Sister Thea Bowman is a joyful example of contemporary sainthood. Sister Bowman was born Bertha Bowman in Mississippi in 1937. Bertha's grandfather had been a slave before the Emancipation Proclamation, but her parents were both professionals: her father was a doctor and her mother taught. Bertha was raised in a vibrantly spiritual Methodist home, and she became attracted to the life of love and service that the religious sisters in her town led. With her parents' permission, young Bertha converted to Catholicism when she was just nine.

Bertha was enrolled in a Catholic School, which deepened her appreciation for the Catholic faith and for the sisters who taught her. When she was fifteen, Bertha traveled north to Wisconsin to join the order of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse. She attended college at Viterbo University in Wisconsin and then traveled to Washington D.C. to earn her master's degree and doctorate at the Catholic University of America. She finished her Ph.D. in 1972 and began to teach at CUA, then her alma mater of Viterbo, and Xavier University.

Sister Thea, as she became known as, worked diligently not only at education but on evangelization of Black American Catholics. The Church in the South had been wounded by the history of segregation and slavery. The social structures of sin prevented the marginalized populations from feeling welcome in the Church that they saw as a Church of white people. Sister Thea worked to create a hymnal that showcased Black spirituality and culture. She traveled across the American continent and even abroad to the Caribbean Islands and Africa to spread a ministry of joy—a ministry of proclaiming the joy of each culture's unique differences yet their unity in Christ.

Sister Thea died on March 30, 1990. Shortly before her death, Notre Dame announced her that year's recipient of the Laetare Medal. Sister Thea's cause for canonization has been opened, and the United States bishops announced their support for her canonization at their 2018 fall conference. To learn more about Sister Thea's canonization process and about her life, visit the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration page on Sister Thea. To learn even more about Servant of God, Sr. Thea Bowman, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, who worked to overcome racial divisions so that all Christians might be united in Christ—pray for us! 

 

Images appear courtesy of Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (www.fspa.org).