At the beginning of June, I stepped into the sacristy after the 12:15 pm Mass one weekday to talk to my pastor about race and diversity. After the killing of George Floyd the week prior, I’d seen many things online about race, systemic racism, and our cultural preference for all things white. I’d had a conversation with a close friend about the impact of George Floyd’s murder on her personally and she said, “Katie, I’m no longer going to feel like I have to choose between being Authentically Catholic and being Black.” This phrase struck me deeply because I couldn’t understand what she meant.

I met this friend about six years ago at my current parish, which is the most diverse parish I’ve ever belonged to or seen in my travels doing parish vision planning. I live in a unique area of Charlotte and my parish has more than 30 countries represented with 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. We more closely represent the United Nations than the ‘typical parish.’ It’s with this knowledge and my friend’s experience of our parish that I wanted to talk with my pastor.

As we talked that afternoon we both said, “We need to do something … we just aren’t sure what that something is.” We ended the conversation with a commitment to continue to learn, talk, and discuss what this ‘something’ might be. For me that has looked like many emails filled with links to articles, videos, and podcasts of great things I’ve been reading, seeing, and listening to on the internet. I think this is important so we can truly hear someone else’s story.

Then I saw this from Detroit Catholic regarding the Feast of Ste. Anne from the newly raised Basilica. Their Novena celebration is 9 days of Masses each focusing on one of the many cultures that exist in the Archdiocese.

As in prior years, the novena will honor the Detroit area’s many cultures, from the French who established Detroit’s oldest parish in 1701 to the Latino culture that is prevalent in the parish today.

The homilies at each Mass will be themed to the culture being represented, with different homilists each time, to celebrate the rich diversity in the local Church that sprang from the archdiocese’s “founding parish.”

I love this idea and think it could be transformational in our parishes; truly celebrating our diversity.

If you do something like this, I’d love to hear about it!!