Galt House October 11, 2024 Mercy Education Conference Jer 22:1-4 Matt 25:31-46 In 1960, an 18-year old Black man stood over the Ohio River looking down from the Second Street Bridge two blocks east from here. He had just returned from Rome with an Olympic gold medal around his neck. Filled with pride, he wore the medal everywhere, expecting every door in his hometown to be open to him. And yet, he found that in Jim Crow Kentucky, the color of his skin mattered more than the color of his medal. It mattered more than his talent in the ring, more than the poetry than flowed from his lips, more than his good looks. “I’m prettier than a girl,” he boasted. The young Muhammad Ali gazed down at the muddy water—a river that had been a symbol of freedom to his ancestors fleeing slavery to the north and a symbol of hell for slaves sold down river to the cotton fields of the Deep South. Ali took his medal and threw it into the Ohio River....
These posts are the collected homilies of Deacon Ned Berghausen, permanent deacon of the Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, assigned to St. Agnes Catholic Church. The title "Foot Washer" refers to the Last Supper (John 13:1-20) in which Jesus washed the feet of the apostles and challenged them, "“Do you realize what I have done for you? If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow."