Wall of Saints

I finally completed my wall of saints today with the addition of Lorenzo Rosebaugh below the picture of Dorothy Day and the picture of Blessed Franz Jägerstätter below the picture of Blessed Frederic Ozaman. I am blessed to have met Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker, several times in my life and to have called Lorenzo a friend. Blessed Franz was murdered for following his conscience in the year I was born, and Frederic Ozaman lived in the 19th century and was the founder of the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, the largest Catholic lay organization in the world, which visits and serves people in need of which I am a member.

All four were persons of conscience whose actions spoke louder than their words. They believed and practiced the creed to make your message your life, a goal that I am constantly striving for. They were all gentle and compassionate persons who did the ‘right thing’, no matter the consequences.

In this day and age of sports heroes, video games and endless wars it feels good to have models that lived the peace and justice we seek. Like my friend Jim Harney, the gift and lessons of life they gave us teach us today as we read their words and remember their actions.

There are many others, deceased and alive, whose words and actions have inspired me. But in these harsh, noisy times of senseless wars and violence and numbing of conscience, these four on the wall will do.

P.S. The knotty pine base of the lamp is the proud accomplishment of my taking shop in a Pubic School when I attended a nearby Catholic grade school. It was a gift for my parents, which we inherited after their death. It too, like these four, is a reminder of persistence to do the right thing. The picture of the garden in the middle was there first, before the other four pictures, and it seems to be the right thing.

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