HoltesThoughts: Father Berrigan

I've been thinking of that Father lately.

I guess we are all connected.

I must have heard him

as he passed by my way.

He was calling to us,

as he was welcomed

into eternity.

When people talk about non violent resistance

they are describing paradoxical heroism

Not someone standing on a podium looking brave.

But someone facing real injustice naked and afraid

and offering up themselves as a sacrifice;

to a false god of injustice clothed as justice.

The purpose of non violent resistance

is to illustrate the fatal flaw

in this body of rules that styles itself law

to illustrate why unjust laws are unjust

by taking on the consequences and pain.

To take on the pain and suffering

So that others might be spared.

He took on that pain

He offered himself up to suffering again and again

To Broken bones, and broken lives,

To incarceration and arrest

To hard time spent in meditation

more isolating than a mountain top.

Facing hatred, fear and being shunned.

He broke laws to uphold higher moral laws

Taking on the consequences of his defiance

To Illustrate the awful reality behind the screen.

It takes real courage and sacrifice.

To do the things he did meant paying the cost.

To illustrate injustice clothed in invisible cloth.

Require the courage to walk naked into the abyss.

To take on a pain, as if being stabbed again and again.

To walk in the footprints of and carry a cross.

Father Berrigan was a True Christian.

And his memory is a blessing not a loss

Daniel Joseph Berrigan, S.J. (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016)

Christopher H. Holte 5/1/2016

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan; Defiant was the wrong word for him. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who-preached-pacifism-dies-at-94.html]; https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/daniel-j-berrigan-pacifist-priest-who-led-antiwar-protests-dies-at-94/2016/04/30/44606680-0f1e-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html

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