Dorothy Day Guild June 2023 Missive

Casey Mullaney • Jun 09, 2023

Dear friends,

May was a month full of celebrations and it seems hard to believe that summer is upon us already! We have a few brief updates for you this month, but be on the lookout for the first digital edition of our newsletter, “In Our Time,” coming to your inbox at the end of June. Our communications team has been hard at work on this issue, and we’re all very excited to share this collection of interviews, art, and reflections with you. We hope that this summer edition of “In Our Time” will be as intellectually engaging and spiritually nourishing for our readers as it has been for the writers and editors.

Ninetieth anniversary news

As May drew to a close, we enjoyed reading a few more tributes and reflections on the ninetieth anniversary of the Catholic Worker movement. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano published a collection of three articles in its English-language edition, by Giulia Galeotti, author of a recent Italian-language book on Dorothy, Kevin Ahern, co-chair of the Dorothy Day Guild, and Amanda Daloisio, editor of The Catholic Worker. Be sure to check these out, and also a recent piece from The Tablet, which featuring a conversation with Jane Sammon, a long-time Catholic Worker who knew and worked closely with Dorothy towards the end of Dorothy’s life. Enormous thanks to all of these authors, and to the Catholic Workers who bring a little of the peace of heaven, and a little of the presence of God to those they serve!

 

We also wanted to share one more ferry update, this time from the New York Times. If you ride the Dorothy Day this summer, please be sure to send a photo and tag us on social media– and say a prayer for all of the riders and the crew who will make that journey between Manhattan and Staten Island that Dorothy herself so loved!

Upcoming events (in person and online!)

Are you in NYC this weekend? Our friends at Maryhouse invite you to a performance of Lisa Wagner-Corollo’s “Haunted By God: The Life of Dorothy Day,” a free, one-woman show that follows Dorothy from her teen years in Greenwich village through the founding of the Catholic Worker with Peter Maurin and her tireless work for justice later in life. We hope to see you at Maryhouse on Saturday, June 10th, at 2:30 pm! This play is being presented as part of New York and Chicago’s SixthFest. Learn more, and RSVP here. If you aren’t able to make it in person (or you just want a sneak peek at the show), you can watch an excerpt from the play here.

 

We’re also excited to let you know about an online book study hosted by our friends from Dorothy Day Tampa, who will be gathering to read The Long Loneliness together this summer. The sixth iteration of this ecumenical reading group begins at 7:00 pm, Wednesday July 5th. There are a few more spots available, so if you've never read Dorothy in her own words, or you're looking for a community to read and reflect with, check it out here!

 

If you’d like to get Dorothy-related news and hear about upcoming events more regularly, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter – we love hearing from you!

Pax Christi awards

On June 4th members of the Dorothy Day Guild advisory board were honored by Pax Christi Metro New York. Martha Hennessy and other members of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 received the Father Richard McSorley award and Kevin Ahern was granted the Eileen Egan National Peacemaker award. During the ceremony, many of the awardees mentioned Dorothy and how her witness inspires them to action. Other members and friends of the Guild have previously received this award including Fr. Kevin Sullivan (1993), George Horton (2004), and Tom Cornell (2009). Congratulations to Martha, Kevin, and their colleagues on being recognized by this incredible group of peacemakers!

 

Pax Christi Metro New York is the regional Network of Pax Christi USA, which was founded in 1972 by a number of close collaborators of Dorothy Day, including her dear friend Eileen Egan, Gordon Zahn, Gerry Vanderhaar, Ed Guinan, Sr. Mary Evelyn Jegen, Bishop Tom Gumbleton, and Joe Fahey. Dorothy was involved in some of these early discussions and was the keynote speaker at the first Pax Christi USA’s conference in 1973. As Manhattan College professor emeritus Joseph Fahey wrote in an article on Pax Christi’s contributions to the US Bishop’s 1983 Peace Pastoral, “Pax Christi USA was strongly supported by Dorothy Day, who understood that the Catholic peace movement needed to reach the millions of Catholics who were not pacifists but who wanted to work for Christ’s peace in the world principally through their home parishes. Hence, from the beginning, Pax Christi USA has welcomed all people who were “on pilgrimage” to the Gospel of Peace.” We are so grateful to the many regional networks of Pax Christi USA for their pastoral work in bringing that Gospel of Peace closer to the heart and conscience of the Church each year. For more information on Pax Christi Metro New York, visit: https://nypaxchristi.org/ 

