Pacifist Scripture: Convicting and Compelling on the Feast of St. Benedict

Summer Newsletter 2016,  Lamb Catholic Worker 
                                                     By Monica,  The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio

     In the Divine Office Liturgy of the Hours for today, on the feast of St. Benedict (Dorothy Day was a Benedictine Oblate) is the following prophecy from Isaiah - the build-up lends to its power and truth:

"In the days to come,
the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.

All the nations shall stream toward it;
many peoples shall come and say:
'Come, let us climb the Lord's mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.'

For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against 
another,
nor shall they train for war again.

O house of Jacob come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!"
                                  - Isaiah 2:2-5

 The link below is partly an interview with Tom Siemer (Monica's Father) promoting beating our drone "swords" into plowshares:         
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqXLR0GZrac

       On this feast of my beloved St. Benedict, the "Father of Western Monasticism," there is so much to be appreciated in his message and way of life.  A key snippet on the walls of most Catholic Worker Houses is his concept of "Ora et Labora," the balance between work and prayer.

       In preaching at Christ the King this morning, Fr. Sylvester spoke of how St. Benedict wanted all to not only live this balanced life but to remove distractions of all kinds in order to do so.  We have to nurture our inward life, nurture the love we have for Jesus and our devotion to Him. In the Benedictine Oblate booklet mailed to me during Lent (in preparation for my oblation) entitled, "Clothed, in the New Self, Christ is All in All," Fr. Adrian Burke, OSB, also adds to be true to your true self in part, by stripping off the old self with its practices (becoming dead to sin), being "renewed in knowledge according to the image of the Creator," and putting on Christ, or as he quotes Thomas Merton: putting on our "true self in Christ."

       Some of the subtitles speak of Benedictine spirituality in this powerful booklet, "Benedictine Life is Life in Christ" are the following:" "Prayer in Solitude," "Praise and Thanksgiving," "Detach, Detach, Detach!" "Humility -- Our Truth," "Benedictine Self-realization," "The Pattern of Our Life," "Retreat to Prayer," "Return to Service," "Blessed are the Peacemakers," "Pax," "and "If You Would be my Disciple."  Also, our "motto" for Benedictine Oblates is: "Seeking God in Everyday Life," and I would add, all day long. During a recent confession with an older wise priest, Fr. Emmanuel Bertrand, I was told to try to: "Cultivate serenity and staying always in the presence of God, every minute of every day, in everything."  These traits and virtues are more than evident in Dorothy Day, a Benedictine Oblate.  I have a lonnnng way to go!

      Here is a gem under "Pax": "Devout Christians don't go out to make peace, ... Rather, we go inward to receive it, to find it, and then having found it, to share it outwardly with the world by radiating that peace ..." (p. 15). Our dear Fr. Meinrad Brune, Director of Benedictine Oblates out of the St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, described in a lenten letter a beautiful tradition that he shared with neighbors while growing up that seems to me analagous to the spiritual (and material!) clearing out necessary.

     "When my two older brothers and I were boys, there were three families on our block who would help each other to do 'spring cleaning.'  We would spend a day at each of the three houses.  Mothers and children would all have to help.  The fathers (before they left for work) would move out all the mattresses, carpets, and rugs to be aired out in the fresh air.  Once those things were removed, we began a thorough cleaning of the entire house....  cleansing and simplifying [and I would add organizing and freeing ones life!]." 

        I cannot imagine that openness to allow others to experience the inner clutter, grime, and science specimens in the deepest recesses of each others' homes, amazing!  How accepting and freeing this whole experience must have been! How HOLY!  It would be a great annual tradition.

           

             In the spirit of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, St. Francis of Assissi, and Pope Francis, my teensy attempt at becoming more poor is to try, to TRY, to go a year without a car.  I have already gone about two months, borrowing cars to drive at times.  I am stopping this as well.  If I cannot get a ride somewhere, I simply will not go.  I look forward to the day of embracing "Lady Poverty," as Peter Maurin called it, or "voluntary poverty" as it is sometimes called.  Dorothy always said, "If you can get used to bedbugs and lice, you can do the Catholic Worker!"  I don't want to go that far yet!

"We would have no poverty in the world,

if everyone tried to become the poorest."

