Reflection for Mary Davida's Mass of Christian Burial
January 19, 1999, Joan Mitchell, CSJ

God's everlasting covenant with Davida continues. The wine is and rich food of the
messianic banquet are on the table. All things are new. Ann Godine thinks Davida has
gone to God because the saints are pestering Cath to play and she needs Davida there.
Perhaps maybe Davida has in mind cooking the messianic banquet herself.

70 years ago Davida bought a pearl of great price. She gave herself joyfully to a life in
God's service when she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph. Buying the pearl put her whole
heart, her whole mind, and all the music in her hands at the service of the community of
learning and worship at St. Catherine's for 55 years. She never stopped learning-at first
by force because Mother Antonia made the young sisters at St. Catherine's take every
course the college offered-and she never stopped teaching.

Two places I always see Davida-the piano bench or organ bench and at the table. In
both places she acted as a priestly person. At the organ she touched and lifted our
spirits and gathered our emotions, transforming them on melodies of thanks and praise
into a gift of prayer. At St. Catherine's, she made community of us motley
undergraduates every year, raising us through repeated playings of the "Hymn to St.
Catherine" to a sense of identity and purpose as students, calling us to be saints and
scholars until graduation day when she accompanied us out of the chapel into life with all
stops out. In later years weekend women loved Davida's Friday night mini-concerts in
her music appreciation classes-music to touch and waken the exhausted human spirit still
in transit from office tension and traffic. She used music to join us in a song that carried
us beyond our single selves into family, into community, into student body, into one.

You know Davida could play anything and did at summer school, weddings, family
visits. She told the story of Pat Fraher yelling into the room during a family sing at her
sister Sally's "Does anybody know where my pants are?" "No," she said, "but if you hum
a few bars, I can play it."

At her table Davida saw every meal as a sacrament, a sign of her love and everyone's
belonging. She loved living in small groups of sisters. A founding image of the Sisters of
St. Joseph in the holy family-Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-interacting in everyday family life,
a trinity on earth imitating the interdependent love and life of the trinity in heaven. Love
was something Davida practiced like the piano. She never forgot your favorite foods.
She made two versions of a "goes over," one with onions, one without. A "goes over" is
the stuff that goes on top of a "goes under," such as rice or mashed potatoes. Respecting
differences seemed to her the key to making community.

She must have inherited a sense of making home and community from her own mother
who on home visits like to give Davida a tablecloth to make a meal around-a red and
white checked, Italian of course. Martha Stewart had everything to learn. I still serve
Davida's Seder meal-lamb, new potatoes-hand picked for uniform size, fresh baby
peas, mercifully acceptable in the package. Making home, making community are what
Davida was all about. At the table or at the piano she welcomed all. How fitting at the
end of her life to be encircled at Bethany by people who were home to her-family,
sisters, friends!

Davida grew up hearty. She and her sister Mary Flo slept on the porch of their house in
North Dakota. In the winter her dad put sides on the bed, her mother heated bricks
which she put out under the blankets and buffalo hide to warm the bed and then the two
crawled out the window and slept basically outside. She always slept with the window
open and even as she was dying kept pulling the covers off because she was too warm.

Davida grew up political and populist. In their parlor the non-Partisan League was born,
which won the 1916 election, ended the railroad monopoly, and put her father in office
as Lt. Governor of North Dakota-organizing against monopolies we need to do all over
again today. Zanta, Music Educators, Store to Door grocery delivery for the
elderly-Davida always kept her own hand in civic projects, too. She knew the national
anthems of most countries from performing at international Zanta conventions.

Davida is a person whose life is gift and gospel to us all. Ever the teacher, I know from
her not to pound the keys nor hesitate to pull out the stops. To perform demands the
inner freedom to lose one's self. To lead people in song at worship demands the same; it
is prayer. A lady should have roses in her garden. Learning something new is always an
answer. Music is spiritual. Meals are eucharistic. Nature and beauty heal. She calls us to
the great-heartedness she lived, to paying the price of the pearl.

If you have questions or comments about this reflection, please contact the
Alumnae Association office by e-mail at: Alumnae@stkate.edu

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