St. Christopher Ladies Guild Woman of the Month

Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman

Bertha Bowman was born in 1937 in Yazoo City, Mississippi to Dr. Theon Bowman and Mary Bowman. She was the granddaughter of freed slaves. Raised in the Methodist Church, Bertha was attracted to Catholicism by the example of her school teachers, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She was impressed with how Catholics cared for the poor and needy and put their faith into action. At age she nine received permission from her parents to join the Catholic Church. In her first communion photo Bertha shines with a joy that she carried throughout her life. At the age of fifteen she decided to move to La Crosse, Wisconsin where she entered the convent of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration as the only African American member of her religious community. She took the name Sr. Mary Thea in honor of the Blessed Mother and her father, Theon.

Those early years in the convent were difficult for Sr. Thea as she struggled to fit the spiritual practices of her African American heritage into the liturgies of Wisconsin’s mostly white Catholic Churches. She threw her efforts into her studies and education, attending Viterbo University and The Catholic University of America where she earned a Ph.D. in English in 1972. She spent two decades teaching in middle schools, high schools and several Catholic universities before returning to work for the diocese of Jackson, Mississippi. Through her studies and travels she discerned a vocation to learn more about the Black Catholic spiritual and cultural experience and to evangelize Black American Catholics. The Church in the south had been wounded by the history of segregation and many Black Americans did not feel welcome in the Catholic Church. Sr. Thea worked to change this, crisscrossing the nation for hundreds of speaking events, traveling to the Caribbean Islands and Africa, and even appearing in an interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes.  She collaborated on an African American Catholic Hymnal, Lead Me, Guide Me, that was published in 1987.  In all her efforts, Sr. Thea expressed a desire to spread a ministry of joy proclaiming the beauty of each culture’s unique differences yet their unity in Christ.  A truth that was confirmed by the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium at Spes. A truth that anyone who has ever sung a rousing rendition of Go Tell It On the Mountain knows well.

Sr. Thea was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1984. Throughout the course of her illness, as the cancer metastasized, she continued her work while giving witness to the dignity of suffering. In 1989 she received the U.S. Catholic Award for furthering the cause of women in the church and the 1990 Notre Dame Laetare Medal for enriching the arts, the church, and humanity. She spoke to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops shortly before her death in 1990.  Asked just weeks before her death at age 52 about how she made sense out of her pain and suffering, Sr. Thea replied: “I don’t make sense of it. I try to make sense of life. I try to keep myself open to people and to laughter and to love and to have faith.” At her funeral mass, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston said: “She challenged us to own our individuality yet pleaded for us to be one in Christ. This was her song, and no one sang it more eloquently than Sister Thea Bowman.” She has been designated a Servant of God in the first step in her case for canonization which was unanimously approved in 2018.

Sources consulted:

“Biography and Legacy of Sr. Thea Bowman.”viterbo.edu
“Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman.”faith.nd.edu
“Sister Thea Bowman on Dying with Dignity.”uscatholic.org
“Sister Thea Bowman: Prophet of Change.”franciscanmedia.org