                            -- Peter Maurin

        

       The frustration level has been high and this in my summer off as a teacher! It will be much more of a challenge in the school year but I work probably less than 2 miles from home, and most of my world is this far away as well. There are bus lines though, and a spectacular sturdy bike my sister Lisa gave me last year.   Already I feel so much more healthy, more alive and one with nature all around me, and more spiritually hungry.  We'll see if it lasts!

       

        The spiritual clearing is even more critical for an Oblate or for anyone. A very Benedictine thing to do is to draw oneself inward, where God truly is, to attempt to catch that wisp of smoke, deliberate attuneness to that still small voice of God as described in the Old Testament. Eucharistic Adoration before our actual Savior Himself is one of the greatest quiet, holy places for this, going into the desert with only God, as Christ did. 

        I am not talking about reading or praying set prayers during this time.  Challenge yourself to have nothing to read (bring pen and paper to write!) and of pouring one's heart out, one's deepest longings, fears, praises, desires, inspirations, ...  If you have never stayed for two or three or more hours (my favorite), it is sooo worth it!  This is not wasted time!  Also, it is much more of a "Desert Father" experience when so much can truly, truly come from the deep recesses within, bubbling up to the surface perhaps for the first time.  "Be still ..."

      In the Divine Office book of "Christian Prayers," pp. 2028-2029, St. Augustine writes the following: 

      "To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose.  Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another.  For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length [off before dawn, going alone by the wayside]. Was he not giving us an example by this?"  and "To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervor at the door of the one whom we beseech.  This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech.  He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him ..."

       I admit that I have been perplexed at exactly how the Holy Spirit wants me to pray for exceedingly important things, when surrender, receptiveness and submission to the Will of the Father feels the opposite of pressing or begging God for this or that.  These yearnings, pleading, and crying out seem indeed, acceptable, though when we always end the sentence, as Jesus modeled, with  "not my will but Thy Will be done." 

      St. Padre Pio put it this way:  When we die, we will be presented, in a gold chalice, all of our tears."  He also said that when he dies, his real mission will begin!  So I ask about 30 people from heaven to pray with me and for me every  time I sit down to pray at length in any way (even mass).  He's working for my prayers, calling down the Holy Spirit upon me, to pray in the manner that God wants, and not through my feeble attempts. 

     A final note on passionate prayer is from St. Claude de la Colombiere in the book, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence (p. 117-118). 

      

       "If after a year we find  that our prayer is as fervent as it was at the beginning, then we need not doubt about the success of our efforts, and instead of losing courage after so long a delay, we should rejoice because we can be certain that our desires will be all the more fully satisfied for the length of time we have prayed."

      And "...it took St. Monica (;) sixteen years to obtain the conversion of Augustine, but the conversion was entire and far beyond what she had prayed for. ...Think what would have happened had she given up hope after a couple of years, after ten or twelve years, when ... her son grew worse instead of better (118) ... " Your every word is numbered and what you receive will be in the measure of the time you have spent asking.  Your treasure is piling up and suddenly one day it will overflow to an extent beyond your dreams (119).."  She had prayed for Augustine to stop being promiscuous and he embraced chastity.  She begged that he come back into the Catholic Church and witnessed him  becoming a bishop!  She was desperate that he turn from his heretical ways and he became a pillar of the Church, defending it in numerous ways. 

     It continues: "Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realize that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it) but wants rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us.  His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it.  That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke of unbelievers.  The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive that gift, which is very great indeed. ... We pray always with unwearied desire. ... The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruit.  ... The Apostles tell us 'pray without ceasing'."

Saints Louis and Zelie Martin, parents of St. Teresa de Lisieux
(far right) cultivated deep prayer lives in their many daughters
 - five became religious sisters- getting up at 5:00 for daily mass 

         One risks, like Christ, in quiet time of solitude with Christ in Eucharistic Adoration, the stark aloneness, nothingness but our thoughts, our being, with our Maker.  One also experiences the appreciated immense filling up of the soul, as a driving thunderstorm in an arid desert. The contrast lends to the experience, the seeking God's face, God's voice, the voice of the Beloved. 

