Berrigan's life lesson: fidelity has its payoffs

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Jesuit Fr. Stephen Kelly (who spent ten years in federal prison), homilist at the Berrigan funeral (CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)

By Tom Roberts Patrick O'Neill | May. 7, 2016

NEW YORK Jesuit Fr. Daniel Berrigan was regularly challenged during his life by skeptics and newcomers to the cause of peacemaking to show the results of the thankless work he had undertaken. He regularly responded that God calls us to faithfulness, not success.

The outpouring of stories since his death at age 94 on April 30 -- stories about the countless lives he deeply affected -- and some surprising events of recent months might combine to make the case that even fidelity has its payoffs. It would be just as easy to see the community that jammed into a church here for his funeral Friday morning as clearest proof that the witness of his life has been successful beyond measure.

Berrigan, who confounded some by remaining in both a religious community and a church despite times of deep disagreement and conflict with each, was remembered in the most traditional of settings -- a Mass of Christian burial, celebrated here at the Jesuit parish of St. Francis Xavier Church.

The poet-priest-resister lived to see the first Jesuit pope, Francis, uphold for the world the Christian vocation to the margins of humanity, where Berrigan had spent so many of his days. He lived to know that the same pope highlighted two of Berrigan’s old friends -- Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, fellow activists and writers who preceded him in death -- as model American citizens.

http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/berrigans-life-lesson-fidelity-has-its-payoffs