Happy Omega Psi Phi Memorial Day!
 

A hearty shout out to all Omega Psi Phi brothers this day, March 12, which is Omega Psi Phi Memorial Day. All over the country and the world during this month, chapters, families of deceased brothers and friends will gather in churches and other venues to conduct ritualistic exercises to honor God and our deceased brothers in Omega chapter. "May Light perpetual shine upon them."

"Omega calls her Sons of Light,her newborn blazing glory, her older heroes honor dight and her immortals hoary to meet and greet and chase all gloom away, and thinking bring the everlasting day..."
1st stanza of "Omega Calls Her Sons of Light."

Much love to Langston Hughes on this day.....though I show love to my Brother Countee Cullen, Langston truly ruled the Harlem Renaissance.

Ashe'

Thanks! As my chapter chaplain, I was privileged to lead the Formal Annual Memorial Service on Sunday. It was an occasion truly blessed by God, and appreciated by all who attended. It was emotionally touching that two Omega men gave testimonial remarks for their deceased fathers,who were Omega men; a godson, who is an Omega man, gave reminiscences for his Omega godfather; and a 70-year Omega man gave remarks for his colleague, our chapter brother, whom he knew for many decades. And the sermonette by a chapter brother minister about God's grace and mercy tied it all together. Then the formal memorial ceremony was carried out in majoestic fashion,culminating in a collect (prayer) from our Ritual and the singing of our beutiful hymn, "Omega Dear." It was a blessed day!

A funny note: A guest of one of the families of a deceaced brother we were honoring remarked how the Omegas know how to put on a excellent programs, even though her husband is an Alpha.:)

Be bleesed, my Greek brother!

P.S. In Arnold Ramparsad's multi-volume biography of Langston Hughes he makes reference to a letter that Countee Cullen writes Hughes while he was at Lincoln Univ. When Hughes tells his friend that he is going to pledge Omega, Cullen (an Alpha man as you know) writes to to dissuade him from this choice.

And Sterling Brown, another luminary of the Harlem Renaissance, was Vice-Grand Basileus (national vice president) of Omega. In his autobiography he writes of his experience of being hazed as an almost necessary humiliation for him and his ego arising from his intellectual pedigree during his undergraduate days.

You have chapter chaplains and memorial days? That's pretty cool. Do a lot of other fraternities have this?

-Rudey

I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing. :)

Rudey, I know you said "fraternities" but DST also has chaplains, chapter wise, regionally, and nationally. :)

HA!!!!!

That sounds like something I would have done too, LOLOL

Sounds like a a great program y'all had (I have to ask my boo if his chapter held a memorial day program). I really like it when y'all sing "Omega Dear", it's a really nice hymn. :)

Senusret, there's a Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem. :cool:

Did I ask you? I don't think so!!!

OK OK I'm just kidding.

That's cool. :)

-Rudey

Just hatin'!:) One of the most fun Greek phenomenon is the (mostly) friendly rivalries that we do have with each other. I usually get "accosted" by Kappas and occasionally Alphas. I was going through the Hartsfield Airport security in December with my Omega hat after I visitied my finacee and her folks, and a security officer informed me that I couldn't come through after I got my bags X-rayed,etc. Then he told me why: I was a Que and that he was a Kappa.:) And when I went to the church where we held our memorial service, to do a walk through and confer with the pastor, a elder member came through and the pastor told him who I was and what we were doing. The older gentlemen, a member of the church council, said that he'd allow us to have our service even though he was an Alpha.:) And the pastor jokingly informed me that the church council was full of Alphas but they still voted to allow us to hold our service there.:)

Rudey-
I think all NPHC groups have chaplains or some such officer.What their function is varied though, I think. On a international level, our Grand Chaplain functions as a spiritual advisor to our Grand Basileus(national president), is almost always an ordained minister/pastor/priest and has other ritualistiic functions. Many white NIC and NPC groups also have them and some sort of memorial rites for deceased members,since many of them are religiously based, mostly Christian, that is. I'm not sure about the prevalence of an official memorial day for many groups though.
-Wolfman