Inner Disposition

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Dorothy Day, Ego sum pauper, hospitable, Joyce Rupp, Prayer Seeds, shelter, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, welcome

In the section on compassion from her book, Prayer Seeds, Joyce Rupp begins with a quote from Dorothy Day that is all about hospitality (p. 46). I could easily see the connection this morning between the two virtues as I read and reflected on Dorothy Day’s life. She said this:

All Christians are called to be hospitable, but it is more than serving a meal or filling a bed, opening a door. It is to open ourselves, our hearts to the needs of others. Hospitality is not just shelter, but the quality of welcome behind it.

As the core of that message reminded me that outer actions flow from inner dispositions, a well-loved Latin chant bubbled up to add conviction to the thought. It says: Ego sum pauper. Nihil habeo. Cor meum dabo.* (I am poor. I have nothing. I give my heart.) When we learned the chant in Wisdom School, I always got stuck before the third line until I focused on the first word, cor, that means heart. I realized this morning the significance of that effort. It’s all about the heart – just like Dorothy says.

The Perfect Home

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calling, Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, holiness, hospitality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

More often than not, I check the Franciscan Media website as part of my morning routine to educate myself about little known (to me, at least) saints of the Church. I am pretty well aware of the celebrations of the most famous ones but some new names pop up every once in awhile and I’m glad to know that some newly canonized people are less recognizable for things like physical martyrdom or the founding of religious communities. Their holiness is simpler – if not always easier – in a daily life sort of way.

Today I found that – like lots of other websites – http://www.franciscanmedia.org has been significantly updated and now includes an eye-catching blog that stalled me on my way to doing my own daily duty! The blog post that appeared was from March 26th and included two articles under the title, Radical Hospitality. They were both about the life and work of Dorothy Day but the first only tangentially.

The author, Shannon Evans, spoke of her own life and her long-held desire to follow in Day’s footsteps by living in and serving with her large family at a Catholic Worker house. Her opportunity to do so quickly revealed to her that this was not the way God was calling her – or her husband and children – so after a few months, her dreams dashed but knowing in her heart that this was the correct decision, they moved back home. While Evans admits to still wishing to be more like her idol and doubting that will ever change, she writes the following:

Children of all ages, races and wealth are jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. I can hear their squeals of delight as I type. I’ll talk with mothers later on in the heat of the day – we’ll talk about the garden, we’ll talk about racial injustice, we’ll eat cantaloupe, and we’ll live this fruitful, painful, mundane life together side by side. I don’t think this kind of house of hospitality will ever look or feel important. But I do think it will matter. And I think Dorothy Day would say it does too.

What a great lesson of searching for what is truly one’s calling and accepting it when it turns out to be different from expected but perfect in God’s eyes.

Consider This

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Dorothy Day, humility, Joan Chittister, judge, love, Luke, Pharisee, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here’s a thought for the day that I think follows from yesterday’s word of humility (Ego sum pauper) as well as the gospel for today about the Pharisee and the tax collector (LK 18:9-14). Joan Chittister says, The harshness with which we judge the other will some day be the measure by which we ourselves are judged. “I really only love God,” Dorothy Day writes, “as much as I love the person I love the least.”

We Are All One: Reflections on Unity, Community and Commitment to Each Other, p.62

Where Were the Women?

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ancestry, Dorothy Day, genealogy, Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus, Mary, outcasts, Rahab, Ruth, Tamar, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, women

It’s always fascinating to read commentaries about historical figures, especially those from very long ago when fact or accurate reporting wasn’t always the most important part of the story. Legend is sometimes so much more inviting! I find this sometimes true especially in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Today’s gospel reading is the familiar text of the genealogy of Jesus from the first chapter of Matthew, almost universally dreaded by first-time lectors because of so many unfamiliar names. I always read it with interest, wishing I could trace my ancestry further back than I am able – even if not 14 or 42 generations as in Matthew’s recounting. I never skip any of the names (I may need to read them aloud at some point!) and always note the fact that there are only four women named: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Mary, the mother of Jesus. All “outsiders” in ways that affect the “family line” they also appear, upon research, to be strong, sometimes wily, women – worthy of attention and, yes, admiration. At the mercy of culture and patriarchy, it is a wonder they survived. One wonders at the reason for their inclusion in the list. I must conclude that it is because their lives were not at all ordinary, as well as the fact that they figured into the lives of some significant men. Something in me says that there must’ve been others who were notable – maybe just not carriers of the family line of Jesus.

Things are different now; women are more central to world events. But as I read and pondered the stories again this morning of these four, I am drawn to reflect on women of our own time, “outcasts” in some way, living on the margins of society, who have been or are now instrumental in shifting the consciousness of a culture or a nation – or maybe just the town or family in which they live. Perhaps I’ll start my own list today. The first name that comes to me is Dorothy Day. A good start indeed!

In the Cloud

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a cloud of witnesses, access lives of holy people, Auschwitz, Catholic Worker, Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, Hebrews, Jesus, Maximilian Kolbe, Pope John Paul II, Rev. Michael Himes, saint, Sermon on the Mount, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Paul, the cloud, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

These days when we speak of “the cloud” many of us are aware that the reference is not to the weather. The latest technological “storage facility” is still a mystery to many but for others it is a great revelation and advance.

In today’s first reading (HEB 12:1-4) Paul urges: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us …He is speaking, of course of what the Church calls “the communion of saints.” Once I heard Rev. Michael Himes, theology professor at that time at Boston College, use that reference as one of the best reasons for the continuance of the Catholic/Christian Church (and I would expand the notion to include other faith traditions for it seems appropriate in the broader sense as well). What he was implying was our freedom and ability to access the lives of these “holy people of God” across the centuries for examples of faith, perseverance, service and love. We may, in an imaginal way (which is not to say imaginary but rather with our deeper intuition), “have conversation with” those who lived in the first century – dropping in on the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps, or sitting with the apostles gathered on the beach for breakfast with Jesus after the Resurrection. We can follow St. Francis of Assisi as he did his best to “rebuild the Church” in the 1200’s or accompany Catherine of Siena as she courageously led the Pope back to Rome from Avignon in 1377. In our own time we might ask Dorothy Day about her fervent service to the poor at the Catholic Worker. “How did you do it?” we might ask, “giving everything …open to everyone?” Or maybe it’s Maximilian Kolbe who gave his life in exchange for a family man at Auschwitz and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982 who puts a modern face on the willingness of Jesus for us.

This year as we celebrate the 100th birthday of Thomas Merton, I see in my mind pictures of him sitting in conversation with the Dalai Lama and know that deep sharing can bring the understanding of which Paul speaks today. We often hear folks say, “S/he was a saint,” when speaking of those newly departed from the earth. Why not look around – even as we look up or look in – to find conversation partners in that great cloud or still here in our midst.