Finding My Face Among the Saints: Why Representation Matters
By Thandi Chindove
“It’s so lovely to have you all here. When I was growing up in this very church, none of you would have been allowed in.”
These words were directed at myself and the other black African Catholics I was standing with after Mass. The woman speaking was an incredible woman who adopted every international student who walked through the door. She was mother and grandmother to all of us who were separated by oceans from our families. With sad smiles, we all understood her words––history has not always held a place for us.
Inside a Catholic church has always been the place I feel most welcome. Not by the people there, but for the blessed assurance of the fact that Jesus welcomes me. He constantly waits for me as I am with my mess, my history, my hopes, and my sorrows. He welcomes me with my coily hair. He welcomes me with my non-existent nails which anxiety drives me to bite. He welcomes me with the insecurities I have about how I may be perceived. I’ve sat in the pew chatting quietly with a friend and had strangers come up to ask if I was Catholic. Experiences like these have made me hyper-aware of the reality that I am often the only black person there.
It wasn’t until the 2020 protests in the United States that I started to really examine my experiences. Instead of my own isolated, personal experiences with the nuances of race, suddenly so many people I followed and listened to were making space for people like myself to speak and to be heard. Their voices affirmed what I already believed: no part of who I am is a mistake. God had waited thousands of years to knit me together; He makes no errors. I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). And yet it brought up feelings I had become accustomed to ignoring––the almost constant feeling of being the odd one out.
I do know that when I walk into a church I am noticed. It’s the same as when I walk anywhere. I moved to Australia from Zimbabwe eight years ago and it was the first time that I was made aware of my blackness in a Western context. I have often been made to feel like a novelty. I remember how my university would ask me to model for their website and marketing material. While I’m sure the university was focused on the financial impact of my contribution, I recognised the emotional impact that my image could have for students of colour. I loved the opportunity because I saw it as a chance to say to others who looked like me, “You are welcome here.”
It was within my Australian church community that I felt the most relaxed because I didn’t need to explain myself. My friends and I were together on the crazy road to heaven which often felt the tiniest bit unattainable to me. It wasn’t until I moved to this new city that I began to work out why I felt this way.
Finding my face among the saints
During a holy hour, I was handed a card for the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita. Who was this elegant, dark-skinned woman smiling at me and how was she a saint? The others around me seemed surprised that I had no knowledge of her. I realised that I had almost no knowledge of any black saints. I knew of the Ugandan Martyrs because they were spoken about a handful of times during our Masses in Zimbabwe, but that was all. I remember mentions of St. Augustine and my mother’s love of St. Monica, but I had never pictured that they too could look like me.
Our home parish in Zimbabwe is very simple with only a handful of statues: St. Gerard Majella our patron, Our Lady of Lourdes, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On prayer cards, on Christmas cards, and in the Nativity set, there was never a dark-skinned person. On the rare occasions that I saw Jesus portrayed as a black man I felt deeply disturbed. Jesus couldn’t look like me. I had grown up thinking that I could maybe get to heaven but becoming a saint was not meant for me. Even as I held onto her prayer card, St. Josephine felt so far away.
Many African Catholics move to Western nations and fall away from the Church because they cannot see themselves there. I have spoken to countless people who were surprised that I chose to remain Catholic after moving because it was so different from what we had grown up with. Walking into a parish to find the ever-faithful old lady with the guitar on a Sunday morning is a beautiful thing, but it is an undeniable culture shock when my experience of Sunday Mass has almost always been choirs overflowing with people led by the rhythm of ngoma (drums) and hosho (shakers). I remember being too young to comprehend the meaning of their singing, but knowing something important was happening during the Penitential Act and the Lamb of God by the solemn looks on the faces of every mother in the church. I loved to watch them sway and smile during the Gloria. Growing up in that environment I saw the outward expression of delighting in God. The vibrant song and dance of the Mass where the joy is palpable and it feels like most ears are listening to the words of the priest. It’s a place where teenagers are the only ones who can get away without wearing their Sunday best. By contrast, my first Australian parish was quieter, more casual, and so far removed from all that I knew about the experience of Mass. I felt accepted, but not necessarily at home.
On one of my visits back to Zimbabwe for the holidays, my mother gave me a medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I had never heard of her and even the concept of Marian apparitions was very new to me. The story of this apparition was unlike anything I had heard before and it moved me deeply. Here was Mary with undeniably brown skin, though nowhere near as dark as my own. And there she was, speaking to an Indigenous Mexican farmer in his own language, dressed in a fashion that would convert millions of people to the faith. What has always moved me is the fact that she looked like St. Juan Diego and she spoke to him in his language. I had only encountered a God who spoke English or other European languages. And I thought to myself: this stuff matters.
The beauty of cultural representation in our universal Church
While I have heard arguments about how the Mass should be free of any cultural influences, I cannot look at the miracles of Guadalupe and say that culture is unimportant to our God. For Mary to always appear according to the culture of the people she speaks to tells me that God knows what matters to us and that matters to Him––and that is what healed me. I felt seen. It’s as though our Lord had known from the very beginning how I would struggle to see myself in His Kingdom and how important it was for me to know that He had a place for me there.
In time, I read the stories of Sts. Felicity & Perpetua, St. Moses the Black, and Blessed Benedict Daswa. I discovered Our Lady of Kibeho, and finally grew to love Sts. Augustine, Monica, and Josephine Bakhita.
All of these saints have taught me much about the Church and the beauty of diversity within our Church; yet, it has always been Our Lady of Guadalupe who truly made me feel at home, who validated me for who I was and what I looked like. And that has been so important for my understanding of who God is and how I try to be my truest self in church. Representation matters because our Church is gloriously, joyfully, beautifully universal.
I am still often the only black person at Mass and I stand different from the expectations of other Catholics. When I can, I try to dress up and wear my veil, and I hope that my presence speaks to others like me. I hope that other black people—other young women—can see me so at home in front of Jesus and know that there is a place for them too, a place for all of us.
