This card and dice game for families and friends requires players to help their neighbors. Try it here.
The word is "race." In just six words, what is your reaction?
The Race Card Project™
In 2010, journalist Michele Norris began inviting people to distill their thoughts on the word race to only six words. Printing 200 postcards and issuing a call to action, Norris and her team were unsure of what – if anything – would result. What took root was a groundswell. With just a small footprint, it was clear Norris created a vehicle for expression and voice for which it seemed many were longing.
Today, more than 500,000 personal narratives, from all 50 states and 96 countries have been collected. People often send backstories and photos to share more about what is behind their six-word statements. Many of these essays contain sentiments and hard truths rarely expressed out loud. In 2013, the Race Card Project was awarded the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in electronic communications for turning a pejorative phrase into a productive dialogue on a difficult topic.
View the comments of others and add your own here.
As we enter into the month of September, there is an important saint whose faith and life we celebrate early in the month. St. Peter Claver, the son of a farmer, was born in Verdu , Spain , in the year 1581. At the age of 20, he entered the Society of Jesus, commonly called the Jesuits. While studying philosophy, Peter Claver was constantly encouraged by Alphonsus Rodriguez, the saintly door keeper of the college where Peter Claver was studying, to travel to and evangelize the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
Accepting his religious order’s charge to assist in evangelization efforts in the area, in 1610, Peter Claver arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, which was the chief African slave market in the world. It would be in Cartagena that St. Peter Claver would become known as “the apostle to the slaves” and the “slave of the slaves” because for 44 years St. Peter Claver would serve their needs. One thousand slaves a month arrived in Cartagena.
Upon their arrival, St. Peter Claver would meet the slave ships and go down into the hold of the ships where he witnessed the great suffering of the people held there. St. Peter Claver would seek to meet the immediate medical needs of those in the hold of the ships who had endured great emotional and physical suffering in the journey across the ocean.
While St. Peter Claver’s ministry to slaves was indeed far more encompassing than only assisting them at the point of their arrival by ship, this initial outreach as they arrived by ship has become in many instances the enduring symbol of his larger ministry among the slaves. However, St. Peter Claver’s ministry was more expansive than just meeting the slaves upon their arrival because he would also continually seek to meet the physical and spiritual needs of those in the slave camps. In the camps, St. Peter Claver would provide for their medical and other physical needs as well as seek to meet their spiritual needs by offering catechesis in the Catholic faith.
In response to St. Peter Claver’s efforts in catechesis, it is reported that St. Peter Claver baptized over 300,000 slaves over the course of his many years of service in Cartagena. In the wider community, St. Peter Claver would also serve as an advocate for the slaves before the slave traders. For his enduring ministry among the slaves, St. Peter Claver would be rejected and ostracized by others. In the end, while St. Peter Claver of his own power could not suppress the slave trade, he could alleviate some of its suffering, and St. Peter Claver would continually attempt to do so until his death on Sept. 8, 1654. St. Peter Claver was canonized as a saint on Jan. 15, 1888, by Pope Leo XIII.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has declared the Feast of St. Peter Claver, Sept. 9, to be a day of prayer for peace in our communities. In these days when our country continues to struggle to overcome racism and to achieve greater harmony and understanding between people of different races, I am asking that we keep Sept. 9, the Feast of St. Peter Claver, as a Day of Prayer and Fasting for this purpose.
. I invite you to join me in fasting, prayer and worship on Sept. 9, begging the Lord to strengthen our resolve and to bless our efforts to end racism and bring about greater peace in our communities, and greater harmony among people of different races. Through the intercession of St. Peter Claver, may God grant success to our efforts!
--Bishop Shelton Fabre of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in Louisiana.
In this reflection from My Faith Walk, an online resource developed by local alumni of Christ Renews His Parish and the Ignatian Spirituality Center. You can find them HERE. Consider this Gospel and the reflection questions in light of our nation's struggle to provide justice for all people.
Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.
Going out about nine o’clock,
the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard,
and I will give you what is just.’
So they went off.
And he went out again around noon,
and around three o’clock, and did likewise.
Going out about five o’clock,
the landowner found others standing around, and said to them,
‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’
They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’
He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’
When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman,
‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay,
beginning with the last and ending with the first.’
When those who had started about five o’clock came,
each received the usual daily wage.
So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
‘These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Gospel Discussion Questions
G1. This Gospel reading is not about strict justice but outrageous generosity. Are any of us ever worthy of grace, first hour worker or eleventh, no matter what? What is the message of this parable? What is the message for you in your everyday life?
G2. How would grace be handed out if humans made the rules? What if God’s ways were like our ways, if God’s bountiful generosity did not exceed the level of simple distributive justice?
According to Pope Francis in Joy of the Gospel, paragraph 48, who are the “last” in “the last shall be first”?
If the whole Church takes up [the] missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should she go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much our friends and wealthy neighbours, but above all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14).
… Today and always, “the poor are the privileged recipients of the gospel,” and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.
Pope Francis, A Mother with an Open Heart,
Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, paragraph 48