“Jesus and Me?”

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Just before the turn of the 20th century, a child was born to a Brooklyn, NY, family that was "solid, patriotic, and middle class," says Wikipedia.

The child’s father was a sportswriter who lost his newspaper job when she was an impressionable nine years old. He and her mother were married at an Episcopal church but their eventual family of five rarely attended church.

The girl, however, was interested in religion from an early age, and eventually converted to Catholicism. She was an avid reader and fond of Upton Sinclair and the great Russian authors, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. From them and other authors, she leaned about capitalism, socialism and extreme poverty. She eventually became a pacifist, a journalist and founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and Catholic Worker newspaper.

"Political Radical"

Many of you will already know that I’m writing about Dorothy Day, perhaps the best-known "political radical" among American Catholics. But she was much more than that, evidenced by the fact that the church has opened a beatification process that could lead to her being declared a saint.

She was obviously motivated principally by the gospel, illustrated by two quotes attributed to her: “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least,” and “The gospel takes away our right forever to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

People searching for God should let these quotes sink in, because they directly contradict the “Jesus and Me” view of what constitutes discipleship. “Jesus and me” is the spirituality that focuses on a personal relationship with Jesus while ignoring the demands of social justice and finding God in others.

Dorothy Day
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It is illustrated in many traditional Christian hymns, such as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “He Walks with Me,” and “In the Garden.”

Don’t get me wrong. Christians should strive to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but only if it includes recognizing that he is present in others, especially the poor and those in need. You just can’t be a Christian and ignore Matthew 25:35: “…I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.”

This isn’t just a call to a personal view or a personal quest to follow the gospel by helping others. It is a communal obligation of discipleship, to be carried out in all our decisions, including political decisions. It doesn’t mean voting for one political party or another, but voting for the common good, to protect the poor, the disenfranchised, workers and immigrants. And it means voting for parties and candidates who will support helping people in poorer countries.

And the communal element in Christianity extends to the spiritual life. Christians don’t pray just for themselves, but for all others – family, friends, “enemies” or people we don’t like, and especially for the poor, the sick, the dying, the unemployed, the migrant, the imprisoned.

The "Our" in the "Our Father"

A good illustration is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. One of the most important words in the Lord’s Prayer is the very first one, the “Our.” We're brothers and sisters in the Lord. The prayer proceeds to “Give US this day our daily bread” and “Forgive US our trespasses as WE forgive….” “And lead US not into temptation but deliver US from evil.”

Regarding the last phrase, the “evil” that we could think about while saying this prayer is the evil being done to people in our inner cities and rural areas and people around the world, including places like Ukraine and Russia, Iran, Israel, Palestine, and many places in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We should unite ourselves in solidarity with them when seeking deliverance from evil.

It’s what Dorothy Day would do, and what the gospel calls us to do.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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