Reflection

“Ase!”
St. Martin de Porres

Many years ago, one of the frst plays I read was Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. I remember it because it was a play that had a family I could identify with. African Americans. They were a family focused on doing better for themselves by buying a home of their own. Home ownership was a big thing then. It remains today. The title of the play came from a poem written by Langston Hughes called Harlem. The frst line of the poem raised a question that was asked by millions - still is: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore, and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over, like syrupy sweet? Maybe it sags, like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”

Many of our past, present and hopefully future heroes and she-roes talk about dreams. The most famous being Martin Luther King, Jr., who eloquently talked about his dreams for our future. But what I want to remind us today is a little closer to home. The power of dreamers right in our midst. Dreamers are powerful when they take action and make dreams reality. This church was built because of dreamers. them home here. This home didn’t just magically appear. People did everything they could to make things difcult, some- times impossible, and asked us over and over how can a small, minority parish, with so little money, dare to dream that we could build a new church home. They forgot the power of dreamers and how, when people come together sharing one dream, believing in one God, what they can do. They forgot about David and Goliath.

They forgot that the dreamers included bankers, and marketers, and accountants, and teachers. They forgot that the dreamers were, yes—from different parishes and, yes—with different opinions about how things should be done. And yes, some dreamers went to other parishes where their dreams could live. But those who stayed became a family; we came together and committed to a
payment of a mortgage which many said would never be paid in full.

“You are where you are today because you stand on someone’s shoulders. And wherever you are heading, you cannot get there by yourself. If you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on your shoulders. It’s the quid pro quo of life. We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give.” —Vernon James

And so today, February 9, 2020, I say Ase to those who came before us. Who dared and encouraged us to dream; who laid the foundation for us to believe. That yes, we can do whatever we dream about. Remember the ancestors most of whom were never honored and yet provided each of us with the opportunity, with the right to dream. Dream small, dream big, but dream. And whenever you doubt yourself, read the inscriptions on the stone walkway in front of this church, then come inside this house, look around and know this is a house of God built by His dreamers with His guidance and love. Ase, my brothers and sisters. Ase.

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Note: Excerpted, with her permission , from an African American History Month homage penned by our own Mary Craig, and oratorically presented by her to fellow parishioners at Sunday mass on 02/09/2020.