        Dorothy Day seems to paint eloquently what happens when one emerges:

    "...the seeds in the desert, the seed scattered by the solitary, Charles de Foucauld, those who go out into all the poverty-stricken places in the world and work for their daily bread and live the life of a contemplative in the world....and the greatness means the overcoming of temptation and laying down one's life for one's fellows ... the victory of love over hatred and mistrust." (from a column of Dorothy's reprinted in "The Catholic Radical," Worchester).

       One cannot speak of poverty without the life witness of the saint of whom our beloved Pope Francis is named after:  St. Francis of Assissi.  His life legacy of living in poverty is well-described in his article on the Catholic Encyclopedia website.  From a former seminarian who nearly became a Franciscan Brother Minor, he said that Francis, like Dorothy Day, was torn between the contemplative life with his intense communion with God (ecstaties that would render him like a corpse, the stigmata, or actual physical wounds of Christ in the hands, feet, and side, etc) and with the active life, going out to preach, take care of the sick, etc. 

      The story goes that he was so torn that he asked God for two different people from different places to give him an answer to this question for his life, because he was far more drawn to the contemplative life than to the active one.  Sure enough, God sent two separate people to say the same thing to him clearly - that he is to have the active life among people, among the wider Church, so in dire need of his way of holiness in that era. St. Francis' way of life so surpassed what was known that even members in his own order tried to have him kicked out of it! He was pressed and pressed to have a rule, and he finally came up with this: "Yes, here is my rule - the folly of the Cross."   

    One reason why the picture above is one of my favorites is because, like Christ, his life was not easy at all as shown!  It was far far more stressful and challenging than we can imagine.  It even looks as though he has an eye infection, his clothes are very tattered, there is a certain sadness in his eyes.  Yet, like Christ, his radical love and humility was and were so far beyond those around him, that he was misunderstood, rejected, and sometimes even hated.  This, we would say, is what we are seeking most at The Lamb Catholic Worker:  contemplatives reverently loyal to their Catholic Church (Bride of Christ) and to the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Francis, willing to embrace voluntary poverty in the deep inner city (and/or on a Catholic Worker sister farm).  Like Dorothy Day, we are hoping for those willing to look beyond the judgment and flaws of others to see only Christ, to have eyes and ears for His voice alone in the poor. 

    Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta once put it this way:

"We have done

so much with so little,

for so long,

we now deserve

to do everything

with nothing."

 Happenings of the Lamb     

    Well, nothing to tell in terms of taking in the homeless yet.  There are very interested people though, more so than in a while!  Come Lord Jesus.  St. Francis of Assissi once said, "Sanctify yourself and you sanctify society."  That's what I am sticking to right now as I go back to D.C. for another few weeks to take care of my Dad.

      On a very positive note, more and more people are beginning to take on as part of their way of life, besides daily mass and rosary, the Divine Office of the priests.  Eleven people were praying it together in the Guadalupe Chapel at Christ the King after the 7:00 mass a week and a half ago.  Fr. Coleman encourages every single person to do so in many many homilies, that we are a priestly people needing this to keep us following Christ faithfully.  It also has a beautiful prayer for every single morning, the Gospel Canticle of Zechariah (St. John the Baptist's father) which ends: ".. and guide our feet into the way of peace."  It's right there!  Some who pray this still guide our feet into the way of war, but perhaps if many more people do so, we will indeed create more "John the Baptists" (the Canticle of Zecharia is one addressed to the infant John the Baptist), heralding Christ and guiding "our feet into the way of peace."

      I will also say that any parts of the Old Testament within the Divine Office that seem to contradict Christ's message and way (as he contrasted many ways of old with His new way - "...before it was an eye for an eye,.. but now I say love your enemies..."), I substitute in my heart what Christ would say consistent with His words and actions.  For example instead of praying, "... in the Lord's name I crushed them," I pray "in the Lord's name I pray for them" as Jesus commanded and modeled to do with our enemies.

       Keep the prayers coming strong for The Lamb Catholic Worker!  I feel we are on the brink.  Pray for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's canonization too!  Also pray, on this feast of St. Benedict, for more Third Order Benedictines, or Benedictine Oblates, like Dorothy Day.  Amazingly, you can be as young as fifteen and it is inter-denominational (it's true!).  St. Benedict, pray for us!

