Fr. John Dear and Grace

Fr. John Dear gave the Ohio Dominican University crowd a very wonderful presentation tonight! He talked about his conversion into a peacemaker while on pilgrimage in the Holy Land. He described Jesus as the Incarnation of the God of Peace and asked us to consider the implications this has for our lives. He repeatedly mentioned the great peacemakers of our time: Martin Luther King Jr, Dorothy Day, and the father of modern peacemaking: Mahatmas Gandhi.

There was a brief session of questions and comments at the end. Time was limited, but Fr. John seemed willing to push it and entertain a few more questions than the allotted time. Just before he was about to call it quits, he allowed one more comment. Our friend Grace stood up and announced to the whole room the formation of the local Pax Christi chapter and our initial meeting coming up at 7pm on October 21st, here at the Catholic Worker house. She also invited John to attend!

Fr. John was glad to hear this and announced that membership in Pax Christi is a "no brainer." He said that it should be the first step any Catholic makes on the road to peacemaking, being a worldwide organization that bears the official support of the institutional Catholic Church. He encouraged us all to join Pax Christi and we were thrilled to hear his support.

It was then that the light bulb went off in my head, and I could have kicked myself. We were sitting on probably the most sympathetic assembly for peacemaking in Central Ohio and didn't even think to have a stack of fliers handy--a nearly blown opportunity, if it weren't for Grace. It is a good thing we do this in community and can cover each other!

I realized then that I have been spending way too much time in administrative muck and mire. My days have been a stream of phone calls and emails--insurance concerns, house cleaning rigmarole, negotiating with plumbers and arranging an almost endless run of meetings on this and that. I've taken my eye off the mission.

Peter Maurin assured Dorothy Day that if you look at the lives of the saints, you will see that when they did the work of the Lord, that the finances and everything else followed. Perhaps it is time to trust the Lord and put my energies back to direct ministry and let the Lord handle the bookkeeping.

Thank God for Grace--ha!

I encourage everyone to check out Fr. John's blog on the National Catholic Reporter or his website, which contains many of his writings and speeches.