December 1 was Rosa Parks Day! A day set aside to honor this trailblazer whose courageous actions helped ignite the Civil Rights movement and usher in racial equality in our country. It’s also a day to take action in her footsteps!
What do Rosa Parks and Rev. AndreaGrace have in common?
They are both practicing prophetic AND civil disobedience.
Prophetic obedience means that someone understands God’s will and takes actions that align with that understanding. The prophetic part implies that they are being a messenger – often with a new way of life.
Rosa understood that God was calling her to be an instrument of change and that God was empowering her to be a change-instrument.
Rosa with her beautiful mahogany skin courageously sat on the front of the bus in the whites-only section!
Rosa disobeyed the law – and she knew it.
She also was collaborating with others – not taking this premeditated action alone. It’s a myth that she was tired and decided to grab a seat at the front of that bus. She had prayerfully pondered and planned this action.
Rosa was a little flame that ignited a HUGE fire – one that still burns because there is not racial equality yet in our country.
Rev. AndreaGrace was studying at People’s Catholic Seminary when she read Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail. Something changed in her – and she went from simply wanting to be a priest to KNOWING that she had to be a priest. That God was calling her to be part of this social justice movement in the Catholic Church – that women, LGTBQA+ people and all God’s children would have the freedom to live out the vocations God put on their heart ad would have true equality in the Church.
Read Rev. AndreaGrace’s paper here.
Watch Rev. AndreaGrace’s homily from her ordination.
May Rosa Parks pray with us and guide us (and our leaders) in helping to bring about justice and equality for all people in all systems.
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