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| Judy Lee RCWP : homilist |
Another Mary in Our Midst
There was another Mary of Magdala
Living quietly in our midst.
She was born to serve and
She did so even as a child
Following her parents
In the Chicago
Christian Family Movement.
And as a young girl of seventeen,
Turning her back gently on home,
Married love and children,
She gave her particular love
To Jesus like you did, dear
St. Mary of Magdala.
She humbly followed the
Rule of Benedict at St. Scholastica,
Teaching at all levels,
And settling Cambodian Refugees
Who write her their thanks
Until this day.
She could be seen on her knees,
Cleaning and praying.
(For her these are one),
Alone, and in her beloved community.
Then, led to be a witness for Peace,
She went alone to Connecticut,
Where the Groton Naval Center
Housed Trident submarines of
World destructive nuclear strength.
And, with the power given her as His sister,
And faithful friend, like the power
and courage of St. Mary of Magdala,
she rowed out with the Trident Nein,
and spilled blood on the destroyer Trident
to show what it would bring if used.
And, like St. Paul and Silas, she was sent
to jail and imprisoned for a total of seven months
For telling the truth.
While there she raised awareness
And took action for women’s prison reform.
Sister Judy she was called and sister Judy
She will always be. But her other name
Was right for her, Mary Daniel,
For Mary’s faithfulness and Daniel’s
Courage are hers, and his prophetic voice.
Yet her woman-voice was soft and
Often went unheard so her actions always
Spoke louder than her words.
Out of prison, she started on the Night Shift,
And worked her way up the hard way.
And when she became Executive Director
Of My Sisters’ Place,
Shelter for homeless women and children
She delivered three buildings and four
Service programs, two for mentally ill
Women and men too. Housing to free
Them from the demons of the street and
Lifting up their hopelessness to God.
After thirty-five years as a Benedictine
She laid the title of Sister down for loving me.
Dispensed, yet she kept her promises
And kept on serving him on her own,
And in the company of friends.
A dear foster mother of three and
God-mother to many and Other-Mother
To countless young women, she served
in Connecticut and later in Florida,
serving at St. Peter Claver Mission,
and AFCAAM, and Jesus Obrero,
and Our Lady of Light
until breast cancer,
then a rare blood cancer, APL,
forced her to slow down a bit.
We thank you God
For allowing her to continue
With us here after the first leukemia.
She was our Servant-Leader.
Thank you for taking her illness
Upon yourself as you took
St. Mary of Magdala’s, for
Healing our sister Judy Beaumont
So she could continue to
Call us to Action for eleven more years,
With her brothers and sisters,
And by her unceasing
Acts of love.
And in that precious time
She gave herself wholly again
in Christlike service,
developing Good Shepherd Ministries,
serving the homeless and poorest
in Church in the Park.
Then in Good Shepherd Inclusive
Catholic Community, where we
Labored together with our guests
and members, praising our God
of Love and Justice and including
All making homes, incomes, food
and clothing available and with
compassion and her endless patience,
listening, and understanding care,
Making each one feel special and
Loved, oh so loved.
She followed her call and was
courageously ordained a
Roman Catholic Woman Priest
and continued to serve at the
Holy altar of broken lives
Made whole.
Then hit again with an advancing
blood disease and AML – leukemia,
She battled the deadly blow while
loving and serving still,
Blessing all who came to her bedside
Until she breathed here no more.
She is not here, she is risen, and lives
with Love forever, but still her spirit
loves and guides us to serve one another
and bring the Kin-dom of God
here and now.
Hers is honor, especially
In the spirit of Mary of Magdala,
Holy Equal of the Apostles.
Let the people say Amen!
by Judith A. B. Lee
July 28, 2006; January 13, 2018
[Is 25: 1, 4a, 6a-7a; Ps 72; 2 Tm 4:6-8; Mt 25:21, 34-40]
Today we celebrate the life of our beloved Judy Beaumont, faithful follower of Christ, faithful partner, sister, Pastor, Priest, good neighbor and friend who kept the faith. Many of us are here today because she kept the faith. But, what does this mean – to keep the faith? What is it that she knew and did so well?
The answer is deceptively simple: she loved and she had the courage to risk everything for Love! The Scriptures chosen today re not the readings of the day but they are how her life read until she made her transition home to the arms of our Loving God. As her beloved sister Jill and I accompanied her in the last weeks and moments of her life we were overcome with her love and her courage as she fought to live, blessed all who came to her side, and was blessed by them, and fought also to make her transition. We witnessed her painful efforts to attend to others, to write cards and notes to family and to make donations to organizations that fight for justice and peace. As she filled out a pledge form to Mary’s Pence – an organization of international justice for women – she wrote on it: I wish I could (give more and do more) but I am dying.” She wanted to do more even beyond the “end,” giving her body to the medical school in Miami. For her to live was to do what she could for justice.
To live the faith is not to center on personal salvation for that is a given, it is to do all one can about the “since of the world” for which Jesus gave his life. For Judy B. this meant long days and nights developing housing for the homeless in Connecticut and delivering two large buildings for housing and four programs out of her travail. Here in Florida it meant helping people with endless read tape and forms for shelter, housing, incomes and food. It meant helping people, every single week, to manage their complex medications and responding to countless emergencies so the poorest among us could live abundantly. It meant translating the justice needed to build the Kin-dom of God on earth into endless tasks related to individual and family lives here and now. She did this quietly, with utmost humility. And always with her smile, a smile that warmed you up and lit up the room.
