Isaiah 42:1-9  |  Psalm 36:5-11  |  Hebrews 9:11-15  |  John 12:1-11

Isaiah tells us today about someone it’s taken me a while to get to know: God’s chosen servant “in whom [His/Her] soul delights,” who “will bring forth justice to the nations.” 

“Great news!” my early-60’s and freshly post-Vatican II mind exclaimed: “You mean, never mind ‘Save your own soul and the rest of the world be damned’?!” 

Then, however, I saw a big – if verbally invisible – “BUT”:

He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street . . .

He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth . . .

And then came a puzzling if virtual “NONETHELESS”:

I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations,

to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Do all that but not make noise in the street? Those were the days of the Civil Rights Movement and of graduate students trodding dirt roads to register voters in North Champaign, IL. And then came Feminism’s first wave: the “Burn the Bra” era that I’d read about it (while searching for a size AA to help nurse the first of our five).

Then, in 1965, when John got a job teaching English at P.C., we found a fine affordable duplex on Gallatin Street in Providence. And somehow, he was soon driving our VW bug filled with teenagers to talk weekly with kids in suburban parishes. One of those kids, named Maryanne, whom I later taught at CCRI when she was a young widow, has been my sister and dearest friend for 30 years. And somehow, too, I was soon teaching kids in the Roger Williams Project how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and I came back the next week even though they’d mocked and made me cry. Would you believe, we soon hosted the unheard of in that apartment known as Bethany House: a dinner for friends, parents and whoever else wanted to come – for free?!

What happened? We never could remember exactly how, but we’d met and never could say no to the then-Rev. Henry Shelton whom the R.C. Diocese then silently funded. His widow Carol still enjoys telling stories like this one; it’s about how that determinedly soft-spoken young man learned about (as did Barak Obama) community organizing: i.e., encouraging people to talk about and act together to influence—even re-form—our welfare system so that those long-socially-barred from decent jobs could still feed their families:

        “And what do you do for those poor young mothers?”

        “I help them get food stamps,” Henry had softly replied.

        “Oh, good: now they’ve got TWO social workers!”

Enough reminiscing.  Thanks to a reminder from the RI League of Women Voters, I need to email today RI’s House Judiciary Committee ([email protected]) – with a copy to my Rep. in Warwick and EG, Evan Shanley.  In my name, I want them vote for in committee and send to the floor for a vote two bills: 

        • H5434 – to store guns safely
        • H5300 – to outlaw weapons of war

God willing, by the time you read this blog and I’ve returned from a sunny week in the Caribbean with Maryanne, I’ll also have testified for those just ideas at the RI State House at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 30th – not merely ideas but good ways to help “Thy kingdom come.” 

What else might a relatively quiet but faithful servant do, today?

Marie Hennedy