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There Was No Needy Person Among Them

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality, Homilies with tags , , , , , , on April 9, 2013 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Christian CommunityWhat does it mean to be a Christian? What does it look like? Today’s first reading offers us a glimpse into what some of the early communities understood the ideal situation to look like, marked as it was by several well-known key features: unity in heart, unity in belief, unity in resources, and no one goes without what is necessary — there is no need.

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.
With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.
There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.
(Acts 4:32-35)

New Testament and Early Christianity scholars are generally sure that this quasi-utopic vision of early Christian life is idealistic rather than verbatim historical recounting of a specific community. Nevertheless, what this Lucan passage tells us is that the early Christian communities, after several generations, looked back at their origins and at least imagined what it would have looked like to be more closely following the Gospel.

This passage, in other words, is not really about returning to the past or looking back as much as it is about looking ahead and striving to emulate what an instantiation of the vita evangelica, what the “Gospel Life” would really look like if lived as truly as possible.

It is no surprise, then, that Francis of Assisi’s own Regula or “Rule of Life” begins with the line: “The Rule and Life of the Lesser Brothers is this: to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without anything of ones own, and in chastity” (RB 1:1). It is an attempt to express, in both spiritual and legislative terms, what the Acts of the Apostles passage expresses narratively: living out one’s baptismal vocation is to observe the Gospel, to follow Christ, to live as a hearer of the word (obedience), without anything of one’s own (poverty), and in right relationship with others (chastity).  While these evangelical counsels (as they are technically called) or religious vows (as they are more popularly known) are often understood to be something reserved for those women and men who have a vocation to religious life, the Acts of the Apostles reminds us of our universal call through baptism to live these virtues in whatever state we find ourselves.

This does not mean that everybody is to live in exactly the same way, but it does mean that we have one source for how to live and to imagine what it looks like to do so authentically: the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Long before John Lennon wrote the beautiful song “Imagine,” the worldview of the early followers of Jesus Christ was transformed in such a way that they, too, asked themselves — as they ask us today — “Imagine that there’s no need or want and all live in peace.” Can we imagine a world about which we might say: “There was no needy person among them?”

You might say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Photo: Stock

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Correcting Oversight: DeWitt’s Reflections on ML King’s Opposition to War and Poverty

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2012 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

The following essay, written by Stephen DeWitt, OFM, author of the blog AFranciscanAbroad.com, was originally published in the January 18, 2012 issue of HNP Today, the twice-monthly newsletter of the Franciscan of Holy Name Province. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Seasonal Reflection: Being True to King’s Legacy
by Stephen DeWitt, OFM

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most important, influential, and well-known figures of the 20th century United States. King is rightly famous and celebrated for his contributions to the cvil rights movement in the U.S. and his commitment to nonviolent social protest and activism.

This week, as we do each year, we, as a nation, pause to honor his memory and the ideals to which he dedicated his life. During this time most remembrances focus on his contributions to ending segregation and other manifestations of legalized racism in the United States. Many will read or play his famous “I Have a Dream” speech given during the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C. All of this was an important part of King’s life and well worth remembering. Equally important, however, and less well remembered, is King’s opposition to militarism and poverty in the U.S. It was to this struggle that King dedicated the latter years of his life. It  is this aspect of his life, often forgotten in public remembrances of his life, that has the most to teach us in this moment of U.S. history.

King’s opposition to war was rooted in two important principles: his belief in the sacredness of all human life and his belief in an objective moral order. Both of these principles were grounded in his Christian faith and guided his entire life. For King, the sacredness of human life was a consequence of humankind’s creation in the image and likeness of God. Speaking on Christmas Eve, 1967, King said:

“Now, let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men [sic] is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ we’re really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world.” (A Christmas Sermon on Peace)

This identity as children of God means that all people are related and interdependent in a way that knows no boundaries or divisions. We are all brothers and sisters and when we truly acknowledge this oppression, then exploitation and killing will be impossible.

