It’s the music and the preaching

By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

SUNRISE | Jerome Matthews has been attending black Catholic revivals for decades, yet it never gets old for him. Quite the opposite.

“I can't sit at home and not go,” Matthews said shortly before the Feb. 18 service at St. Bernard Church. “There is never a time that I don’t come away with something. If other people came, they'd be just like me — they would be back.”

Matching his sentiments was his wife, Lona, a fellow member of St. Philip Neri Church in Miami Gardens.

“I go to the revivals because they're just that — revivals,” she said. “They give me energy and life. It gets me ready for the Easter season.”

The event was the second of three services for Black History Month organized by the archdiocesan Office of Black Catholics. The other two were held on Feb. 17 at Holy Redeemer Church, Miami, and Feb. 19 at St. Philip Neri. They attracted a total of 710 people, although some worshipers attended more than one service.

The 210 people at St. Bernard raised their hands in praise, singing favorites like “This Little Light,” “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” and “We've Come This Far by Faith.” A 12-member interchurch choir also sang evocative gospel selections like “Changed” and “Jesus, You're the Center of My Joy.”

They then heard from Father Roy A. Lee of Atlanta, who both mentioned Black History Month and disagreed with it.

“America was built on the backs of African Americans,” he said, adding that blacks built the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Wall Street and other landmarks. “So this is not black history — it’s American history.”

Father Lee joined with the choir in guiding the congregants in a musical meditation. With a musical chant of “Deliver me,” he listed several items including “Deliver me … from the belief that I have to earn your love …,” and “from anxiety over my future.”

SHUN THE ‘JUNK FOOD’

They then segued into a chant of “I trust in you,” with responses including “… that you will never leave me,” and “…  that you give us the grace to accept forgiveness, and even to forgive others.”

In his message, Father Lee warned his listeners not to consume the “junk food” offered by the secular world. He denounced social ills like porn, abortion, poverty and the drug culture. 

He even alluded briefly to scandals involving Church clergy. “The devil crept into our house. You’ve got to demand holiness from priests and bishops.”

As he spoke, he paced, strutted, swung his arms, even lounged against the altar as he likened it to a welcoming kitchen table. He even waved a rat trap as he told how Satan baits believers into straying.

“These are exciting times for us Christians,” Father Lee said. “We have to stand for something, or we’ll fall for anything.”

He urged the congregants to greater faith and works of mercy: “God is not going to ask if you have a Ph.D. or a GED. He won't ask if you have a six-figure salary. He will ask if you visited prisoners or welcomed the stranger. We will be judged on our relationships. When all is said and done, we’re all just trying to get to heaven,” he said.

He had two baskets placed on a table in front of the sanctuary, containing small rocks and small sets of wings. He then invited everyone to file up and take one or both.

“Take as many as you want,” he said.

ROCKS, WINGS, GLASSES

The following night, at St. Philip Neri, the gifts would be magnifying glasses. Together, the three items embodied the three-night revival theme: “Standing on the Rock that enables us to fly, so we can magnify the Lord.”

Father Lee wrapped up the service by having everyone join hands to pray the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary.”

Katrenia Reeves-Jackman, director of the Office of Black Catholics, offered a final gift for the worshipers: a devotional prayer journal for Lent. The season of preparation for Holy Week will start on Ash Wednesday, which falls on March 6 this year.

The effusive music and worship style were among the pluses for several of those attending.

“We’re freer to sing and move,” said Jeanette Tullis, a member of Holy Redeemer. “I sometimes wonder if it goes back to Pentecost.”

Lenora Gardner, who has attended the annual services for about 20 years, likewise praised the music as well as the preaching.

“I love to hear about the Lord, and every speaker brings something new and exciting,” said Gardner, of Visitation Parish in Miami.

Jerome Matthews, Lona’s husband, said that an equal draw of Catholic worship was the sheer friendliness. He said he began attending Catholic services after he and Lona met as students at Florida A&M University.

He was stunned at the expansive welcome he got — “like I was a friend, like I was already part of the church. And every week, I learned something new from the Gospel.”

He converted to Catholicism the year after he married Lona. He's also been an extraordinary Eucharistic minister for a decade. And he never misses a black Catholic revival.

The revivals are one way the Office of Black Catholics seeks to unite parishioners of various cultures — Jamaican, Haitian, Bahamian, African American — without submerging their cultures.

“This is not a melting pot, it’s a salad,” said Reeves-Jackman, whose mother is from Atlanta and father is from the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. “We have different cultures and traditions, but our core is the same. We’re all black and all Catholic.”