(I am writing a monthly column for my parish bulletin’s Social Justice Ministry, reflecting on the Sunday Readings) Note: back after hiatus
Be Not Afraid
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In the Gospel today, Jesus tells the Twelve Disciples, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” These words brought to mind the fearless actions taken by African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement that lasted from 1954 until 1968. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement was the twentieth century’s largest mass movement for racial reform and civil rights in the United States.
According to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, between autumn 1961 and 1963, twenty thousand men, women, and children had been arrested in nonviolent protests for Black rights. In 1963 alone, another fifteen thousand were imprisoned, and one thousand desegregation protests occurred in more than one hundred cities across the country.
Martin Luther King, Jr. rooted the moral justification for protests, boycotts, and sit-ins in the teachings of Catholic theologians like Saint Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. He taught that people should not follow unjust laws like racial segregation because they degrade human personality, distort the soul, and damage the personality. For the thousands of African Americans and non-Black allies who risked their personal freedom and knew they could be injured bodily or killed, they believed standing for truth and justice was worth it.
Today, there are still many injustices in the United States and around the world that cry out to God. Like the twelve disciples and those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, we must put our faith in God and minister to those on the margins in our society in order to give them hope. By following our conscience and God’s law, we work to build God’s kingdom on Earth, which will have a lasting impact that will last to eternity.
Alessandra Harris 