Harmony with Universal Moral Order
King also believed that the universe was under the spiritual control of God and that God had written certain moral laws into the very fabric of the universe. This meant that moral decision-making was not about what was popular or even pragmatic, but what was most in line with the grain of the universe as God had created it. We live our lives best when we do so in harmony with this universal moral order; when we fail to do so, the results are violence, inequality, and injustice. This danger was particularly acute when one substituted a lesser value, such as materialism and consumerism, for love and devotion to God.

King believed that the existence of violence between human beings and of massive inequality between rich and poor was a sign that the people of the world had forgotten the inherent dignity of all people and had turned against the grain of the universe. This sense of violation was particularly evident in the relationship King saw between poverty and war in the policies of the United States during his lifetime, especially the War in Vietnam, which he publicly opposed during the final years of his life.

Speaking about the War in Vietnam in February of 1967, King called Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program the third casualty of the War in Vietnam, because the war was taking money that could be spent on the poor and using it for unjust killing and war. King goes on to lament a society that could rigorously evaluate every dollar spent on social welfare, while carelessly throwing billions of dollars at the slaughter of other human beings. For him, this indicated a massive distortion of values and priorities.

In April 1967, King called the War in Vietnam, “a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit…” and called for a radical revolution of values so that the U.S. would “get on the right side of the world revolution” (Beyond Vietnam). As King saw it, the world was in the midst of worldwide revolution of freedom in which the oppressed peoples of the world were rising up to demand their rights as free people. Through its ongoing actions in Vietnam, the U.S. had placed itself on the wrong side of this revolution and was in need of great moral and spiritual revolution to bring itself back in line with the movement of the world.

Parallels Decades Later
Tragically, the radical revolution of values that King called for has not come to pass and his criticisms of war and violence retain their relevance. Even a superficial analysis of the recent misadventures of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates the truth of this statement. According to some estimates, U.S. actions in these countries have cost more than $1 trillion (National Priorities Project), money that could be used here in the U.S. to alleviate the effects of the ongoing economic recession. As in King’s time, when budgets become tight, it is always social welfare programs that are forced to make sacrifices and not military and defense programs.

Nor would King be content with the massive inequality between rich and poor that continues to exist in the U.S. Speaking in 1956, King lamented the fact that one tenth of one percent of the population controlled nearly 40 percent of the wealth (Paul’s Letter to American Christians). Today, the wealthiest one percent control fully 40 percent of the wealth and earn 25 percent of all income annually (Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%). King condemned this situation, saying,

“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe “enough and to spare” for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth. (Paul’s Letter to American Christians)

As long as the rich continue to dominate the poor, King’s critique retains its relevance and serves as a reminder that the U.S. is still in need of a radical reorientation of priorities.

Today, U.S. society remains troubled by the same issues that King spoke out against so eloquently during the final years of his life. Our tragic addiction to violence and war remains as the U.S. continues to spend obscene amounts of money on the military while people struggle to pay their bills. We continue to prioritize the rich and powerful, while leaving the poor and middle class to fend for themselves, despite all rhetoric to the contrary. The bankers and financiers who brought the U.S. and world economy to the brink of collapse are bailed out, while ordinary people are thrown out of their homes, often through dishonest and fraudulent means.

If King were alive today, he would be speaking out against the tragic state of U.S. society and culture. He would be marching with the various Occupy movements calling for accountability and for government programs to help people remain in their homes.

This week, many speak eloquently about the need to honor King’s memory and remember the great things he did for civil rights in this country. If we truly want to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., however, we will join in the struggle to transform U.S. society and bring about the radical revolution of values that he called for. To do anything less makes a mockery of his life and everything for which he stood.

— Br. Steve, a member of the Province’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Directorate, professed his final vows as a Franciscan in August 2011.

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The Challenge of this Week’s Gospel Passages

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on October 12, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

The Boston College social ethicist and regular columnist for America magazine Thomas Massaro, SJ, has an excellent column in the current issue of America (“The Unkindest Cuts“), which draws attention to the relevance of the Gospel passages we hear this week (although the daily readings of this cycle come from Luke and not Matthew) in which Jesus chastises the Jewish religious authorities for their hypocrisy and injustice. In considering the current state of the economy and the political debate that surrounds it, Massaro notes the often-overlooked issue of race as a constitutive element in the unfair budgetary response of some political leaders.

