About This Online Retreat
As spiritual directors, we are called not only to accompany others as they struggle to face the history, legacy and harm of racism in American society, but in doing so, must confront our own response to the sin of racism. As the Black Lives Matter movement deepened and widened in the wake of public outcry, we invited spiritual directors to reflect on how their own interior movements have been affecting them and their ministries.
Our facilitators led us in a reflection rooted in “What We Have Seen and Heard,” the 1984 pastoral letter on evangelization from U.S. black bishops and shared their own life experience working to address racial justice. Participants were invited to prayer, reflect in silence, and discuss in small groups.
Other Presentation Materials: Brief Resource List for Information About Black Catholics, Reflection Questions (Boreta,) Reflection Questions (George.)
About Our Presenters
Boreta A. Singleton, a native of Philadelphia, is an African American "cradle Catholic." She taught in Catholic elementary and middle schools there and was the Director of the Office for Black Catholics for four years. She has worked for Jesuit-sponsored schools for the past seventeen years, first at St. Aloysius in Harlem, and now at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, NJ, where she is the Director of Faculty Formation. She holds an MA in Theology from University of Notre Dame, an MS in Pastoral Care and Counseling from Neumann University and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Fairfield University.
Fr. George Bur, SJ, has been a Jesuit for sixty years. After his formation years he was ordained in 1972. He spent 12 years in social ministry, most in housing ministry supported by Catholic Charities in Baltimore. After that he was a pastor for eight years with Black Catholics in Philadelphia. He then served for ten years as president of Gesu School in Philadelphia, serving Black families in that same neighborhood. He has been an administrator in Jesuit education and in Jesuit communities. Presently he is the Jesuit Superior in a house whose main ministry is a retreat house. He assists in that work at liturgies and in occasional presentations and spiritual direction.