When I think back to the days of “deep Covid” when our downtown ministry consisted mostly of packing produce boxes at the food pantry run by the Urban Mission and praying with people in line there, one person especially stands out in my memory: the minute, upright figure of “Agatha.”
She had started volunteering at the Urban Mission a bit before Sr. Joan Paule and I, and I immediately loved her no-nonsense ways, work ethic, and seriousness about serious things. We would work in silence for hours, then she’d bring up something absolutely piercing in a nearly nonchalant manner: “What do you think about that icon of Christ made to look like George Floyd that got stolen from CUA?” I would tell her what I thought, she would parry, and she’d end the day telling me that she had a happy life before she knew me. After a while, I was dubbed, “Sr. Agnes Thorne”... as in “the thorn in my flesh” (see 2 Cor 12:7). I was initially impressed by her contemplative pondering of our conversations - she would bring things back up after days or weeks, continuing the thread of the conversation.
Besides having a contemplative heart, Agatha has a tremendously generous heart. She’s retired, after all, and there was nothing compelling her to expose herself to heat, cold, the suffering of others, and bossy sisters like myself. But she came out, week after week, packing boxes (tidily, efficiently), pausing every few hours to eat a sparse handful of almonds, and pondering the truth all the while. Eventually, she started coming to the Bible study we run at the Urban Thrift, too, and I quickly learned I had to be on my A-game with Agatha in the room, with her astute questions and sincere reflections.
Beautiful as these qualities are, what most moves me about Agatha’s example is not her work ethic or shrewd intelligence. Rather, it is the fact that she suffers to know the truth and also suffers for the sake of the truth - this is where I see her daily martyrdom. This love and willingness to suffer for truth is why she started volunteering in the first place. It came to her attention that there was a need for people willing to risk serving during Covid to help others, so she answered the call. Through her work at the pantry, she came to know a whole new community of people, and once she had experienced the plight of those in need, she could not pretend not to know. Their suffering called forth an ongoing response of compassionate service from Agatha - now that the pantry has steadied to equilibrium, she helps to prepare food at the men’s shelter (besides being a member of our door-to-door ministry team!). A lifelong Catholic, Agatha felt there was more to learn, so she assiduously attends our Bible studies (and brings others along).
Agatha is relentless in her care for others - to the point that she, like me, might be called a “thorn in the flesh”! As they say, it takes one to know one. May we, like Agatha, be roused by love and willing to show our love in deeds.
- Sr. Agnes Therese Davis, T.O.R.