In chapter 23 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus directs a series of “woes” at the scribes and Pharisees. The list of damning charges includes the hypocrisy by which they pay lip service to the prophets of old, even erecting tombs in honor of the social critics of earlier times, but by their present complicity with injustices prove themselves to be “the sons of the prophets’ murderers.” These are harsh accusations, hardly an easy springboard for a pleasant sermon on a sleepy Sunday morning.

But, as with all scriptural warnings, we are wise to keep this one in mind and to be vigilant against the possibility of falling into the very errors we decry. As we ponder our national policies and our collective responsibility for them, we have to ask: Is American society guilty of tolerating a large gap between the values we profess to champion, on one hand, and deplorable policy outcomes we allow to persist, on the other hand?

What’s at stake, Massaro reminds us, is the issue of racial justice and fairness. Massaro keenly notes the economic impact of the recession and other problems in recent years disproportionately affects people of color more than it does other populations. In what seems like a simple “universal problem,” which affects all but a few US citizens (the so-called 1% of the most wealthy who have actually benefited throughout the economic slump), the remaining 99% has not suffered equally.

If you seek evidence of disproportionate burdens falling on segments of our population, the best place to look is in aggregate statistics. New Census Bureau findings document the wide and growing gap between whites and the rest of Americans in social indicators such as unemployment, childhood poverty and inadequate health insurance. The current unemployment rate for blacks is 16.7 percent, nearly double the rate for white non-Hispanic Americans. To oppose measures addressing the jobs crisis is tantamount to turning one’s back on the serious struggles of the black community, even if such a stance is not explicitly motivated by racial bias.

Other studies reveal that the most serious losers in the recent economic turmoil have been those with the fewest resources, the most modest savings and the highest personal debt. These are disproportionately members of racial minorities, whose annual incomes and stocks of wealth lag behind those of others. The deeper and longer the mortgage and credit crises run, the more these groups bear the lion’s share of financial harm, as they fall further and further behind in the struggle to save for college and retirement. Budget deals that favor spending cuts (especially on programs that serve low-income Americans) over raising revenues (most taxes come from the upper brackets) certainly add to the problem.

Race and other sensitive and unpopular dimensions of social inequality are rarely raised in the public square, despite the hype of a presidential election in the United States on the horizon. This column and the discomfort it likely evokes in so many readers is exactly what is needed today. We cannot let ourselves fall into the rote roll of the Pharisees and Scribes, although we are complicity in that crowd as it is, but instead consciously strive to address matters of discrimination, social inequality and injustice our or communities, society and world. It begins by addressing these matters in our hearts and then doing something about it.

Photo: Stock

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Following Francis of Assisi Today: Who Are Our Lepers?

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality with tags , , , , , , , , on October 4, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

This reflection is now available in Daniel P. Horan, OFM’s book Franciscan Spirituality for the 21st Century: Selected Reflections from the Dating God Blog and Other Essays, Volume One (Koinonia Press, 2013).

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Archbishop Dolan Draws Attention to Pressing Moral Issue

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a statement drawing attention to an excellent letter drawing much-needed attention to one of the most pressing moral issues in our day: the plight of poverty in the United States, the rate of which continues to rise. The text of the press release is as follows, you can follow (and I recommend that you do) the link in the statement, which will lead you to the Archbishop’s full letter.

WASHINGTON—Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), urged bishops and other Catholic clergy nationwide to bring the issue of poverty into their homilies.

He also underscored the need for educational and advocacy efforts on behalf of the poor and jobless.

Archbishop Dolan made the appeal in a September 15 letter to the nation’s bishops at the urging of the USCCB Administrative Committee. The Committee oversees USCCB work between plenary sessions and met in Washington, September 13-14.