Where are we now? (Dorothy and Saintly Six)

Many people have asked us recently where the cause for Dorothy’s canonization stands now that all of our documents have been sent to the Vatican and we have entered the Roman phase of the process. Emanuele Spedicato, a colleague of our Roman postulator, Waldery Hilgeman, offered this presentation as part of a webinar on the canonization process which took place last winter. We so appreciate the clarity with which Emanuele outlined the next steps in the often-confusing path to sainthood! Thanks also go to our intern, Isabel Frazza, who prepared the transcript of the talk for those who prefer to use subtitles. Please keep an eye out for more videos on our brand-new YouTube channel! We plan to use this space to make educational resources on Dorothy more accessible to our friends and supporters.

 

In other canonization causes of note, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the order founded by Mother Mary Lange, celebrated a mass in honor of the tenth anniversary of the reinterment of their foundress’ remains at their motherhouse. Mother Lange’s positio has been approved and is now before the Dicastery for the Causes of saints. Please join us in praying that Pope Francis will declare Mother Lange “Venerable” very soon! To keep following Mother Lange’s cause and the other causes for the “Saintly Six,” the Black American Catholics whose causes for canonization are underway, we encourage you to sign up for the Black Catholic Messenger mailing list here.

A word from Dorothy

As always, we’d like to close with a few lines from Dorothy’s own writing. In June of 1957, Dorothy penned this reflection on the Catholic Worker movement for her column “On Pilgrimage”:

 

“The Catholic Worker is like an inn by the side of the road, with travelers coming and going, staying a day or a month or years, and the travelers are workers and scholars, poets, politicians, propagandists. Perhaps I should say that St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality is like that, but the fact is that people are attracted to the CW, to the publication itself, because of its ideas. Write about peace and freedom and people who want to work as pacifists and anarchists come wandering in and become part of a community. You write about the works of mercy, and people who want to perform them come to try to put into practice the things they read about in the lives of the saints. But to me, the best thing about the works of mercy is that they become mutual aid, people helping each other, cooking meals, going to market, peeling vegetables, washing clothes, or giving them out, making beds, putting people up. Love is an exchange of gifts, St. Ignatius said, so true charity, caritas, enters in and mutual aid means true justice.”

 

Dorothy herself was a great traveler, even as she remained the heart and anchor of her Catholic Worker community until her death. We see the fruits of those travels alive today in the Catholic Worker houses present on five continents and in international networks like Pax Christi. We also know those fruits are also ripening in secret, in the hearts of men and women who reject the accumulation of wealth and power and who live out a vocation to nonviolence and voluntary poverty in big and small ways. Dorothy’s legacy is still calling people from around the world together to work for peace: finding alternatives to war and other forms of state violence, honoring the image of God present in the poor, and building communities based on hospitality, mutual aid, and true charity. 

 

We’re thrilled that these missives are reaching friends and supporters from California to Sweden, and if you know someone else who might be interested in hearing more about Dorothy, please forward them this email or encourage them to sign up for our mailing list in time to receive our June 2023 newsletter. As summer begins and we return to the season of Ordinary Time, please keep the cause in your prayers, and know that you remain in ours.

