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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 schoolteacher, Mary E. Coleman
Bowman,Bertha thrived in a richly textured extendedAfricanAmerican fam-
ily.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