Remembering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is important because it helps all Americans know that there were many unsung African American heroes and heroines who “pursued greatness when many people thought that they were not worthy of human respect or dignity,” Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory said at a Jan. 16 Mass honoring the late civil rights champion.

“What is important for all of us during these days dedicated to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King is to discover that he along with all the men and women who joined with him in the civil rights struggle realized their potential in the face of overwhelming odds,” Cardinal Gregory said.

Cardinal Gregory was the principal celebrant and homilist at the annual Mass honoring the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, which was held this year on Jan. 16, at St. Teresa of Avila Church in Washington, D.C. Concelebrants at the Mass included Msgr. Raymond East, pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Parish, and Father Robert Boxie III, Catholic chaplain at Howard University.

Because of the ongoing pandemic and limited seating at the church, many of the faithful followed the Mass via livestream. There was no choir at the Mass and all songs were performed via prerecorded video. More than 600 people in more than 10 states and Canada watched the livestreamed Mass.

Cardinal Gregory celebrates the Jan. 16 Mass at St. Teresa of Avila Church honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)

“African American heroes and heroines have an important lesson to offer all Americans because they exhibit a determination and a moral integrity that enriches our nation and perfects the human spirit,” the cardinal said in his homily. “These men and women, scientists, artists, sports persons, scholars, and adventurers were invited to pursue greatness in the face of tremendous obstacles. They bore the brunt of rejection because of their race and heritage, yet they did not succumb to the pressures of a hostile society.”

Sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Cultural Diversity, the Mass is offered each year as part of the archdiocese’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. This year, cosponsors of the celebration included The Catholic University of America’s Center for Cultural Engagement and Bison Catholic, the Howard University Catholic Newman Club.

The Mass and celebration are held annually near Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal holiday observed on the third Monday of January. This year, the holiday is observed Jan. 18.

People pray during the Jan. 16 Mass at St. Teresa of Avila Church honoring the life and legacy of Dr. King. People in the congregation wore face masks and sat at social distances from each other in accordance with coronavirus safety guidelines at local Catholic churches. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)

Cardinal Gregory said the annual commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is important because “for far too long, Americans have remained ignorant of the contributions that African Americans have made to our country.”

He lamented that “there are still too many people, African Americans included, who know too little of the full history and heritage of America with all of those who were contributors to that history.”

Those unknown and unrecognized “contributors” to American history, Cardinal Gregory said, were men and women of “courage and determination … who pursued the greatness of their humanity in spite of all of the obstacles that were placed before them.” And they include, he added, “African Americans, or those who spoke English with an accent, or whose facial features were not considered appropriate or attractive, or whose surnames were not common or easily pronounced, or because they had a physical or mental disability, or because they followed a non-traditional religious belief, or maybe because they were short of stature, or perhaps simply because they were women.”

“Most of the people that we honor around the time of Dr. King’s birthday memorial were not even given the common decency of human respect and impartiality, let alone the advantages of good press – including Dr. King himself,” Cardinal Gregory said. “Our African-American military heroes and heroines often had to serve our country in segregated troops because of our African ancestry. Our religious and prominent political voices were quite familiar with bitter discrimination and rejection. These men and women became heroes and heroines in spite of the obstacles that they faced. … They became great because they lived by principles that were not very popular then nor today.”

Referring to the Gospel reading recounting the Beatitudes as “the Lord’s proposed route to greatness,” Cardinal Gregory said that “meekness, gentleness of spirit, hunger and thirst for justice, mercy, and serene endurance” are “the desired path to greatness. These are not fashionable qualities today and they were not prized during Jesus’s time either.”

“In the Beatitudes, we find not the guidelines for a few, not the suggested life pattern of certain Christian heroes and heroines, but the way of life for us all,” the cardinal said. “There is no agent who can help you to fake the Christian life. Either you are a person of faith and Christian principles or you are not. There is no faking our life in Christ – as Dr. King reminded the entire world.”

“Dr. King lived the beatitudes because he knew that was the recipe for greatness,” Cardinal Gregory said.

Dr. King was assassinated almost 53 years ago. In late March 1968, he traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to support black sanitation public works employees who were on strike seeking higher wages and better working conditions. On April 4 of that year, Dr. King – standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel – was mortally wounded by a gunshot fired by James Earl Ray. He was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where after emergency surgery he was pronounced dead.

During his homily, Cardinal Gregory also alluded to Dr. King’s now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech in which the civil rights leader said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

“The secret to human greatness and to spiritual excellence,” Cardinal Gregory said, is found in “having a person live up to the highest qualities within himself – living proudly according to the content of their character.”

On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. King was among the leaders who organized a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march included a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that was opened with an invocation by then-Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington. It was at that rally that Dr. King delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech.

Father Robert Boxie III, a concelebrant at the Jan. 16 Mass at St. Teresa of Avila Church honoring Dr. King, gives Communion to a woman. Father Boxie serves as the Catholic chaplain  at Howard University in Washington. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)

After Communion, Cardinal Gregory led the faithful in reciting the archdiocesan Anti-Racism Family Prayer. The text of the prayer can be found at https://adw.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/12/20PrayerCard-Anti-Racism-initiative-Final.pdf

“Bless parents that they may form their children in faith, to love one another regardless of skin color, ethnicity and national origin, just as Jesus loves us,” the cardinal prayed. “Fill us with a thirst for justice and righteousness.”

He also prayed that God would “help us in the battle against America’s ‘original sin’ of racism that divides us from being the Body of Christ … (and) build a community founded on the Gospel message of the life and dignity of all people from conception to natural death.”

During the Mass, prayers were also offered for “our country that we may heal those things that divide us” and for “the renewal of a culture of life… and an end to racism, euthanasia and abortion.”

Also at the Mass, Dr. Ansel Augustine, the executive director of the Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach for the Archdiocese of Washington, thanked Cardinal Gregory for his ministry and leadership, and congratulated the cardinal for his recent elevation to the College of Cardinals, saying his historic appointment as the nation’s first African American cardinal “is a manifestation of generations of grace and prayers.”

Augustine prayed that God would bless Cardinal Gregory with “tenacity to continue on the path you set out for him … (and) a spirit of encouragement and joy as he leads the congregation of the Archdiocese of Washington.”

At the end of the Mass, Cardinal Gregory was awarded the first ever “Jacqueline Wilson Servant Leader Award.” In 1973, Wilson became a charter board member and officer of the first Black Catholic Secretariat in the Archdiocese of Washington, and from 1979-2002 she served as executive director of the Office of Black Catholics for the Archdiocese of Washington. She was the author of several books, and in 2000 was the co-author with Loretta Butler of “O Write My Name: African American Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington.” She died Jan. 8, 2021 at the age of 83.

Cardinal Gregory will celebrate Wilson’s Jan. 18 funeral Mass, calling it an opportunity “to honor her legacy, memory and goodness.”

After Communion at the Mass honoring Dr. King, Cardinal Gregory was presented with the first Jacqueline Wilson Servant Leader Award, named for the former executive director of the Archdiocese of Washington's Office of Black Catholics who died Jan. 8. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)

The Mass honoring Dr. King may be viewed anytime on demand at the Archdiocese of Washington YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o84DHDU64kU&feature=youtu.be