“Widespread unemployment, underemployment and pervasive poverty are diminishing human lives, undermining human dignity, and hurting children and families,” he wrote. “I hope we can use our opportunities as pastors, teachers, and leaders to focus public attention and priority on the scandal of so much poverty and so many without work in our society.” The entire letter can be found at http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/economic-justice-economy/letter-to-bishops-on-economic-situation.cfm

Archbishop Dolan added, “Sixteen million of our children (almost one out of four) are growing up poor.”

“It is especially disheartening that African-Americans and Hispanics live with unemployment and poverty at far higher rates than others. Immigrant workers are especially vulnerable to exploitation and unfair treatment. These realities contradict our national pledge of ‘liberty and justice for all,’” he said. “They also contradict the consistent teaching of our Church. Our Catholic tradition begins with respect for life and the dignity of all, requires a priority concern for poor and vulnerable people, reflects the ties and bonds of solidarity, respects the mutual relationships of subsidiarity, and promotes the dignity of work and protection for workers.”

Photo: Pool

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A Poetic Reflection on the Vow of Obedience

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality with tags , , , , , , , on August 26, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

In a very generous gift of original work, my friend Joseph Madonna sent me three poems he had written for the occasion of my profession of Solemn Vows in the Franciscan Order, each poem a reflection on each of the three vows. With his permission, I will publish them here on the three days preceding the date of profession — this Saturday morning. Here is the second, this one on the vow of obedience.

Obedience

Open your heart to receive my Word.
Open the ears of your heart and listen
to the voice which comes not in fire, lightning, and earthquake
but in the gentle, soft breeze…

The world tells you to be strong, to conquer the hearts
and minds of men. But I say unto you:
Be weak, for in my weakest moment did I not
free you from all your sins, and open the gates
home to you?

Be not afraid my children, for I am ever with you.
I will not let you wander far from my love,
nor forsake you in your time of great need.
Listen to my Word, keep my commandments,
Love abundantly and pray ceaselessly.

Listen.

- Joseph Madonna (2011)

Photo: Linda Davidson, The Washington Post 

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A Poetic Reflection on the Vow of Chastity

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality with tags , , , , , , , on August 25, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

In a very generous gift of original work, my friend Joseph Madonna sent me three poems he had written for the occasion of my profession of Solemn Vows in the Franciscan Order, each poem a reflection on each of the three vows. With his permission, I will publish them here on the three days preceding the date of profession — this Saturday morning. Here is the second, this one on the vow of chastity.

 

Chastity

Awkward.
Only way to begin.
Break free from the old mindsets, the labels,
the conditions in which society expects us to operate.
Be open to the renewing of your mind, the
possibility of new and richer understanding
as the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds
pass on into eternity.

Not a denial, but an acceptance
of your truest self and your purpose, mission,
vocation on your pilgrimage.

The greatest of these things is love.
Not the love of parent and child, or of friends, or of spouses,
but the love of Fourth and Walnut…
the love that in an instant can change a life, can change the world.
The love that brings with it the realization that
we truly are one body in Christ.

The love that sees each and every being as who and what
God sees it, as it was meant to be on that seventh day in Eden.

A love that embraces this world in all its broken beauty
and refuses to live in silence. A heart afire with zeal
burning brightly on the hilltop, witnessing to the Christ
enthroned within.

- Joseph Madonna (2011)

Photo: Linda Davidson, The Washington Post 

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A Poetic Reflection on the Vow of Poverty

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality with tags , , , , , , on August 24, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

In a very generous gift of original work, my friend Joseph Madonna sent me three poems he had written for the occasion of my profession of Solemn Vows in the Franciscan Order, each poem a reflection on each of the three vows. With his permission, I will publish them here on the three days preceding the date of profession — this Saturday morning. Here is the first, this one on the vow of poverty.

 

Poverty

You shall love your neighbor as yourself,
and not wish to be master over him.
It is not only greed which is our enemy,
but wrongful desire and love for all that is in this world.

For some the need to possess things is their undoing,
for others it is knowledge, or gold, or power over other beings.
Be always little, humble, poor.
And in your heart let love be engraved.

That is the root, the soul of poverty: love.
Love that allows all of creation to be, to be freely.
Love that accepts the conditions of life and
forsakes all else to have the love of the great Beloved.

