Skip to main content

His Eye is On the Sparrow

 

Old World sparrow - Wikipedia


Why should I feel discouraged / Why should the shadows come /
Why should my heart feel lonely / And long for heaven and home /
When Jesus is my portion / A constant friend is He /
His eye is on the sparrow / And I know He watches over me /

I sing because I'm happy / I sing because I'm free /
His eye is on the sparrow / And I know He watches me

“His Eye is On the Sparrow,” 

Civilla D. Martin and Charles H. Gabriel 

 

For several years I was a parishioner at a predominately Black Catholic parish in Oklahoma.  Of the many things I loved about this community, the gorgeous music sung by the Gospel choir every Sunday stood out.  They sang a range of songs from Negro spirituals to contemporary hymns more familiar in predominately white parishes.  My favorite is the hymn above, “His Eye is On the Sparrow.” 

 

The house sparrow is one of the most common animals in the world—so familiar and so small that it is easy to ignore.  Yet Jesus assures us in the Gospel passage that this song is inspired by that not one sparrow “falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.”  How much more so for us?  “Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31).  

 

The history of Black Catholics has been a story of struggle.  And yet, with great faith the choir sings, “why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?  Jesus is my portion!”  

 

Questions

Have I considered the ways that Black Catholics have enriched the American Church?  Do I share in their faith that the Father’s eye is always on me?  

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we pray for you to keep watch over us just as you do the sparrow.  Keep us from feeling discouraged and dispel the shadows of our doubt.   

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Ken RobertsDecember 4, 2020 at 8:15 AM

    Great post and something to think about. I had not really thought about your question, so now I'm going to go and find the answer. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 4, 2020 at 1:13 PM

    Thanks, Ken. Did you read the optional book Greg Hillis gave us, Racial Justice in the Catholic Church by Brian Massingale? I highly recommend it. I read it this summer along with Cyprian Davis' The History of Black Catholics.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Envisioning a World that Has Never Existed

  “In every age, no matter how cruel the oppression carried on by those in power, there have been those who struggled for a different world. I believe this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half divine: the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed.”        ~ Anne Braden (1924-2006), Louisville racial justice activist   Anne Braden was a local white advocate in the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s.  She and her husband Carl are most famous for purchasing a house in the then exclusively white neighborhood of Shively for a Black couple.  Both Bradens were arrested as “Communists’ for their act and the house was dynamited after irate neighbors shot it up and burned a cross in the front yard. Anne was not deterred and continued the fight for the remaining fifty years of her life, founding a newspaper and several antiracist organizations.      Anne provides an exce...
Post a Comment
Read more

Black and Beautiful

    I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon          --The Song of Songs, 1:5 (trans. from the Greek LXX)   The early Church Fathers believed that the Song of Songs in the Old Testament was a love poem composed by King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (today’s Ethiopia), who was a beautiful woman with black skin. In their allegorical vision, this couple symbolized Jesus and the Church.     As Fr. Cyprian Davis writes,  “Solomon is a type of Christ, and just as the queen of Sheba came to Solomon to consult him because he was wise, so the Church comes to Christ who is Wisdom himself.  As a result, since the queen of Sheba is black, so must the church be black and beautiful.  Her very blackness is a symbol of her universality; all nations are present in her.”    In America, having black skin carries a heavy burden.  Black m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Louisvillian in Thailand aids rescues

The blueprint for Ned Berghausen's life was set early: St. Xavier graduate; a 2001 graduate of Bellarmine University with a degree in philosophy and a minor in theology; joining the Peace Corps after a year studying overseas because "it appealed to me to give something back." His Peace Corps assignment was in Bangladesh. Along the way he had written a 100-page paper on The Book of Job — the Old Testament poem that discusses faith and the suffering of innocent people. Berghausen, 24, was vacationing on Ko Phi Phi Island in southern Thailand on Dec.26 when the tsunami hurtled ashore. "I'm alive," he would write in an e-mail message to Louisville family. "I've seen unimaginable horror. ... I can't begin to tell you about it, but here's a try: Hundreds of dead people, utter devastation, rubble and ruin everywhere, people seriously injured, dying. Somehow I was unscathed. Not even touched. "...I spent 48 endless hours pulling people out of t...
Post a Comment
Read more