On April Fool’s Day — What Kind of Fool am I?

The fact that April Fool’s Day and Palm Sunday coincide this year have led me to a completely different way of thinking about being foolish.
After all, how can we consider playing pranks as Holy Week opens and the passion of Jesus is read, remembered and reverenced at churches throughout the world? That’s what led me to the notion of “Being Fools for Christ’s Sake.”

In the process of researching that well-known phrase from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3: 18-19), I learned that there is actually an ascetic form of Christian life called foolishness for the sake of Christ. The fool-for-Christ set for him or herself the task of battling the root of all sin — pride — by taking on an unusual style of life, appearing as someone bereft of his mental faculties, thus bringing upon him or herself the ridicule of others.


Dorothy Day


Additionally, such a fool exposed the evil in the world through metaphorical and symbolic words and actions. Because I was pretty sure I was not up to this kind of foolishness either, my research continued until I stumbled upon: “Fool for Christ: The Story of Dorothy Day.”

Introduced to me by my college journalism teacher, Dorothy Day, who began as a journalist herself, has always been one of my heroes. Her work with the Catholic Worker Movement is legion, but I had never thought about her as a fool, until I read an excerpt from her story: Dorothy Day.

“Dorothy Day was a fool for Christ’s sake: her boss was the individual on the street who was forgotten by society, the one we see each day, the one on the park bench who smells of alcohol and urine…. Day set up Houses of Hospitality to help feed, clothe and comfort the poor — the very basis of Christianity, lived through the Beatitudes."

“Fool” takes on new meaning when thinking about Dorothy Day. If anyone can inspire us how to live more closely the Gospel and to claim as our own Christ’s life of service and love in all its foolishness, it is Dorothy Day.

Here is a thought to ponder as we move into Holy Week, written by Dorothy Day in April of 1964: “The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.”

Finally, my favorite Dorothy Day quote: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned the only solution is love and that love comes with community. It all happened while we sat there talking and it is still going on.”

Jesus… Dorothy Day... It is still going on… What kind of fool am I?... What kind of fool are you?