May 4: The Woman

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is May 4th, and our story is The Woman. In 1944, the Reverend Fulton J. Sheen received a phone call. On the other end was Connecticut's Congresswoman, Claire Booth Luce. The Honorable Mrs. Luce, who'd recently lost her only child in a car accident, got right to the point. Listen, if God is good, why did he take my daughter? In order that you might be here in the faith, Sheen replied.

Luce didn't like his answer, but she liked Sheen, so they talked some more, and some more, arguing their way through the next two years, until, in 1946, Luce entered the Catholic Church. Her conversion surprised almost everyone. Luce, after all, wasn't just a congresswoman. In her 41 years, she'd also been a suffragette, millionaire's wife, playwright, journalist, and Vanity Fair editor. Her acerbic wit, which gave life to her most famous play, The Women, as well as her oft-quoted speeches in Congress, was legendary.

It's to Luce the world owes such lines as, no good deed goes unpunished, and widowhood is a fringe benefit of marriage. Luce, however, had known her share of suffering too. Ashamed of her illegitimate birth, she married for money at age 20, only to leave her abusive, alcoholic husband six years later.

Despite her relatively happy second marriage to Time and Life publisher Henry Luce, losing her daughter almost broke her. In the church, however, Luce found peace. After Luce's conversion, one friend noted the change, saying, Twenty years ago, she was like a diamond, beautiful, brilliant, and cold. Now, she is beautiful, brilliant, and compassionate. She has become a kind and remarkably unselfish woman.

Luce retired from Congress in 1946, but returned to political life on May 4, 1953, when she became Ambassador to Italy under President Dwight Eisenhower. She later served, for four days, as Ambassador to Brazil and on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

After her death in 1987, she was laid to rest at the plantation she and her husband gave to the Trappist community years before, South Carolina's Mepkin Abbey. Claire Booth Luce's conversion wasn't a fleeting impulse. It was a deep encounter with God that reshaped her priorities, perspective, and relationships. Our experiences, joys, and losses can all become opportunities to open our hearts to God's guidance and grace.

Today, reflect on a recent loss or challenge. Ask God to help you see how it could help you see how it could help you see how it could help you see how it could help you. Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader Podcast. Join us tomorrow, May 5th, for another story of faith and courage in America.