How good it is to witness the consideration of Dorothy Day among the offical list of saints, just days before the Christian Advent trek. Misunderstood, pregnant, in the dark, one may say, heavy with the burden of taking her Catholic faith seriously.
Darkness descending down like dewfall as Christians mark the anniversary of the birth of Jesus.
And, joy fills the pilgrims mounting an offense preparing the way.
Bishops began the process of canonizing her, I noticed on EWTN.
I hope they get to El Salvador's Oscar Romero, among others.
Her name emerged from within as I wondered some about Mary, of whom I remember the late Eleanor Josaitis of Detroit's Focus:HOPE, who said to me well before her darker an dimmer days of dying: "Now there's a fascinating woman!"
And, my response to Eli was: "I'll get back with you on that one."
After all, we were in Sacred Heart Church of Roseville, MI., at an ecumenical prayer breakfast and the crowd awaited for Josaitis to speak.
It must be present to me since women are so much a part of the scriptures. And, session and growth groups that meet in Big Jack's in Roseville, MI.
Like Tamar.
Tamara Gumm told an On Tap session all about Tamar the other night at Big Jack's Bar-B-Q Grill.
After all,we walk among Deborah who judged the Israelites with enduring strength.
And, Esther, who used her influence as queen for the common good.
Phoebe led an early church in the empire of Rome.
There's Mary Magdalene. She wept upon finding an empty tomb.
Christina the Astonishing rose from her casket, I'm told, resisting death at her own death!
Go figure!
The one who married imagination and theology is Julian of Norwich.
Pepetua of Carthage was a third-century witness who was martyred for it.
And, rising against her oppressors, there's Sojourner Truth.
Dorothy Day, however, came into being in Brooklyn, New York in 1897.
A Roman Catholic, she wed her inner faith with a passion for social justice. Day founded the Catholic Worker movement with Peter Maurin in 1933. I still get the Catholic Worker newspaper in the mail. The price listed is one cent. That reminds me to pay up after more than four decades of getting it in my mail.
Day aims for clarity and crispness of thought, for a new society within the wall of the old.
Here's a women combining a kind of monasticism of piety with practice, love, and, giving one her or his due in justice.
A revolution of the heart was her challenge and call to all.
She was a journalist in the 20s and met acquaintances in Greewich Village. While pregnant she morphed a love for Jesus the Christ. In 1926 while she resided with the father of a baby in her womb, she was a marked woman, alienated, would have been told, "Distance yourself from us and find a good lawyer," what some priests were told when they were alleged to have engaged in predatory behavior.
There's another woman like Dorothy.
Remember her name?
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