VOICES
That We May Be One Fr. Joshua Johnson
M
A PERSONAL INVITATION
my mother is catholic and white, and my father is Methodist and Black. They raised our family in the Catholic Church, but I never really felt connected to the Church and didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. I lived a lifestyle that was not conducive to becoming a saint. My mom made us go to religious education classes, and one of my friends was a white girl who recognized that there were only a few Black kids in our class and
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c21 resources | spring/summer 2021
never any Black kids in youth group. She was intentional about making us feel seen and welcome. The summer before my senior year, she invited me to a Catholic youth conference. I didn’t want to go, but for some reason I said, “Yes, I would love to.” On Saturday night during the conference, Bishop Sam Jacobs processed the Blessed Sacrament through the crowd of thousands of teenagers. For the first time in my life, I perceived that the Eucharist was in fact the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. The first words
