The Fire This Time
A sourcebook for liturgists, musicians, scholars, clergy, and all those who journey and struggle alongside members of the Black Catholic community.
The Fire This Time was born of a conversation between publisher and artist to better understand why so much of the music written by Black composers was largely unknown to the wider audience of GIA Publications. Where were the opportunities for intersection? Where were the bridges between audience, style, genre, and tradition, and how might we seek to build more? Through engaging with each other’s sacred arts, we can learn something about each other that articles alone won’t teach us.
This book is for liturgists, musicians, parish committees, students, scholars, interested family and friends, as well as fellow travelers of different faith communities, and allies who continue to journey and struggle alongside members of the Black Catholic community. We pray that this sourcebook will aid, assist and encourage you in your ministries, while leading and guiding you toward additional resources emerging from the Black Catholic experience.
-Kate Williams & Dr. Kim Harris
Overview
Black Catholic Timeline
To understand where we are and where we are going, it is critical to understand where we have been. Through the lenses of times, places, and events, we can better appreciate the distinctiveness of the United States Black Catholic community with this accounting of the trials and triumphs of Black Catholics since the fifteenth century.
For many readers, this timeline will represent an act of sankofa, an Akan word meaning to go back and retrieve what was lost. By this work of retrieval, Black Catholics, as well as those beyond the community, can be encouraged to faithfully, confidently, and knowledgeably move forward together into our future as uncommonly faithful members of our Church.
Ecclesial Word
Black Catholics find it critical to use the language of official Church documents, classic addresses, and scholarly reflection to defend and justify a more inclusive approach to liturgical style and culture. Use this section when looking for guidance that has long been formally presented to the ecclesial body, as well as to the wider Catholic community.
Prayer, Liturgy, and Ritual
The liturgies and rituals included in this section offer examples of how to pray with your community in ways that might best reflect the diversity of the assembled body. Use this section for templates that allow opportunities for lament and praise for the whole church, specifically honoring the Black Catholic experience.
Essays
This section includes articles by Black Catholic scholars from a variety of media: online journalistic publications, dynamic lecture presentations, academic (as well as popular) articles. Spend time immersing yourself in the scholarship, reflections, and model of covenantal love expressed through these perspectives. Take time to harken to the Spirit alive and moving through each distinct voice.
Sacred Dialogue
Perhaps one of the best entry points into understanding and engaging with Catholics from a variety of contexts is simply to learn how to talk with one another to gain insight into experiences and concerns. No one could have foreseen some of the critical national landscape of 2020. The blessing of being in conversation over a sustained period of time has proven to be foundational and centering in working toward better recognition of the sins of racism, as played out within the church and the nation. Use this section of the book to reflect on ways that you might be able to engage with colleagues, friends, and parishioners from within and beyond your own community.
Selected Resources
A single anthology of this type could never contain every resource we would like to include. However, we look forward to your suggestions for possible inclusions in future volumes.
About the Editors
Kim R. Harris is a Ph.D. candidate in liturgy at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. She is Liturgical Consultant for the Archdiocese of New York Office of Black Ministry, coordinating and cantoring for their special Masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. With her husband Reggie, Kim records and travels the nation, performing concerts, lecturing on the music of the Underground Railroad and Civil Rights Movement and providing music and ministry in a variety of liturgical settings. Kim and Reggie specialize in spirituals and freedom songs and present arts integration workshops, offered to educators, through the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. While pursuing her Ph.D., Kim composed Welcome Table: A Mass of Spirituals, along with composer and GIA contributor, M. Roger Holland II. As the thesis for her Master of Divinity degree at Union Seminary, Kim wrote the libretto and collaborated with Wm Glenn Osborne to compose the one-act family opera, Friends of Freedom: An Underground Railroad Story.
M. Roger Holland II is a Teaching Associate Professor in Music and Religion and Director of The Spirituals Project at the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver. He earned his Doctor of Pastoral Music degree from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He received his MDiv degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he also served as Artist-in-Residence and director of the Union Gospel Choir for over thirteen years. Union awarded him the 2015 Trailblazers Distinguished Alumni Award (the first for a graduate whose ministry is music), for his contributions to the legacy of African American music. He received a master’s (piano performance) from the Manhattan School of Music (New York City) and majored in music education (concentration in piano and voice) at Westminster Choir College (Princeton, New Jersey).
Commissioned works include UBUNTU: I Am Because We Are; The Dream and the Dreamer; The Tribulation Suite; The Call; Agnus Dei; and Magnificat. Original music collections include Building Up the Kingdom (featuring the single “Worthy God”) and his four-volume Honey from the Rock. He has played for the Broadway productions of The Color Purple and the Tony®-winning Memphis. Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, presented Roger with the Pierre Toussaint Medallion for service in November 2016.
Kate Williams is the Vice President of Sacred Music at GIA Publications, Inc. She holds a Bachelor of Music Composition degree from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois as well as a Masters of Arts in Liturgical Studies degree from Catholic Theological Union in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago where it was her privilege to study as a distinguished Bernardin Scholar. Kate is the editor of Gather—Fourth Edition, the latest edition of the nation’s most well-known hard-bound hymnal, as well as the editor of Of Womb and Tomb: Prayer in Time of Infertility, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth. Most recently, Kate was a co-editor of The Fire This Time: A Black Catholic Sourcebook.
She serves as workshop leader, consultant, and musician in the Archdiocese of Chicago and abroad, following a passion to serve in multicultural, multigenerational communities, while mentoring young voices and building bridges through music ministry.