 

Yours,


Dr. Casey Mullaney, on behalf of the Dorothy Day Guild

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SOWING SEEDS, What it takes to be a lifelong Catholic Worker

By Claire Schaeffer-Duffy and Scott Schaeffer-Duffy • 26 Apr, 2024
A desire to know God in the poor rather than any specific quest for community led the two of us to the Mary Harris and St. Benedict Catholic Worker houses in Washington, DC in the summer and autumn of 1982. Michael Kirwan, a graduate student in sociology at George Washington University, founded both a couple years earlier. We arrived shortly after graduating from college, coming by separate paths. Claire had just finished a senior thesis on the enduring, revolutionary value of the Catholic Worker movement. And Scott was reassessing his vocation after spending most of a year as a novice with the Capuchin-Franciscans. In those days, the talk between us was all about radical poverty and solidarity with the poor. The two small row houses Michael purchased were located on Fourth Street NW in a squalid neighborhood under the thumb of several drug-dealing families. Mary Harris house served women while St. Benedict house served men. Both were crammed with people who were mentally ill, addicted, or utterly alone in the world. Inspired by Michael, we saw the Catholic Worker as a place where Christianity could be taken literally. Fourth Street provided ample opportunity. There, the Gospel invocations of “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me,” “take nothing for the journey,” “take the lowest place,” “forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” and “pray unceasingly” were translated into unlimited hospitality and incredible precarity. We slept on the floor, prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, and went to daily Mass in the midst of the chaos. In early 1983, Carl Siciliano, an eighteen year old contemplative came to volunteer at St. Benedict’s. He too was eager for the radical path, and the three of us immersed ourselves in the tumult of life on Fourth Street with enthusiasm. As Claire would say, “we’re like the three musketeers.” This was the era of Reaganomics, a time when thousands of unhoused Americans lived on the streets of the Capitol. The United States was arming wars in Central America and ramping up its nuclear arsenal to build weapons of incalculable destruction. Washington, DC was abuzz with protests. Despite the enormity of our daily tasks, we joined numerous anti-war demonstrations and went to jail on several occasions for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. In the autumn of 1983, we went on a peace mission to Nicaragua with Teresa Grady, who is now part of the Ithaca, NY Catholic Worker, and Carl. Following Michael’s advice, we left the care of the houses on Fourth Street in the hands of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day while we were away. The responsibility of maintaining two small houses of hospitality often conflicted with our desire to participate in a nonviolent action. The one who went off to jail or a peace campaign could only do so if someone stayed back at the house to cook the soup and break up the fights. Deciding who did what was an occasional source of tension. New community members came, but did not remain long.

SAVED BY BEAUTY, Artists of Hope

By Carolyn Zablotny • 26 Apr, 2024
Bro. Martin Erspamer, OSB and Bro. Michael (Mickey) McGrath, OSFS are both liturgical artists, widely recognized for their creative work. Meeting in the pages of the Guild’s newsletter, they bring an artistry and open-heartedness long associated with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. From its very beginning, the Catholic Worker has been blessed by grace-filled encounters, their number suggesting more providence than coincidence. How else can the meeting between Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day be understood? He lit the match that set the new convert on fire to see what the Gospel, if lived, would look like, a match that led to a movement and even to a cause for canonization. Both still kindle our imagination with the possibility of new life, new hope. Beauty is an entryway to our imagination. Even as a young girl, Dorothy found deep inspiration and joy in literature, nature, and music. She must have felt a kindred spirit when she met nineteen-year-old art student, Ade Bethune, in 1933. Ade had come to the Catholic Worker on East Fifteenth Street. While she was moved by the hospitality offered to the poor, she felt the fledgling Catholic Worker newspaper wasn’t sufficiently conveying the spirit behind the work. She offered her artwork. To this day, her bold images continue to animate the paper.

GOOD TALK, Charles E. Moore on How to Live in Community

By Gabriella Wilke • 26 Apr, 2024
Charles E. Moore is a member, teacher, and pastor of the Bruderhof, an international Christian movement of intentional communities founded by Eberhard Arnold in 1920. A contributing editor and author for Plough , his published works include Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard , and Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together. Drawing on his expertise and experience, he spoke with one of In Our Time’s editors, Gabriella Wilke, on how to go about life together. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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