Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, November 8, 2007


We have all known the long loneliness
and we have learned that the only solution
is love and that love comes with community.

- Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic
Worker movement, born on this day,
1897


Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn. She survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Her family moved into a tenement on Chicago’s South side, where, with her father out of work, Dorothy came to understand the shame of failure, and poverty, and the beauty even of slums and their fullness of life and people.

Her experiences led her to Roman Catholicism, and to working for the equality of women and for social services to the poor. She was drawn to the Franciscan way of life. Eventually, to further outreach to the poor, she started a newspaper called The Catholic Worker - it sold 100,000 a month. And then Catholic Worker houses, for the homeless; they grew to 33 by 1936. And, in my mind, being the best of Christian love and charity, people were never proselytized - they were just loved and cared for in Christ’s name. To me, this is the very best of Christian witness. Charity for conversion is only unholy manipulation.

In the Christian myth, Jesus did not die for love of any one person. He died for the whole community of God’s human family. Of course love can begin between two. But any loving relationship draws others to it. Community forms - where people come “com muneris”, with gifts to share, so that all may grow together in mutual affection.

Anyone can pray alone – and this is good. And God can be found alone, or often finds us when alone. The church is only useful if it is a community of Love patterned after God’s unconditional Love. If it is not, it is a millstone around God’s neck.

If you are a church-goer, work to make your community a solution to the long loneliness that so many of us know.

Brian+




Brian McHugh, priest & vicar
St. Peter's, Casa Grande
St. Michael's, Coolidge
orrock1946@msn.com
520.705.2689 (telephonitto)
blog: http://brianstakeontheworldfaithandreligion.blogspot.com/