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APPENDIX
#8 “We
Learn to Live a Christian Life as our Vocation" Robert Coles, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a
child psychiatrist, a social anthropologist, a public speaker, a teacher,
a husband, a parent, and a friend; is best known for his search for
enduring values. In one of
his books, “Harvard Diary”, he tells of his search for the meaning of
life and vocation. He
didn’t find it in all of the psychological and sociological techniques
that were being taught in courses that addressed the “ultimate
concern” issues. He states
that it was in the Hospitality House, located in one of New York City’s
poorer districts that helped him bridge the abstract to the concrete
reality of life. There he met
Dorothy Day. She freely
acknowledged without embarrassment her own reasons for feeding and
clothing the extremely needy — “the lame, the halt, the blind,”
demonstrating a preference for a Biblical rather than a sociological
language. Her values and her
life were one, her life a constant example of religious faith. Dorothy Day saw no
distinction between the way she lived her life and her Christian Faith.
She said, “I don’t act politically on the street or worship in
church in order to fit in with people who are radical or people who are
conservative. I read the
Bible. I try to pay attention
to the life of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
I try to follow His example. I
stumble all the time, but I try to keep going — along the road. He walked for us. When
I became a part of the Church, I knew my whole life would change.
For me, everything is religious — politics and the family and
work, they all are part of our obligation: to follow our Lord’s way.”
Dorothy Day, as she
herself put it, “a fool for Christ.”
She was an devout Christian who knew that the Church today will
falter, will fail in its mission, will become badly flawed — and yet, is
a chosen instrument of His. Even
as Judas once betrayed Him, the clergy now do, and parishioners now do —
we are sinful by nature. Still,
there is hope — and Dorothy Day knew where to look for it: not in the
pagan state; not in the dreary banalities and faddish abstractions of
social science; not in the cultivation of self; not in a rampant, crazy
consumerism; but in the daily struggle to obey God and live a life that
does as much justice as possible to His constantly demonstrated
loving-kindness. “All the
way to Heaven is Heaven,” she would state over and over again; because
Jesus said to us, “I am the Way.’” Dorothy Day had a huge
impact upon many people because she lived her life with a purpose and
meaning that was a gift from God. It
did not make any difference was job she had or how much money or
recognition she received; all of life to her was a vocation — serving
God faithfully! |