We Are Good
BY TERESA CARIÑO PETERSEN | June 6, 2022
Sunday’s Readings
I joke with my students that my office is strictly a “no white Jesus” zone. One, because white Jesus is not historically accurate. Two, because our sacred spaces are so full of white Jesus and white Mary statues and paintings that we don’t realize that it’s not historically accurate. Rather, I’ve filled my office with images of Jesus and Mary, Saints and angels in all colors and genders and in a full range of emotions.
What I love about Pentecost is that it is a celebration of difference and the awesomeness of God. Before Jesus ascended into heaven after his time back on Earth, he left the disciples with the Holy Spirit. In fact, as we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus breathed on them. Then later, when it was time for Pentecost, tongues of fire rested on each one. The reception of the Holy Spirit to the disciples was an embodied experience.
When the disciples began to preach to the crowd that had gathered, the people from all different lands and faiths could hear in their own native tongue. What’s more, each person was imbued with their own gifts and abilities to work and serve. God is at once so personal and at the same time so communal.
I think back to Genesis when God breathed life into human kind and declared that we were good. Pentecost is a time where God is breathing on us again, giving us a renewed life, reminding us all that we are good; in all our differences, in all our bodies, in all our cultures, in all our genders, in all the ways that we love.
You are called to love so deeply and so intentionally with the gifts that only you have. Your body is a part of the body of Christ. Your body is good. You are good.
Teresa Marie Cariño Petersen is an educator and activist particularly interested in racial justice and embodiment. She currently works as a campus ministry teacher at Sacred Heart Prep, Atherton where she teaches social ethics and coordinates the immersion program. She credits her faith that does justice formation to ISN and is an alum of St. Ignatius (San Francisco), the University of San Francisco, and (soon to be) Jesuit School of Theology. She also served as a Jesuit Volunteer in New York City 13’-14’ and worked at two Jesuit parishes. Teresa also serves on the board of the National Catholic Reporter.
Find her on Instagram @teresamariecarino
Teresa posts that we are good. I saw that on the feast of Pentecost when people got together to share food and stories on behalf of the goodness God breathed into us as told in Genesis. I heard stories of people clamoring for social justice in their communities, I heard stories of people clamoring for social justice in their families, their world, their work spaces. We want to see goodness displayed in all that is done. We long for the goodness that God put in our hearts to grow. We see that goodness grow in response to the horrific situations that have happened in our world day after day and yet people are attached to the goodness of God by living out faith, hope and love. We need to support and encourage one another in that goodness and pray always that it will fill the world with the graces and blessings of that goodness.
Teresa, in Genesis we read that God saw that all that He made is “good.” That takes us all the way we need to go to appreciate everything that He gives us to do His will. We are not perfect beings by any means. You have an important role as an “educator” and thus I see that “joking” with your students that your office is strictly a “no white Jesus” zone is “off the track” with what God/Jesus want us to be teaching/sharing with others in an exemplary/peaceful way. How do we know for sure what is historically accurate unless we were there? Does it matter in terms of what truth is? Jesus said “follow me” and doesn’t it seem that it would be best to just leave “race” out of it? Seek the truth of God. Thanks for your “article.”
Thank you so much for this reflection – it’s just what I needed to hear today!
Beautifully articulated! It is GOOD for us to be here!
Thanks Teresa for this beautiful reflection. “How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures” – says the Psalmist.