United States Catholic Catechism for Adults

8 THE SAVING DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

THE PASCHAL MYSTERY, UNITY OF THE SAVING DEEDS —CCC, NOS. 571-664

SINGING THE LORD’S PRAISES— WITH A CHALLENGE

At the funeral of Sr. Thea Bowman, on April 3, 1990, Fr. John Ford asked, “Who was Sister Thea?” Many answers were given. One said,“She challenged us to our own individuality, yet pleaded for us to be one in Christ.This was her eloquent song.” Another called her “the springtime in everyone’s life.” She was praised as “the God-gilded voice sent dancing, swaying, sashaying into our lives.” Who was Sr. Thea? Born as Bertha Bowman in 1937 in Yazoo City,

Mississippi, the daughter of a physician, Theon E. Bowman, and a school teacher, Mary E. Coleman Bowman, Bertha thrived in a richly textured extended African American family.When local schools did not offer a good education, her mother enrolled her in a school run by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Bertha converted to Catholicism at age nine, and six years later she entered the congregation that had taught her. In becoming a sister, she took the name Thea. She became a teacher from 1959 to her death in 1990, first with ele mentary school students and then with a wider audience. She earned a graduate degree in English literature at The Catholic University in Washington, D.C. But no matter where she was, she carried in her heart and voice the songs, stories, and values of the rich cultural heritage of the