       When I get to whining about all the walking and trips by bike I have to make, I think of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which entailed well over a year of walking almost everywhere for people who had to perform hard labor each day too.  This was bravely undertaken in order to end the discrimination laws on buses.  Women older than myself would sometimes walk for almost two hours to work, clean all day, and walk home again!  The task was daunting amidst deaths and many many threats.  They pushed onward though, healthier, stronger, and more determined with each passing day partly because they walked so much!

      

          I also think of Harriet Tubman, the Moses of the people, who went back into the deep south 17 times - mostly by foot - to bring people to freedom, to "set the captives free." This was with a $50,000 bounty on her head, a serious ankle issue from youth and black outs from a heavy weight that had been thrown at her head while defending a young  man about to be whipped. She said, "I freed a thousand slaves and I would have freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves."  Pray for us Harriet!  We, like you, want to "set the captives free," especially those who only know captivity (who do not realize they are enslaved).

      By the way, my ESL student Michael and I wrote a compelling letter, dated Dec. 18, 2014, to President Barack Obama to have Andrew Jackson removed immediately from the twenty dollar bill.  Three months later a new organization sprung up called Women on the Twenty.  I believe it was Michael's letter and push that someone saw and ran with, personally, and we are excited, even if he never gets the credit!

The Spirit is Moving! Fr. Daniel Berrigan, Pacifist, Presente!

       By Monica, The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio.
       The Holy Spirit is blowing in sweeping mountainous strokes within the Catholic Church and in our world with several amazing and awesome (in the true sense of the word) happenings!
       I applaud the Catholic Times here in Columbus for printing the Catholic News Service release of the life and legacy of the famous 94 yr. old Jesuit priest, Reverend Daniel Berrigan, who, more than anything else in his life, adored his Jesuit priesthood of 54 years.  I spoke with him 9 years ago about both a movie screenplay I had written and the Lamb Catholic Worker - and the gentleness and sweetness of his little holy disposition came through the phone!  He said, "Oh God bless you for what you are trying to do!"

Rev. Richard McSorley, S.J. (Monica's mentor) and Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

         [The above picture was taken by Monica of Rev. Richard McSorley, S.J. and Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J. at the Pacem en Terris award given to Dan at the Georgetown Center for Peace Studies in the early 1980's].
       These were some of the words of his nieces and nephews at his death:  "Dan taught us that every person is a miracle, every person has a story, every person is worthy of respect...  And we are so aware of all he did and all he was and all he created in almost 95 years of life lived with enthusiasm, commitment, seriousness and almost holy humor."  "The 'heavy burden' of peacemaking will continue among many people,' the family added, saying, 'We can all move forward Dan Berrigan's work for humanity.'"

        With Brother Louis, the famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, as his mentor, Dan Berrigan engaged in several acts of civil disobedience that landed him in jail and prison for years, even with arthritis in his spine.  It began with his outrage of children and many innocent Vietnamese civilians in huts and villages being burned alive with napalm during the Vietnam War by U.S. soldiers.  He joined others to break into a government office holding draft files of those having been drafted and forced against their choice, to napalm others in Vietnam.  They pulled out draft files to the parking lot  outside, and napalmed them.

 

     The following is part of my very favorite poetic writing of Dan, which was part of the Catonsville 9 statement in their defense of burning the draft files of those forced to kill.  This was at a time when the idea of a priest breaking the law and going against law and order seemed a terrible witness to many. The lawlessness was too much to bear. This was part of their (his) reply:

