Emmaus Blog

Thursday, July 9, 2026:  Sister Thea Bowman: the woman who made the church sing. In 1989, a Black Catholic nun sat in a wheelchair facing 250 white bishops. She was dying. They were losing her people. The setting was Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and the audience was the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The problem was a quiet exodus: the Catholic Church in America was bleeding Black parishioners. For decades, the liturgy had remained strictly European and the hymns rigid. The physical space of the mass demanded a quiet, restrained reverence that left no room for the cultural expression of Black Americans. To many, the pews felt like a foreign country. Sister Thea Bowman knew exactly what the church asked her people to leave at the door. Born Bertha Bowman in 1937, her grandfather had been enslaved. Her father was a physician and her mother a teacher, anchoring a vibrant Black community in Canton, Mississippi, that was systematically locked out of white institut...

 Wednesday, July 8, 2026: 4 Announcements! Count 'em 4! Announcement #1: Emmaus is forming a Care & Concern Committee Our Emmaus Community is growing older and may be in need of accompaniment that is caring and compassionate. We are all community. All kin.Forming this new committee is an acknowledgement of our needs but also of our shared love for one another. It’s purpose is  to provide practical, emotional and spiritual support during times of crisis, transition and celebration. This is facilitated by sharing information so that needs and concerns are known to the larger community and support can be offered. It includes working with David to publish updates through the community blog. Individual privacy is always respected.  The response can be an offer of physical help, such as a ride to the doctor, a text, email, card, or phone call to let someone know you are thinking about them.  Coordinator:  Marcie Dahlen 303-330-2804 marciedahlen@me.com Announcement...

Tuesday, July 7, 2026: Important Announcements and a Reflection on the 250th   Announcement #1: Emmaus is forming a Care & Concern Committee Our Emmaus Community is growing older and may be in need of accompaniment that is caring and compassionate. We are all community. All kin.Forming this new committee is an acknowledgement of our needs but also of our shared love for one another. It’s purpose is  to provide practical, emotional and spiritual support during times of crisis, transition and celebration. This is facilitated by sharing information so that needs and concerns are known to the larger community and support can be offered. It includes working with David to publish updates through the community blog. Individual privacy is always respected.  The response can be an offer of physical help, such as a ride to the doctor, a text, email, card, or phone call to let someone know you are thinking about them.  Coordinator:  Marcie Dahlen 303-330-2804 marciedah...

Monday, July 6, 2026: Jesus Came for Everyone The brilliant British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin said these words [in Genesis 12:1–4] addressed the greatest heresy (or dangerous idea) in the history of monotheism. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed .- Genesis 12:1–4  Because of this scripture many people understand being blessed by God as an exclusive matter , Newbigin said, as if God blesses some to the exclusion of others. But no, Newbigin says. From the very beginning in the creation story in Genesis 1, when God blesses all creation - both day and night, both land and sea, both plant and animal, both animal and human - God’s blessings have been universal, because that is who God is and how God lives, an overflowing fountain of blessing. When God calls Abraham (then ...

Sunday, July 5, 2026 Announcing our celebrants for the last half of 2026, and a Meditation:  Everyone is Chosen: Who Do You Say We Are?    For the theologian Diana L. Hayes, the question “Who am I?” is a central question for people of faith: Who am I? I am a child of God, whether black, brown, yellow, red, or white, because race does not exist in God. Nor do other divisions exist in God, not those of Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu, or other, because God is God for all of humanity, however God is named…. We are all created in God’s own image and likeness, a creation that God declared to be good without caveats.  Why am I here on this earth at this time and place? To help bring about God’s kin-dom by recognizing and, more importantly, by affirming my co-createdness with all of humanity and thus the presence of God in all with whom I come into contact. I am called, as all are called, to contribute to the rebuilding of … a community in which all are welcome. Those who are...

Tuesday, July 2, 2026:  Our Lady of Nagasaki lead us to love and peace As the anniversaries of the Trinity Test (July 16) and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9) grow near, we must be aware and inform others that the risk of a nuclear war is greater today than it has been since 1986.  There are no nuclear weapons limitation treaties, no treaties about monitoring nuclear developments, and most of the nuclear powers are posed to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals. (France has already promised to increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads.) As we pray to remember the victims of past nuclear weapons, let us pray for our present and the coming future. Prayer Sr. Diane Smith, CSJLA, a member of the Pax Christi USA Disarmament Working Group, has written this litany to Our Lady of Nagasaki: Remembering the devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, we turn to you, Our Lady of Nagasaki, to comfort the suffering and sorrowful. Protect us from the ongoing threat ...