Holy Thursday Witnesses: Idealism, and the “Heresy of Powerlessness”

I’ve been struggling with trying to be inspiring.

I so believe in the power and, yes, even glory of the Holy Thursday Witnesses we in Philadelphia, and perhaps you elsewhere have been doing, and I’ve been searching and searching for something to inspire more people – like you – like you with your friends – to attend. I want us to be enriched together; I want us to make a difference, even if to just one person. I want us, not only just to hold signs, but to be signs, of what is right, of what is just, of what is holy.

Joan Chittister, in her book, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World, has a chapter dedicated to Idealism (that which fuels our quests and actions for peace and justice in the world). She writes: “Idealism, of all the energies of the soul, may be the most vulnerable. Nothing else within us gives in so easily to failure, to rationalism, to doubt….” There is a reason for this: “Because it is bred more by vision than by likelihood, idealism gives way (more easily)…to hollow desperation (or) to resignation without reward of hope or hope of reward.” Idealism needs nurturing if it is to survive.

Interestingly for us, that nurturing “comes through action and gives us the encouraging words: “…if we do a thing often enough, we will eventually become what we do.” For this reason, we must always keep our hearts open to what is deep inside the action, its essential holiness, for this holiness is what will enrich and sustain us.

Nikki McClure

Of course, I couldn’t leave it at that, as beautiful – and inspiring – as her message on idealism is. I had to glance at her chapter entitled “What Does It Mean To ‘Make A Difference’”. She begins by asking what do we do with those niggling doubts about our actions like: ‘What can I do about such huge assaults on justice and equality? I am too small, too powerless, and nobody listens or cares anyway.’ In this context, she even mentions our discouragement with major movements in church reform including women’s ordination in which “efforts to carve out a voice and place for women in the church seems almost risible…(for) David is a comic figure and Goliath is the norm.” We have become the crazy, even laughable, ones. Why bother?

Well, as she says: “Whether it works or not, in the end, it will be the very attempt that makes the difference…In the end, the sight of goodness undeterred has more power than all the forces on earth arrayed against it.” We must, therefore, persist in overcoming the “heresy of powerlessness,” seeing it for what it is, an erroneous belief that works to undermine our impulse toward right action, risk-taking, and responsibility toward anyone oppressed in our world.

Finally, it is important that we not only do what we can, but we “do it for as long as it takes,” for, more than anything, “it is persistence that is the antidote to powerlessness.”

And so I thank all of you who come to witness each year and all of you who are coming for the first time on Holy Thursday, March 29 at 11am to Sister Cities Park across from the Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia – or wherever you witness for justice. My struggle with being inspiring is over. You are my inspiration.