The Gospel we reflect on is Matthew 25: 34-40: Jesus said via parable: “Come, you who are blessed by our Abba God, take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me…thirsty and you gave me drink…a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed m…ill and you came to visit me…” Jesus is saying, “You worked with me to make it happn, come now and enjoy it.” And if we question not seeing Jesus as poor or sick or imprisoned he says, “When you did this for the least of my brothers and sisters you did it for me.”
This is the faith of Jesus – it is the essence of the Hebraic Law that Jesus fulfilled. It is the essence of the prophetic voice of Isaiah, et., “I will praise your name my God for you do wondrous things: You are a refuge for poor people, a refuge to the needy in distress, shelter in the storm…You prepare for ALL peoples a banquet of rich food. (Is 24:1-8) And the response in Psalm 72 is when God’s people are finally governed with justice the just leaders will “rescue the poor when they cry out and the afflicted when they have no one to help them…” To bring justice is to vanquish greed, prejudice, oppression and negligence, omission that results in poverty and affliction for the “little ones” of this world. To live faith is to work for a just world any way possible including one person at a time. Good Shepherd Ministries began in 2003 as we sheltered one homeless family in their own home, and in 2007-2009 we fed the homeless and hungry in Lion’s Park. Then from 2009-2016 we fed people on Tuesdays and Sundays – fed with a good hot meal and the Sacraments of the church along with the liturgy of the Word Judy B. made sure that the meal was always there – all of the meal, no matter what it took. Her faith was not only to “believe” but to DO what Jesus asked u to do – feed the hungry, house the homeless. Good Shepherd’s Joshua House housed fifty five people (and eight pets) in transition and in hospitality, before we closed our doors. And over one hundred men, women and children had permanent housing. This wore her out. Like Jesus, her body was broken and her blood poured out for God’s people to live – and she loved every minute of it. Only four cancers, the last one lethal, could slow her down. For most of her eighty years, she lived Matthew 24 with all of her being.
And even beyond that she was willing to risk everything for justice and peace. In 1981, when she learned how many hundreds of thousands of poor people could be given basic food and shelter for the price of even one Trident submarine she was outraged. This sub could destroy millions and was so costly that millions more inevitable remained in poverty so it could be built. She left her beloved Benedictine community in Chicago and lived on her own in Connecticut so she could participate in the Plowshares movement of Fathers Dan & Phil Berrigan, to do the activism it took to challenge this immoral ship building in Groton, Connecticut. (a few rods there I couldn’t read.) She participated with a small group of conscience driven men and women in Trident NEIN, rowing out to the sub and throwing blood on it. She was imprisoned for seven months for this crime of conscience and during this time won prison reform for women. She risked the judgement of many, the loss of freedom, major discomfort and becoming a felon. This humble, quiet, strong woman lived her faith.
And again she risked her relationship with her beloved Roman Catholic Church, for her “everything,” to answer the call to the priesthood. She was ordained validly but illicitly, for a woman, in January of 2012. She did not accept that man-made rules could “ex-communicate” her from communion with Christ, and God’s love, but she suffered when she could no longer receive fellowship and communion in her diocese and parish where she had loved serving the poor and working as a Director of Religious Education. She risked this “shunning” and the judgment of others because she believed that God’s call can not be limited by gender or any other demographic. She did not believe that God calls only celibate men to serve as priests. God can call whomever God wants. She believed the words of St. Augustine, “An unjust law is no law at all and it is my right, no, my duty to break it.” And we here today are so thankful that Judy Beaumont had the courage to risk everything, breaking this unjust church law. For she was living Priest and Pastor to many of us here, including me! Believing in the priesthood of all believers she invited all to consecrate with her and she always served with the words: “Judy, Hank, Cyrillia, Pearl, Joe, Jolinda, Debbie, Gary, You are the body of Christ.” She lived as Christ did, and at the end that included “body broken and blood poured out.” I would cry as she served me every Sunday toward the end, for in her I saw the body literally broken and the blood, literally poured out. Leukemia is all about blood. Yet she would look at me and assure me that in receiving his body I became his body. And experiencing her life and her dying I knew what this meant. When we keep the faith, we become Christ for one another.
Toward the end her sister Jill sat on one side of the bed and I on the other. Jill, wiping a tear, said “I think the verse in Timothy suits her – she has fought the good fight, she has finished the race, she has kept the faith. I agreed and we found the verses in 2 Tim 4: 6-8 and read them to her. She nodded and held our hands. She knew that she had kept the faith and the crown of righteousness was her inheritance. Not a crown of gold or silver, diamonds or precious stones – but a crown of justice. Her life had brought justice for so many. Her reward will be to live forever, eternally, in the Kingdom of God where justice reigns – where love is enacted in terms of justice and compassion – where love reigns.
Thank you, Pastor Judy B, for keeping the faith. Thank you Judy for following Jesus and showing us what it takes. Rest no in Love. Live in Love forever.
Keep the faith!
Let the people say Amen!
Rev. Dr. Judy Lee, RCWP
Co-Pastor, Good Shepherd Ministries and Inclusive Catholic Community
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