When the spotlight is put on mothers, not much is said about how we contributed to our church, community, social justice issues, aiding the poor and seeking peace. Truth is, mothers for a long time have not been limited to a vocation defined by having raised children. We have also worked hard to try to make the world better.
Certainly a mother whose life exemplifies this on a grand scale is Marie Dennis, currently co-president of Pax Christi International and the director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns in Washington, D.C. Maryknoll is a U.S.-based Catholic missionary movement.
I knew little more than Dennis' name until I read her latest book, "Diversity of Vocations" (Orbis Books). My respect for her soared immediately when I read that she raised six children as a single mother, as I have! As for the work she has done, she tells you simply, "For most of the past 30 years I have been involved in the work for social justice and peace."
But then if you listen to what she has to say you marvel at her inspiring accomplishments as a single parent of such a big family. She tells how they lived in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, D.C., with a small Catholic group called the Assisi Community, which is comprised of religious and lay people striving to live "the Gospel call to work for a more just and peaceful world." Members put the values of Jesus into practice.
The Assisi Community members were "sharing the dangers and hopes, fears and joys of a largely impoverished part of our nation's capital," Dennis wrote. "The reality of a broken world was on our doorstep." Yet she affirms, "My children grew in wisdom and benefited enormously from the gift of their experience in the neighborhood."
In fact, her youngest son, who grew up in that community, now describes that experience as one of "tremendous security, of awesome encounters" with people from all over the world who visited the community --- "survivors of torture and war, Nobel laureates, authors, theologians, human rights activists, community organizers, social justice advocates."
Marie Dennis was not too long in the Assisi Community when she was asked by Maryknoll to work as the director of its Office for Global Concerns. "Our goals are clear but very long range: peace on earth, social justice and ecological integrity. We try to educate the U.S. public and decision makers," she explained.
In a conversation I had with this remarkable woman, she told me she got into her life's work when she asked herself: "Who and how am I called to be in this broken world?"
She learned too that at any time, "God might spiral us out into unknown areas of life."
A primary concern for her still is poverty. She has seen poverty close up, like how in some places workers produce food and clothing they are unable to buy because they do not make a living wage. She maintains that we must care about the poor if we are to be in solidarity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount.
Dennis tells of her life, her faith journey really, in the newest of her seven books. And she ends her story by acknowledging that our God is "full of surprises ... inviting us to follow in ways that we don't expect or understand --- into places we had not planned to go."
But the bottom line is that we are being "invited to the fullness of life." Dennis is living proof of that.
Antoinette Bosco is an author and columnist with Catholic News Service.
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