A Message from the Prior Provincial for Martin Luther King Jr Day
A Message for MLK Day 2020
By the Very Rev. Anthony B. Pizzo, O.S.A.
MLK Day is a day meant to remember and re-member.
Remember the man, the prophetic message, the events surrounding his legacy and the dream (articulated) yet to be realized.
Re-member those who have been excluded from a homogenous society because of their skin color, language spoken, customs celebrated, who, then, are to be included as full members in the grand plan of God’s kingdom to be all inclusive and thereby enrich it by the gift of diversity.
It is a day that reminds us that the Gospel compels us to think “outside the box,” to move beyond our “comfort zones” and in the direction of inclusion rather than exclusion.
The exclusion of another because of race, gender, culture, political affiliation, sexual orientation, etc. defies the essence of the Gospel message. The Gospel, by its very nature, is social and relational because God’s very nature is relational. God makes it very clear at the end of the First Reading on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (Is, 49,6), I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Because of our social nature, we are all inter-related due to the common creative reality we share with the Creator. Our common destiny lies in our sharing in the membership of that same Kingdom Jesus preached and revealed. It is offered to all who are willing to embrace it and allow it to penetrate their hearts and transform their lives.
King himself writes from the Birmingham Jail in April, 1963…
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
Let us always remember the common bond we systemically share with one another as a collective living testimony of the intentions of the Creator.