The birds in flight and the lilies of the field care not
for great affairs or marvels beyond their reach.
They live in the never-ending present, giving
glory to their Father from whom all their needs come.

We are God’s children and He will not give us snakes and stones
for food, or vinegar for drink. He has fed us with
His son’s body and blood. Is that not enough?
He who is all in all has chosen to dwell among and
within us. Is that not enough?

Seek not to hold but to be held in the eternal embrace.
Spread your arms wide as a cross and be stripped
of all ambition, all desire, except that which will
bring you home. This is poverty:
to be so enamored of God that you let go of all
else but that love which in the end consumes you,
leaves you with the nothing which is everything.

- Joseph Madonna (2011)

Photo: Linda Davidson, The Washington Post 

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Not Needing God Anymore

Posted in Solemn Vow Retreat with tags , , , , , , , on July 13, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

 

Wednesday 13 July 2011

My blog posts during these last four weeks have not included my typically occasional social, political, ecclesiastical or cultural commentary. That is not by accident. While I have remained true to my word to regularly post here, I do not have the same access to the news and other media that I ordinarily would. That is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that, at least in theory, such occlusive action would provide me with more freedom for prayer and reflection; and to a certain extent it has. The curse is that, at least in practice, I feel removed from both the “joys and hopes” as well as the “anxieties and grief” of the world. I’m not entirely sure of what is happening daily in the world.

As the number of days shrink until I return to the East Coast and once again return to my daily consumption of information and news, I’m sure I will have much to share and many things about which to reflect. Until then, I thank you for your continued reading, comments and prayerful support.

One of the things that we began to discuss today seems as relevant today as at any other time, a realization that is made without much knowledge of the most fleeting worldly news. As we reflect together on the composition of the world-wide Order of Friars Minor (OFMs), several trends supported by centuries of data raise questions for me.

It is well known that the numbers of “vocations” (in this case commonly used to describe the people entering religious life. A common definition, but one that so often leads to the general presumption that the term “vocation” can only refer to those who respond to a religious path of life) in the United States have not been as numerous as they had in previous decades during the twentieth century. Likewise, the Canadian and European provinces of the Friars – and quite likely among other religious communities in those national and geographic areas – have experience even starker declines in the entrance of young men into professed religious life.

While this phenomenon is much discussed in the “West,” one sees a boom in the number of young men in the developing world or the global south. Here one thinks particularly of Eastern nations such as India and Korea, but the trend is also reflected in some countries on the continent of Africa.

Similar trends, for various reasons, were once the case in the United States just as the number decreased rapidly in Europe. Immigrant populations, post-war social conditions and other reasons provided the nexus for religious-community growth in those years. But that stopped.  Why?

I should say here that I believe firmly that the Holy Spirit has always, in every age, called a certain number of women and men to live a form of professed religious life. Some respond to that invitation, while others do not. We’ve also seen socio-economic and cultural reasons for artificial increases in such numbers for a short time until many of those who, I would argue, were never actually called to this way of life left their communities in what has been remembered as the mass exoduses of the 1960s and 70s.

The Holy Spirit continues to invite young women and men to live as members of professed religious communities. The problem is that it is increasingly more difficult to hear that invitation, let alone know how to respond in an age when professed religious are hardly seen in the public square and commitment to such a way of life is rarely supported within the wider culture.

Part of the problem is the amount of wealth in our society. The affluence and comfort that comes with the way we live in the “post-industrial world” masks our fragility, finitude and dependence. Like so many Europeans during the industrial age before us, we have found ourselves “not needing God anymore” from social standpoint.

On the other hand, in those places in our world where the luxuries that so many take for granted in this nation hardly register as a dream, there is only God who can provide the hope amid suffering, the release amid pain and the promise of life unlike the destitution experienced by so much of the global population. I can’t help but wonder whether this daily existential encounter with one’s own poverty helps explain the large numbers of those willing to respond to the Holy Spirit’s invitation in our time.

