Homily from Racial Justice Prayer Service:
Prayer for Healing & Peace

 
Last Monday, the lead story on the front page of the Inquirer was “Being Black vs. Being Blue.”  It gave me a glimpse into the deep struggle that black police feel right now.  They feel caught in the middle.  They feel justified anger over the senseless and inhumane killing of George Floyd and sympathy for the protestors around our country vs. their loyalty to the men and women in blue.  They know that the looting and destroying property and businesses and innocent people’s livelihood and the cultural war in our country is so wrong.  They feel confused and hurting.  But that confusion and pain is affecting everyone.  We feel the hatred and anger that is rocking our country.  We are hurting.
 
At the root of this tension and pain is racism, prejudice, and injustices.  Racism is found in a person’s heart.  It can be placed there unwittingly or unknowingly by our upbringing or our culture.  I am not suggesting that you are racist or prejudiced.  Only God knows what is in your heart.  Racism fails to recognize that every person is made by God in His image and likeness.  If we really believe that, then we treat every person with dignity and respect.  We are truly brothers and sisters, and we all have a responsibility to genuinely care for one another with love.  That is what Jesus said in the Gospel passage that was just proclaimed.  “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  But the scholar responded by asking Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  Then Jesus gives us the powerful and thought-provoking parable of the Good Samaritan.
 
The Samaritan traveler who came upon this man, who was victimized by the robbers, was moved with compassion and love for this poor man.  I think that this is what has motivated hundreds of thousands of people in our country to join our black brothers and sisters in peaceful protest.  People know intuitively that George Floyd with all of his issues was killed because of racism.  What has complicated the movement for peace and justice around the country is the violence and destruction of innocent people’s property, the anarchy, and the on-going attack on first-responders and law enforcement.
 
My friends, I know that I will never really understand what a parent goes through when they lose a child in death.  I will never understand what it is like to be a man of color.  But I know that I can ask Jesus to open my heart so that I can have compassion and love for those who are victims of racism and injustice.  Compassion means “to suffer with.”  This is what moved the Samaritan traveler to go out of his way to help that poor man.  He had the heart of Jesus.  He loved his neighbor.  For many people this will mean a conversion of heart.
 
As Christians we all know that everyone’s life is sacred to God.  And racism and prejudice has no place in the heart of a disciple of Jesus.  The sad truth is that racism and prejudice have been a part of the fabric of our country since its beginning.  The Irish, Poles, Italians, Germans, the Native Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, the Catholics, Jews, Muslims have been victims of racism and prejudice at different times in our history.  But the black community has experienced this racism from the beginning of our country, as slaves who had little or no worth to their owners.
 
Today, we come before our God to pray for healing and peace.  We pray for our black brothers and sisters, for justice and dignity; we pray for our first-responders and police men and women in blue, for justice and dignity; and we pray for those who have been injured or killed in these massive riots or those who have lost their businesses, for justice and dignity.  And we pray that God will give us His Heart – a heart of compassion and love.  I close with the words of the prophet Micah when he was asked, “What does God want from me?”
 
“You have been told, oh man, what is good and what the Lord wants from you:  Only to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with God.”  (Micah 6:8)  May this be our prayer today as we stand in God’s presence and pray for healing and peace.

God bless!
Monsignor Francis W. Beach