Sister-Patricia-Cover

Black History Month Lecture: The Courage to be Transformed

Sister Patricia Chappell, S.N.D.deN

This past February, Sister Patricia Chappell, S.N.D.deN., spoke at STM as our Black History Month lecturer. Sr. Patricia, former Executive Director of Pax Christi USA and currently serving in leadership for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, grew up in New Haven. Weaving together story-telling, social justice and her experience of being Black and Catholic, Sr. Patricia was powerful and challenging in her call to build the Beloved Community in the here and now. Her prophetic wisdom came months before the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, making her words all the more important today, as we examine the work we still need to do to work toward reconciliation.

 

“Charity, I suggest, forces temporary relief. It creates a good feeling for those who are engaged in it. And those who are the recipients of it get a little relief and a little respite. However, when one begins to look at systems, this is where justice comes into play. Are they just systems or are they systems of charity that put a Band-Aid on something for a minute? Do you and I have the courage to examine systems and to realize that they are purposely constructed to keep certain communities from thriving? Our refusing to look at these systems makes us complicit for the injustices the perpetuate. I’m going to say that again. Our refusing to look at these systems make us complicit for the injustices they perpetuate.

 

Looking at your website, I see that you go out and you seem to tutor the students at St. Martin de Porres Academy. Wonderful. It’s great that you are also being able to lend your expertise, your skills, your support, and helping to empower those young people. My challenge to you is: do you ever wonder why they have to work so hard to keep hold of the dreams that they are entitled to? Why do they have so much more to contend with and overcome than you and yes, I? What I am challenging you tonight and inviting you to consider is, do you have the courage to be transformed? I'm not saying changing because one can always turn and go back if changing things don’t work. I’m talking about transformation, for transformation is very different. For there’s no turning back once you have put your hand to the plow.

 

You will be transformed if you begin the lifetime journey of dismantling the unearned internalized privileges you live with that breeds such devastating effects. You will be transformed if you begin to dismantle the unearned internalized oppression that we live with that continues to breed oppression. You will be transformed if all your mind and heart acknowledge your complicity in these systems, you come to realize with your whole being that you are more than these systems hold out to tantalize you. You are more than what these systems hold out. You are good. We are good, generous, compassionate men and women who are passionate about life, about belonging, about learning and we are all worthy of love. For this beloved community is being actualized as I see it by a great many of our young adults. For see our young adults as people who speak up, sign up, put up and show up. For there are no definite maybes in the beloved community. There are no definite maybes in the beloved community, and no one can be a little bit committed. You can’t be a little bit committed to radical transformation. It don’t work like that.

 

You and I both know that this beloved community did not just pop up when Dr. King lived and died. It’s been around for generations of people who could not stand idle and quiet in the face of injustice. Today, it is manifested in the desires and actions of our elder generation who want to pass on the torch of justice to us, to you, young adults, a new generation. These are the folks who demonstrated, got arrested, wrote op-eds, protested, wrote about, spoke about, lived and died for peace with justice. These are the women and men who will not give up until all are free. None of us are free until all of us are free.

 

To listen to Sr. Patricia Chappell’s lecture in its entirety, visit https://stmchapel.wistia.com/medias/mbh1upqxnn

 

“None of us are free until all of us are free.”

BLM

Photograph by Sr. Jenn Schaaf

STM Chaplains’ Statement on Racism: https://stm.yale.edu/chapel-leadership

Racial Justice Resources from the Office for Catholic Social Justice Ministry: https://tinyurl.com/y7tlkgt6

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