This raises certain challenges, the solutions to which I do not yet have. One major hurdle in trying to wrap my head around this sort of trend is why abject poverty is the seeming ground for bountiful religious life. I wonder if it isn’t really abjection that God desires in providing the condition for the possibility of women and men responding to the Holy Spirit’s invitation with an echo of Mary’s Fiat, but instead a reminder of everyone’s need to embrace evangelical poverty.

Living as Christ teaches us in the Gospel – without anything of our own – is what all are called to do by virtue of baptism. This evangelical poverty serves, as liberation theologians so keenly remind us, as both a protest against abjection and as fecund grounding for Christian growth. In distancing one’s self from the overly hyper materialistic and consumption-driven culture of our society, one begins to recognize the neo-Pelagianism that summarizes the popular spirit that says: “we no longer need God. We can do (buy) it ourselves!”

Sure, one doesn’t say so with as many words, she or he continues to say “in God we trust” and sings some cheery songs at Church each week. But it is not our words that mark us. Jesus warned that it would not simply be our saying “Lord, Lord” that will cut it. Our actions indeed speak, shout, proclaim so much more than our words. We act as if we no longer needed God. We can afford to do so.

I don’t know what the answer is or even how to make sense of what I’ve been reflecting on here. I certainly wish to avoid romanticizing material poverty, that indeed threatens human dignity. Yet, there is something to be said about the distance that evangelical poverty can provide for those who seek to follow God more perfectly. Perhaps only then might the next generation of women and men religious be able to hear the Spirit and respond to Her invitation.

Photo: Stock

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Dorothy Day on St. Francis of Assisi

Posted in Franciscan Spirituality, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on April 30, 2011 by Daniel P. Horan, OFM

I am currently preparing some reflections to share on the thought of Bl. John Duns Scotus at the invitation of the Catholic Worker in New York City for later next month. While I am well versed in the writings and thought of the Franciscan tradition, I am not nearly as familiar with Dorothy Day’s work. I know much about her and have always admired her exemplary modeling of the Gospel Life, yet I have not spent as much time with her writings as I would have liked — another thing on the list to do. I said as much to the woman from the Catholic Worker who invited me to speak about Scotus and she said that wasn’t a problem, they weren’t expecting me to speak about Day or the Catholic Worker. Nevertheless, I find myself, in anticipation of that talk, returning to Day’s writings to renew and expand my appreciation for her life, model and wisdom.

In the process, I have been delighted and challenged: delighted to discover so much wisdom and human holiness, as well as a fine peppering of the twentieth-century (not to be called) saint’s admiration for St. Francis of Assisi; challenged to be reminded of my own inadequacies and fears in living out what it is I am called to by virtue of baptism and my religious profession. Day has that ability, to edify and raise-the-stakes in the most evangelical of ways.

I thought I would share but a short excerpt from one of her writings that mentions St. Francis of Assisi. There are, of course, many more. This is from a reflection on poverty, its tone and style reminds me of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s writing on Liberation Theology and poverty some years later.

Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. I have tried to write about it, its joys and sorrows, for twenty years now; I could probably write about it for another twenty years without conveying what I feel about it as well as I would like. I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. It is a paradox.

St. Francis as “the little poor man” and none was more joyful than he; yet Francis began with tears, with fear and trembling, hiding in a cave from his irate father. He had expropriated some of his father’s good (which he considered his rightful inheritance) in order to repair a church and rectory where he meant to live. It was only later that he came to love Lady Poverty. He took it little by little; it seemed to grow on him. Perhaps kissing the leper was the great step that freed him not only from fastidiousness and a fear of disease but from attachment to worldly goods as well.

Sometimes it takes but one step. We would like to think so. And yet the older I get, the more I see that life is made up of many steps, and they are very small affairs, not giant strides. I have “kissed a leper,” not once but twice — consciously — and I cannot say I am much the better for it. (109-110)

This except comes from Dorothy Day: Selected Writings (Orbis, 2005), edited by Robert Ellsberg. I would encourage you to consider checking out that book or any of Day’s writings for more.

Dorothy Day and Francis of Assisi: Ora pro nobis.

Photo: Sally K. Green

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