It was a dark, rainy Saturday morning when Dorothy met her God face to face. While we don’t really know why the Beatitudes were Dorothy’s song before she entered eternal glory, we do know that the light of her martyrdom radiated around the world and continues to bring hope and meaning to us.
Was it her love of blessings learned from our rural families? The custom of children, even adult children asking a blessing of their parents or esteemed elders was dear to all of us. These blessings both recognized and wished for goodness, God’s goodness for the other.
Or, was it, one more time, when Dorothy’s deep belief that out of the darkened hearts of her assassins at that moment, light would somehow come to shine again?
To be blessed is to be favored by God whose ark always bends toward righteousness. God’s blessing directs all to love as God loves and beckons all to lean into God’s kingdom. As it recognizes the humble, generous and non-violent character of Kingdom people, God’s blessing also reminds us of the cost of discipleship.
Dorothy knew the favored ones of God. Dorothy lived side by side with God’s favored ones: the poor in spirit; those in mourning; the meek; all who hunger and thirst for righteousness; the merciful; the pure in heart; the peacemakers and the persecuted; those who revile and utter all kinds of evil falsely accusing others. And she knew them by name and her litany was long and diverse. Dorothy knew the cost of discipleship and meditated on it often before the crucifix.
As her bullet-ridden body folded into the muddy red clay of God’s earth was she not already at peace, intertwined as she was with God’s earth she so deeply embraced?
Throughout our lives we all make journeys. And these journeys change us. Today, Dorothy makes another quite unexpected journey. We are sending blood-soaked soil to Rome as a reminder of the cost of Dorothy’s discipleship. Hopefully, Dorothy’s life will continue to inspire people to walk with God’s favored ones.
What is Dorothy saying to each of us today? Like Dorothy, on our journey to the Kingdom, are those God favors also ours?
Sister Judith Clemens, SNDdeN
January 5, 2025