Tags
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.
Today we celebrate Pope John XXIII, canonized (some would add “finally!”) by Pope Francis in 2014. The website 
Some years ago I had the privilege of visiting the town of Assisi in Italy. The visit was brief and the focus was, as one might think, the holy places associated with St. Francis. It was an extraordinary six hours, and I often long to return for a longer visit. One of my most vivid memories, however, was not of the places and stories of Francis alone – although those remain as well – but of walking down the path to the Church of San Damiano. Somehow, the olive trees that lined the path seemed to shimmer in the sunlight as if they were saying to me, “Pay attention, for this place you are approaching is extraordinarily holy.” San Damiano became the home of St. Clare and her followers in 1212 and she never left but died there on August 11, 1253. The intense holiness of the saint and her Sisters, who lived a poor and very simple life of prayer, can be felt in the walls of the refectory, in the oratory where they prayed and the dormitory where a cross marks the spot of Clare’s death. What, one wonders, creates such a living vibration in a place where life was so “daily?” Intention and motivation, I suspect. A famous quote of St. Clare gives a hint of an answer.
Today is The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, a designation that makes me, as a “cradle Catholic,” sit up and take notice. It’s the words Solemnity and Most that call attention to the holiness of Jesus as the model for life. In this way, my focus shifts from the beating and bleeding heart in the images of Jesus on the walls of many Catholic homes to a deeper consciousness that does not negate the truth of that devotion but expands and personalizes it in a new way. Lest the reader assume that I have left tradition behind, it seems important to mention that I have an image of the Sacred Heart in my prayer space at home. It is the totality of the symbols – the face of Jesus, the heart and fire illuminating it – and yes, drops of blood as a sign of his life’s sacrifice – that guides my prayer toward love each day.
It seems a very long time since I finally asked Jan Phillips to come to my hometown to share her creativity and thoughts about evolutionary consciousness. I worried that there would not be enough people to “fill the house.” She’s rather famous now. Recently, however, when I raised that concern in an e-mail message to her (having already committed to bringing her all the way from California), it was the Jan that I have known for almost 50 years that responded. Whatever number we have will be perfect, she said. The fewer there are, the deeper we can go. I’m okay with any size.
There is no possibility of missing the message in today’s text from the Letter to the Hebrews. No time for what was called “lollygagging” in the old days. These are serious times that demand our full attention. Listen then to how we are to conduct ourselves:
I found a lovely translation of the psalm for the day in Nan Merrill’s book, Psalms for Praying. The lectionary verses speak very well, I think, to the relationship between the Creator of the universe and God’s stewards – us. I offer it as a thought for the day and bow in humility at God’s generosity even as I am reminded of our responsibility for our Mother Earth.
