Setting a Welcome Table with Dr. Kim R. Harris

Remembering the lunch counter sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Kim Harris preaches for Holy Thursday, offering a reflection on creating a welcome table:   "Are we looking and bending down, to wash the feet of a neighbor? Or even allowing our own feet to be washed in the ritual…? While feeling other than, feeling above or even feeling disdain for those who are in deep need. Unhoused, underfed, unremembered? Do we see, as we look at our table not only who is there, but who is not there? Who is not invited? Who is invited but cannot gain access?"   Kim R. Harris is Assistant Professor of African American Thought and Practice in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. in Worship and the Arts from Union Theological Seminary, New York City. Dr. Harris is a member of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium and the North American Academy of Liturgy. While pursuing her Ph.D., she composed Welcome Table: A Mass of Spirituals. Welcome Table is a featured complete Mass setting in the second edition of the Black Catholic hymnal, Lead Me Guide Me and the Gather Hymnal 4th Edition (GIA Publications Inc.). Her current research concerns Black Catholic liturgy in a time of changing parish demographics and consolidations, as well as the need to diversify available liturgical resources for worship.   Visit www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/04142022 to learn more about Dr. Harris, to watch her preaching video or read her preaching text, and for more preaching from Catholic women.