Dorothy
Day has long been one of my candidates for canonization. But
whether or not she ever makes it, I have no doubt that this
extraordinary woman of the 20th century is a saint: the kind of saint
who gives hope to sinners like us. For many years she led a rather
colorful, Bohemian lifestyle. As a young woman she underwent a
personally devastating experience when she had an abortion. Later, she
lived in a common law marriage with a man who was an avowed atheist and
an anarchist. She left him after a child was born to them because of his
completely negative and hostile views about religion.
It was at that point that Dorothy Day became a
Christian believer and a convert to Catholicism. From that moment on,
all her energies, and they were considerable, were directed toward
passionately advocating for peace, social justice, and the poor. The
Catholic Worker movement, which she helped found, awakened millions in
this country to the root causes of poverty and to the manifest
injustices which perpetuate poverty.
Dorothy Day died in November of 1980 at the age
of 84. The New York Times, in her obituary, called her the most
influential person in the history of American Catholicism. A
decade or so later, the Cardinal Archbishop of New York introduced her
cause for canonization. But whether or not she is ever declared a saint,
she is certainly among the ranks of those we will be celebrating this
week on All Saints Day.
Reflecting on her life and her conversion to
Catholicism, Dorothy Day wrote a book she entitled From Union Square to
Rome. As she tells it, one of her first attractions to the Church
came in childhood when she discovered one day the mother of one of her
Catholic girlfriends kneeling in prayer. The sight of this
kneeling woman moved her deeply. She never forgot it. In the same
book, she tells how in the days before her conversion, she would often
spend the entire night in a tavern with friends. Then she would go
to an early morning Mass at St. Joseph's Church on nearby 6th Avenue.
What attracted her to St. Joseph's were the people kneeling in prayer.
These are her words, "I longed for their faith...So I used to go in and
kneel in a back pew."
It's not stretching things to say that Dorothy
Day came into the Church on her knees. Or maybe that God came to Dorothy
Day when she was on her knees. That's God's way of doing things as
we are reminded in the today’s parable from Luke’s gospel: it seems God
tends to get through best to people when they're on their knees –
whether literally or figuratively.
The poor of this world, the little ones, those
who know themselves to be weak and sinful, always come to God on their
knees. They have no other way. The great ones of this world, on
the other hand: the smug, the self-sufficient, and the secure who
have got life and God all figured out - they tend to go to God standing
up. They’re like the Pharisee of today's Gospel - full of thanks
that they’re not like the rest of the human family. Not only have
they bought and paid for all the happiness one could ever want in life,
they've even bought God's favor. But what if it's not for sale?
My friends, the recurring motif of today's
readings and chants reminds us that God's favor is not for sale.
"The Lord hears the cry of the poor," we sang a few minutes ago in the
responsorial psalm. "The cry of the lowly pierces the sky," we
heard in the first reading from the Book of Sirach. And then we
got this great little parable from Jesus of the Pharisee and the tax
collector, and once again, the poor, the weak and sinful, the despised
of this world turn out to have the edge.
Now all of this makes sense only on one
premise. Only if we are willing to concede that the logic of the Gospel
is not the logic of the classic syllogism. It is an upside-down,
convoluted logic. It is the logic of a mysterious, sometimes
almost outrageous God, who delights in surprises and likes nothing more
than to overturn our sense of what's right and good and proper.
From start to finish, Luke's Gospel is full of
stories of this kind of God: from the birth of the Savior in an animal
shelter, to Jesus’ choice of illiterate fishermen as his apostles, to
his spending time and sharing meals with prostitutes and public sinners,
to the touching story of the thief on the cross who stole paradise with
his prayer.
My friends, logic this is not! Or call it
God’s logic. Call it grace. If it were our logic, the
Pharisee would have come out on top. He, after all, was the good guy. He
wasn’t crooked like the tax collector; he was the very definition of
uprightness: no transgressions, no sexual failings, no failings at all.
He fasted, prayed, and even gave 10 percent of his income back to God.
What more could God possibly want?
Only one thing. God wanted him on his
knees. It's as simple as that. Just as God wants us on our
knees. God wants us on our knees because it's only when we come to
God small and insignificant, bent over and helpless - it is only then
that God can truly be God for us.
God is all powerful, it's true, but it seems
that the mysterious, playful, and at times shocking God of Jesus Christ
has chosen to limit his power in one important respect. It seems
that God can only really get through to the little people of this world
– or those who make themselves little – by coming to God on their knees.
Father Michael G. Ryan
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