WORDS OF WISDOM FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH

What gives you hope
for a better future for our Church and our country?

Msgr. Raymond East, the pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Washington, D.C., and a nationally known evangelist, is the son of the late Thomas and Gwendolyn East. The grandson of Baptist missionaries to South Africa, he was born in Newark, New Jersey. Raised in San Diego, he graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Business Administration.

On Nov. 2, 2020, Msgr. East was interviewed for the Archdiocesan of Washington DC Catholic Standard Newspaper’s Black Catholic Voices series by Mark Zimmermann, the Catholic Standard’s editor.  One of the questions put to Msgr. East is:

“How have you kept the faith, both your Catholic faith and your faith for our country over the years, despite this “virus” of racism that has infected both, and what gives you hope for a better future for our Church and our country?” 

Msgr. Raymond East – “Where does our hope come? From whence does my hope come? My hope is founded on Jesus Christ, who came as one of us, the Son of the Father, who took flesh so that we might have salvation, who sent us the Holy Spirit, that this power of the Holy Trinity (is) working in and through this unique creation that we call humankind. That tradition, handed on from generation to generation, I received it from my family, and then we’ve been passing it on and living it. That’s what gives me encouragement. That’s what gives me faith and hope and strength, and to be surrounded by, not only a cloud of witnesses, people that we don’t see, can’t see, but then to be surrounded by a faith community, a loving faith community, that works together. That’s what gives me hope.

“So, for example, when my friend, Father Cornelius, organized a group with the archdiocese that we might go down, peoples of faith coming together, from the Catholic community to work with Black Lives Matter, to say, yes, it’s true, we have to say, we have to be affirmative about saying, yes, all lives matter, but specifically with the history that we have in our own diocese, going from slavery to freedom, going from oppression to racism to communities that learn to love and work with each other as one body of Christ, with our people, we had to make a stand, to come together and say Black lives matter. To see people that I have worked with and have worshipped with and organized with for now 40 years, 45 years, to see people coming together in one great movement of faith, that’s what gives me faith. To see that we could gather again and again and take up these works of faith, that’s what gives me encouragement.

Yes, Black Lives Matter. Yes, All Lives Matter.

That is why we are “going from slavery to freedom, going from oppression to racism to communities that learn to love and work with each other as one body of Christ.”

Let us do all that we can to one of the many communities that are
learning to love and work with each other
as one
Body of Christ.”