In the End, It's All About Joy

 Wood Engraving by Ade Bethune

Today is the thirty-sixth anniversary of the death of Servant of God, Dorothy Day.  In pondering with gratitude her life and witness, it is easy to forget that for her, following Jesus, and a lifetime of doing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy were, in the end, not a penance or a burden but all about joy. 

She wrote:"You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you.  You will know.  You will know when it's right."  

Of course, the hardships she endured were real and painful enough.  She lived with loneliness, disappointment, doubt and criticism, with the daily struggle to face her own faults and failings and sins.  She was misunderstood by many, including some of those who admired her the most.

But it was the friendship of men and women on the edges of society, the poor and forgetten, the ones who are of no account in this world, but who are closest to Jesus, who brought her close to Him.  It was with them that she found joy, for it was with them that she found Christ, our joy, our hope and our peace. 

Dorothy Day, Servant of God, pray for us.