Baton Held High

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Drum Major Instinct” speech was compared to “A Man for All Seasons” in the sermon my family and I heard on Sunday. Dr. King pointed out that we all have the desire to be noticed and praised. In the play, St. Thomas More suggests that someone become a teacher. When that person asks who would notice him, More replies, “You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that.”

The homilist was Fr. Jeff Vomund, pastor of St. Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist parish, a predominantly African-American church in St. Louis. We were there at the suggestion of our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver. Coincidentally, the head of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee was also visiting St. Louis over the holiday weekend. Fr. Jeff and Fr. Ragan were in the seminary together.

Before Mass, the choir sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which the commentator introduced as the “black national anthem.” The meditation hymn after communion was “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” which my wife thinks we may have also heard when we visited a black church in Norfolk. I recognized the Great Amen from the movie “Lilies of the Field,” which I saw during an all-school assembly as a child. The 10:00 a.m. Mass was streamed live over the Internet and can be viewed in the archives on the parish’s USTREAM page.