The word which haunts me after praying over the readings for this weekends liturgy is "outsider." Two widows lose their sons...both are transformed into outsiders since they didn't have a male protector. St. Paul becomes an outsider after his conversion, both from fellow Jews and Christians. Misunderstood.
Elijah restores the widow' son through repeated gestures and pleas; Jesus restores the widow's son with a simple gesture and word, "Rise." Nothing mire us needed from the One who restores, calls to life, welcomes the "outsider" within the reality of Love.
The message: we are to go to those on the outside and make them insiders through the divine Love pulsing in our spirits.
I am reading the diaries if Dorothy Day, the one who chose to follow God's call to reach out to the outsider. Sounds beautiful and gospel and so it is. But she relates the loneliness in her life and the difficulties if such a life. The " odors" of the poor can be difficult at times to breath in. Odors of the outsider. Dorothy chose to live shoulder to shoulder with the outsider. Perhaps her greatest "duty of delight" ( a phrase she loved) was to be the outsider.
We live to create outsiders: liberals turn conservatives into outsiders; conservatives turn liberals into outsiders; people "on the other side if the tracks" , people of different belief and color become outsiders; even the Boy Scouts struggle with who's in and who's out.
The church is at her best when she loves the people who are the outsiders to embrace their status as sons and daughters of God, a status that pushes the boundaries of Christ's Body to include the outsider.
The pilgrimage continues.
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