Partnership for Global Justice
Luncheon honoring Daniel and Philip Berrigan
Friday, April 30, 2010
Reflection of Frida Berrigan

It is an honor to be here. A sort of dubious, second hand, uncomfortable honor — but an honor nonetheless — to accept this award on behalf of my father.

Phil Berrigan would not have accepted this award, probably would not have attended this luncheon (although he would be sad to miss such delicious food). Not because he was anti-social or retiring. No, he would not have accepted the Partnership for Global Justice award because he believed that the work for peace and justice — a work he dedicated himself to with every fiber of his being — was reward enough.

The work is reward enough. And my father was a tireless and joyful worker. He was a big strong man — a laborer and an athlete long before he was a priest or a father. His robust physical presence was a comfort to me (and no doubt to others as well). His health and vitality served as a rebuke of — and challenge to — a flabby and feckless American populace and the corrupt and cruel system that oversees them.

In prison — a whole different kind of work — the other men called him “pops.” My brother and I discovered this inadvertently when we decided that we would call him pops. He put a quick end to it as our term of endearment. In jail he worked in the library or the barber shop or the kitchen. But he also worked with the men — starting Bible study circles and being available and present in the broken lives of his fellow inmates. He worked to stay on top of correspondence and wrote essays and articles as well.

His faith too was a physical practice. It was work — even as it revived and sustained him to do the work the next day and the next. He pored over the Bible-- a book he could have recited from memory — always watchful for new insights and lessons. He prayed on his knees each morning, and read the latest commentary or analysis late into the evening. He taught us — his thickheaded and lazy children — to find themselves and their responsibilities in the Gospel stories.

The work is its own reward. And it was clear in my father's ringing laugh, his delight in people, and his constant willingness to engage in “experiments in truth” and to refuse to get stuck in despondency or frustration. He was steadfast in his belief that our effort and labor are key ingredients in realizing God's Kin-dom here on earth.

What better time than now to adopt this maxim — the work for peace and justice is its own reward. To recommit ourselves to the hard work — a great rewards-- of working for peace and justice.

In a nation battered and broken by recession and rapacious greed

In a world bristling with war — most of it emanating from our nation's capitol.

In a church preoccupied with institutional survival and far removed from its people and its mission.

What better way to begin this weekend of anti-nuclear resistance activities — conference, march, peace fair, action at Grand Central Station — than to say “the work is its own reward.” I have flyers inviting all of you to join War Resisters League in an action at Grand Central Station on Monday — to say nuclear disarmament begins with us, with the United States.

At the end of a long day on ladders painting someone's house, as we were cleaning brushes or scrapping pails, my dad would say something like “well, Freeds, we cut the mustard today.” It was a high compliment — we worked hard, we did good, we gained the right to do it again tomorrow. That is basically what he was saying.

He was also reminding himself and me and whoever else of the mustard seed story —“ if you have faith the size of a mustard seed….” What work you could accomplish in the name of God. A mustard see is tiny, but the mustard plant is large and tenacious and almost impossible to get rid of.

Can we work to grow our faith to mustard seed size? Can we cut the mustard? Can we find joy and community and meaning in the hard and lifelong work for peace and justice? For Phil Berrigan — the answer was yes and yes and yes. I hope it is for each of you as well.