Today’s episode of Ministry Monday is sponsored by the 2022 Winter Colloquium, taking place February 14-16 in Nashville, Tennessee. NPM Presents Open Hearts and Minds: Intercultural Mystagogia for Pastoral Leaders, a 3-day event focusing on looking through the lens of interculturalism. How can we best celebrate our differences to create unity in diversity through the experience of community of prayer?
Learn more about the Winter Colloquium at npm.org.
Today we are happy to share an episode of "Meet Father Rivers" on the podcast today. Author and musician Emily Strand examines the life, legacy and her own brief, personal encounter with a little-known but essential figure in American Catholic history: Black liturgist and composer Fr. Clarence Joseph Rivers.
In this episode of “Meet Father Rivers”, podcast host Emily Strand tells the story of Fr. Rivers’ early career and the efforts toward liturgical inculturation that eventually brought him fame. She talks to Dr. Jessie Thomas who was a child at St. Joseph school in Cincinnati when Fr. Rivers was a young priest in the late 1950s. Emily recounts an early incident of liturgical disobedience by Fr. Rivers, effectively protesting the exclusion of Black forms of music in Catholic worship.
We’d like to thank Emily for allowing us to replay this episode, and hope you will subscribe to Meet Father Rivers as well. Without further ado, let’s begin!
SHOW NOTES
Bio: Fr. Clarence Joseph Rivers (Source: https://stjosephcincinnati.org/our-team/)
Father Clarence J. Rivers (1931-2004) pioneered African American musical liturgy and an accompanying mindset for the benefit of Black Catholics across the nation and around the world.
Father Rivers said in an interview in 1977: “People are hungry and not being fed.” Obviously, in considering his life’s work, this sentiment permeated his soul and sparked his enduring pledge to nourish and enliven starving people of faith. This shy, insecure boy from Selma, Alabama, who began life as a non-Catholic, received his divine, priestly call through the early encouragement and nourishment of Catholic education and mentorship. He was the first black priest ordained in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
In music and in prose, this artist-priest transformed traditional Catholic liturgy by bringing the riches of African American culture to be appreciated and respected as a means of expressing one’s faith. He was a composer, liturgist, writer, editor, lecturer, educator, ecumenical leader, business owner, director, award recipient and a completely engaged creative force that helped strengthen the Black Catholic community during the days of pre and post-Vatican II and through a tumultuous time in American history.
Most importantly, Rivers was able to strike a balance between the beauty of earlier Catholic liturgy with the contemporary liturgy he composed that invigorated faith for all, especially those who struggled within a traditionally white European framework. He found a creative way to honor and preserve the traditions of the past while introducing more culturally meaningful ways of worship. This is a true testament to his brilliance and his lasting impact on Catholicism.
Ordained in 1956, Father Clarence Joseph Rivers was the first black priest in the Cincinnati Archdiocese. Not accepted by the parishioners of his first two assignments, he was placed as associate pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Cincinnati’s West End. At this parish, Fr. Rivers began his work to bring the riches of African American religious tradition and music to the Catholic Church. Known as a trailblazer and an iconic figure for the African American Catholic community, he performed his seminal hymn, “God is Love” in 1964 at the National Liturgical Conference, the first high Mass celebrated in English in the US Catholic Church. His books, The Spirit in Worship and Soulfull Worship, challenged and inspired worshipers to examine worship through the lens of African American cultural frames.
He had a gift for learning with no bounds to his intellectual curiosity. He continued his education after the seminary earning a master’s degree in scholastic philosophy from the Athenaeum of Ohio. He completed graduate studies in English at Xavier and Yale universities and studied drama at The Catholic University of America. He was awarded his doctorate, majoring in African American culture and Catholic liturgy, at the Union Graduate School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Father Rivers brought parishioners closer to God through joyous celebratory worship. His mission was to share his gift of blackness with fellow Catholics and other denominations using his musical compositions as a vehicle. He was a man who lived “authentically Black and truly Catholic” as an example of Christianity to the world. Although he died on November 21, 2004, his music lives on at St. Joseph Church. Mr. Wylie Howell, our Minister of Music, emeritus, and Mrs. Shon Hubble, our current Music Minister continue the liturgical and musical traditions of Father Rivers, whose music will certainly inspire future generations of Catholics in a most special way.
For the show notes of today’s episode, click here.
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