pronounce critique or judgment, but they also dream a new way forward if civilization were to follow the precepts of Yahweh.
For them, doom is not the only path forward. The future need not be bleak. All that matters is that we call things truthfully what they are and then get to the work of changing the world with our justice-oriented imaginations.
4.
“Pain is the megaphone of God to rouse a deaf world.”
– CS Lewis, English Theologian and Apologist
Pain, darkness, disappointment, etc. All of these things are means by which God tries to get our attention after all the other means of goodness, beauty, truth, and love do not.
I heard it put a while ago that pain is often a symptom of another deeper issue.
For instance, it is one thing to take Advil to help with knee pain.
It is another thing to realize that knee pain may point to a deeper, perhaps structural, problem within the knee. However, without the knee pain, we might not take the time to look more closely at our knee’s range of motion.
Of course, that is a simple analogy, but I believe it works in other ways as well.
If we are experiencing other kinds of pain, the problem is not the pain; the problem is what causes the pain.
The problem is not the homeless; the homeless are a symptom of another issue.
The problem is not that people are getting sick; getting sick may point to the need for better, nutrient-rich food.
If we can admit the pain, rather than numb it, we might then be better able to learn what it is trying to teach us.
5.
“Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”
– Anthony de Mello, Jesuit Priest and Therapist
This is also known as the “apophatic” way.
The “apophatic” way is an approach to talking about God that holds that every possible word we might use to describe God still falls tragically short of the reality of God.
For some, this is terrifying.
For some, it is completely unsettling to know that human vocabulary will never be sufficient to describe “God.”
But that is where I think there is some true beauty, and therefore, some true faith. Augustine of Hippo also said, “If you can comprehend it, it is not God.” None of us can ever comprehend the Divine, but thank God we can apprehend God.
May we each approach this infinite mystery we call “God” with more humility, reverence, and honesty, and hold loosely the words and images we use to describe God to ourselves and each other.
