“To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Lk. 6:27-38)
What a challenging message. It's a hard message. Why is it so hard to love those who are so evil and cruel? … those who mistreat you? How can we forgive those who won’t even acknowledge their sin? It’s hard because our natural human response is to retaliate. But, as Christians, we know within our hearts that those who are so evil and cruel and who we feel are underserving are also children of God – just like us. With God’s presence actively living inside us through the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to love, bless, and pray even when our human response wants to do the opposite. This does not mean that we are blind to their sin.
But how do we experience this awareness of God’s presence inside us, which allows us to respond with His love? I feel that this happens when we experience a turning point in our lives, where our faith produces actions that begin to match our words. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced this awareness of God’s presence when he led peaceful marches in response to injustice.
As I was cleaning out some old files and preparing for this reflection, I came across a letter that I had received years ago from my dear friend, the late Sr. Mary Antona Ebo, FSM, a Catholic nun who broke barriers for Black women and famously marched with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the Sisters of Selma. I first met Sr. Ebo in 2011 at the National Joint Conference of Black Catholic Clergy, Sisters, Deacons, and Seminarians. We had a field trip to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and as I was walking around, I heard someone call her name. It struck me because we took her name for our recently formed chapter as a member of the Knights of St. Peter Claver, Fourth Degree Ladies of Grace, Chapter 47.
Sr. Ebo faced lots of racial discrimination
while growing up and after entering the religious life. As Shannen Dee Williams writes in her book Subversive Habits, 2022, “decades before Selma, the battles that Sister Ebo had waged to gain access to a Catholic education and enter religious life had revealed that her church and its most visible labor force – white Catholic nuns – were among the most dedicated practitioners of racial segregation and exclusion.” Sr. Ebo eventually desegregated her high school, being the first African American to graduate. After being denied access to numerous nursing schools because of race, she was accepted into St. Mary’s Infirmary, a nursing school run by the Sisters of St. Mary (SSM), which later became the Franciscans Sisters of Mary (FSM).
In an interview with Shannen Dee Williams, who has done extensive research on Black Catholic nuns in the United States, Sr. Ebo shares how experiencing the mistreatment of her father by the white nuns forever changed her. Williams shares from the interview in her book Subversive Habits, 2022, that a white member of Sr. Ebo’s order denied her father admission to the community’s all-white St. Mary’s Hospital, refusing the ambulance carrying Sr. Ebo’s father. Sr. Ebo “learned later that her dying father had even pleaded with the white nun, proclaiming that his daughter was also a Sister of St. Mary. The death of her father shortly thereafter, and her superiors’ unwillingness to rebuke the offending white sister almost proved too much for Sr. Ebo the bear.”
Continuing in her interview, Sr. Ebo encouraged everyone to come together, learn and understand each other’s culture, respect each other, and pray for each other. She said, “How are we going to know each other as God’s children if we have a group over here and a group over there?” and continued, “We’ve got to do what the Spirit says to do.”
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” (Luke 6:37-38).
Author: Jennifer D. Tilghman, member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Washington D.C. Eucharistic Minister, Certified Life Coach.
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