This tribute is several months overdue. Judith Smits died in July. She lived the vast majority of her life as a nun in the order of St. Agnes. She began her ministry as a teacher, but found her true vocation as a champion of the cause of social justice. Her ministry took her all over the United States, but she lived the last twenty years in Mobile. She ran Catholic Social Services for ten years, got grant money for it, founded a pharmacy there, and challenged her clients, most of whom were homeless, to take charge of their lives. She had the official name of the organization changed from Catholic Charities to Catholic Social Services because as she put it, “we are not about charity….we are about empowerment.” Each time a death sentence was carried out in Alabama, Judith was always camped out in front of the cathedral praying for the end of the death penalty, and for the soul of the one to be executed. Before she got sick she ran The Quest for Social Justice and founded the “Bridges” program there to address the racial divide in Mobile and in the state. The last time I saw her she was attending a rally protesting the recently passed immigration bill. She carried with her an oxygen tank to help her cope with her worsening case of pulmonary fibrosis. I told her how sorry I was that she was sick to which she replied in her matter of fact Midwestern accent, “Well I’ve had a good life….I just hope I’ve made some sort of difference.”
Over my years here in Mobile whenever I have attended any sort of meeting that dealt with justice issues or issues of well being for our least, she was always there. A voice in my head would tell me if Judith Smits were here, then I must be in the right place. Her faith was a “doing faith;” she walked the talk; her words were prophetic and inspiring; she lived close to her creative soul. I was told by a close friend of hers that she had received a full seminary education, earning a doctorate in theology anticipating the day when the Roman Church would begin ordaining women. That was during the pontificate of John 23rd when such a hope was not all that far fetched. The last two popes slammed the door on such a possibility, and Judith never realized her dream of becoming a priest.
But priest she was indeed, bearing the sacraments of sacrifice, compassion and mercy to the world around her, changing it for the better. I wonder what she would have to say to Pope Benedict about his ongoing effort to crack down on the nuns who are outspoken on matters of social justice these days. I wouldn’t want to take her on. For me she is a model for the faithful, intrepid in her vocation, no matter the mundane byways her ministry led her. She carried herself with understated joy, but with a brimful passion. Her obituary said that she died peacefully….I trust that is so, for she as much as anyone I know or have known is worthy of the peaceful rest a life of sacrifice brings. Still I can’t imagine her resting for long. Perhaps there is vocation in the next life, and if there is, she would surely be about it, still creating, engendering the community into which God calls us. Fare forward dear Judith…may you live on in perpetual light, and may your work here in earth make all the difference.
