Dorothy Day on Discouragement (mid-week message)

Dorothy Day Feeding the Hungry, Julie Lonneman

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

August 24, 2016

Dorothy Day on Discouragement

We live in a world that demands results, and judges by measured performance.  But we are called to a life in Christ that by definition seems always to be headed for failure by the measurements of the world.  When we measure the effectiveness of our ministries by numbers—how many in Sunday attendance, how many newcomers who stay, how many homeless sheltered and fed—we often see that these metrics don’t capture the heart and life of ministry.  Frankly, it can be discouraging. 

Blessed Dorothy Day, pacifist co-founder of the Catholic Workers’ Movement, wrote the following to a friend in 1936:

You sounded so discouraged and you know as well as I do that discouragement is a temptation of the devil. Why should we try to see results? It is enough to keep on in the face of what looks to be defeat. We certainly have enough examples in the lives of the saints to help us. Not to speak of that greatest of failures (to the eyes of the world) of Christ on the cross. Why look for response? After all, we can only do what lies in our power and leave all the rest to God, and God will attend to it. You do not know yourself what you are doing, how far-reaching your influence is…  God often lets us start doing one thing and many of the results we accomplish are incalculably far-reaching, splendid in their own way, but quite different from what we expected. Let us think only in terms of our own selves and God, and not worry about anyone else.

I just go straight ahead, doing the best I can with the very poor human material God sends us. Just look at the kind of disciples He chose for Himself, and how little they understood Him, how they wanted a temporal kingdom and thought all was lost until the Descent of the Holy Spirit enlightened them. Why should we expect to be anything else but unprofitable servants? We simply have to leave things in God’s hands.   (To Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Aug. 9, 1936)

Following Jesus, regardless of the cost, is what counts.  Trying to keep a rule of life rooted in his example and teaching, this is what matters.  Serving the needy and all with kindness, regardless of how hopeless things look—that’s the point.  Continuing to maintain the link with all believers in all times and places by simply worshipping in spirit and truth and sharing in the Lord’s Table—this is what matters.  Jesus said that when two or three are gathered in his name, God is in their midst.   The world’s metrics of success are not what Jesus has in mind anyway.  The seed that is the Kingdom of God sprouts on its own, and grows with or without our intervention.  One plants, another harvests.  Trust and not getting discouraged is what it’s all about.

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+