Sister Thea Bowman, Shooting Star: Selected Writings and Speeches

These third party vendors are ripping you off. This is a great book by a truly inspiring spiritual figure of our times, but charging about $50 used and $70 new is OUTRAGEOUS. The book is available for $9.95 plus shipping from Viterbo Bookstore. Save your money and call them, 1-800-482-8398. I hate booksellers who exploit the public by overcharging for items that they think are rare. This is a desecration of Sister Thea's legacy. Get the book at a fair price, and while you're at it, get the DVD of her life story from Oblate Media, 1-800-233-4629. Sister Thea in her own words and music will give you hope and lift your spirits. There was no one else like her.

I never met Thea. After reading this book, I felt as though I knew her. Her spirituality comes off the pages while her courageouness is somthing to be admired. Anyone interested in African American Catholic spirituality should read this book.

So said Sister Thea Bowman about herself. But she did much more than a little bit, although--like the Little Flower--she did it in an unostentatious way. Although not well known, Bowman (1937-1990), an African-American Franciscan nun who died way too young, was one of the 20th century prophets in the American Church. Her contributions are many. In the spirit of Vatican II, she worked to empower the laity, trying to break through the entrenched "Father knows best" way of thinking about authority that was common in the Church during her lifetime. (In this regard, she reminds me of Verna Dozier, another 20th century African American prophet who sought laity empowerment in the Episcopal Church). She worked to make the Church more hospitable to African American Catholics by encouraging the incorporatation of the black spiritual experience into worship. Her final years of horrible suffering from the cancer that finally killed her opened up a new ministry for her: working with those who suffer from chronic ailments, helping them to see their suffering as redemptive. Celestine Cepress, one of Sister Bowman's colleagues from Viterbo College and a member of the same order (Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration), has compiled a good selection of Bowman's writings and speech transcripts. The collection is a bit repetitious in places, but this is probably inevitable in this sort of book. The collection chronicles Bowman's early years in Mississippi (as a Protestant), her conversion, her years as a novice, her teaching career, and her short, shooting star life as a roaming spokeswoman for renewal. A few selections from Bowman's writings: "I think one difference between me and some other people is that I'm content to do my little bit. Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change, but if each one of us would light a candle we'd have a tremendous light." "Black people who are still victims within the church of paternalism, of a patronizing attitude, black people who within the church have developed a mission mentality--they don't feel called, they don't feel responsible, they don't do anything. Let Father do it, let the sisters do it, let the friends and benefactors from outside do it. That's the mission mentality. And it kills us and it kills our churches." [From an interview towards the end of her life, when she was asked "Why do people have to suffer?"] "I don't know. Why is there war? Why is there hunger? Why is there pain? perhaps it's an incentive for struggling human beings to reach out to one another, to help one another, to love one another, to be blessed and strengthened and humanized in the process. Perhaps it's an incentive to see Christ in our world and to view the work of Christ and to feel the suffering of Christ. I know that suffering gives us new perspective and helps us to clarify our real value. Perhaps suffering stops us in our tracks and forces us to confront what is real within ou