Our apologies, good friends,
for the fracture of good order,
the burning of paper
instead of children, 
the angering of the orderlies
in the front parlor 
of the charnel house. 
We could not, so help us God,
do otherwise.
For we are sick at heart,
our hearts give us no rest
for thinking of the
Land of Burning Children.
And for thinking of that
other Child, of whom
the poet Luke speaks. 
It is in Him that we put
our trust, and in no other.
     Fr. Berrigan went on to confront the evils of creating, investing in ($ multi-billions), manufacturing, and potentially using, again, weapons of mass destruction, or nuclear weapons. He began the "Plowshares" movement based on the Old Testament quote from Isaiah:
 "And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
            Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
            And never again will they learn war."
       On Sept. 9, 1980, Fr. Berrigan and six other demonstrators were arrested after entering the General Electric missile plant in Pennsylvania, and beating on the nose cones (without the weapons inside), of intercontinental ballistic missiles. They then poured blood over classified defense plans there.  I was at the courthouse outside on sentencing day praying with fellow Catholic Workers for them.  It was quite a sacrifice on their parts, and Fr. Berrigan spent years in prison for it, even with painful arthritis of the spine.
        There have been many other Plowshares actions done around the country against not only weapons of mass destruction, but also exposing the direct link of nuclear energy and power plants to weapons of mass destruction.  The "spent" radioactive rods of the core can be converted into weapons grade plutonium and into weapons of mass destruction against entire cities of innocent people.  Even the term of the man-made element on the Periodic Table, Plutonium, had to be named after the god of hell in ancient Greece, Pluto.  This is used in weapons of mass destruction.  To think that it was not part of God's plan of creation, we brought "hell" to earth with our own hands.
       At Hiroshima, Japan, he wrote the following poem.

Shadow on the Rock

At Hiroshima there’s a museum

and outside that museum there’s a rock,

and on that rock there’s a shadow.

That shadow is all that remains

of the human being who stood there

on August 6, 1945

when the nuclear age began.

In the most real sense of the word,

that is the choice before us.

We shall either end war and the nuclear arms race

now in this generation,

or we will become shadows on the rock. 

     

Fr. George Zabelka in the middle with white beard, Dad, right.

      

         Fr. George Zabelka, the military chaplain over Paul Tibbits of Columbus, Ohio who was the main pilot of the "Enola Gay," the plane that dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had a milestone conversion of heart to Christian nonviolence (of our early Church history of the first 300 years). At first he was as gung-ho as Paul Tibbits, long after the incineration of so many innocent lives. It was Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy who helped bring about his change of heart.

         He explained how our earliest most pure roots had been 100% pacifist for a very very long time. He also explained how most of the destruction of lives and cities of Europe in World War I and II was mostly Christians upon Christians - many times Catholics upon Catholics! He spoke of how Christ taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves (all outside of oneself is one's neighbor) as well as even to love our enemies (!). It is not possible to love and kill the same person at the same time. If God can make His sun and rain fall on the good and bad alike (as in Scripture), so great and equal handed is His love for ALL, made in His own image and likeness, then who are we to be above God?

         Once converted, Fr. George Zabelka went on the be an outspoken advocate for Christian nonviolence and nuclear disarmament. He and my father marched across Ohio together in the early 80's.

         My father, peace activist Tom Siemer, a Navy veteran, has spent the past 40+ years working tirelessly against weapons of mass destruction and for Christan nonviolence. He had previously spent 23 years working as a defense contractor in the military industrial complex (money-making with war products). He nearly died of cirrhosis of the liver, and given only a short time to live, from his guilt-ridden alcoholism over his part of the war machine. He asked God to spare him and promised to dedicate the rest of his life working for peace.
         The dynamite inventor/maker had the same crisis when he was thought to have died, and his obituary praised how he brought the explosive and destructive power of weapons to such a higher degree. He spent the rest of his life working for peace as well. His name was Arthur Nobel. My father has worked very hard for the past 40+ years to make up for his past. In fact, I have filled two thick binders of the newspaper articles and stories of protests, arrests, marches, and even a documentary centered around him called "Gods of Metal."
         He was more recently arrested for throwing red paint on the above mentioned "Enola Gay" airplane at the National Air and Space Museum on Washington, D.C. to symbolize the massive loss of innocent human lives at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Fr. McSorley, S.J. had taught him (even though he knew this): "He who chooses the lesser of two evils soon forgets he chose evil in the first place." There is always a third choice. Dad made a statement with the following: "...B-29 bombers were used to firebomb all other cities in Japan, killing over three million Japanese civilians. To praise the technology of the B-29 [and that of nuclear warheads] is like praising Hitler's poison of the gas chambers."

     

     
        My father saw the Enola Gay more recently in an exhibit at the Dulles Airport and the tour guide explained, "And this spot is where a protester broke a glass of red paint to symbolize the massive loss of innocent life that day." There is hope! While Dorothy Day did not herself believe in nor participate in civil disobence involving the harm or destruction of persons or possessions belonging to another ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and that the end never justifies the means, the means and ends are equally holy), she came to respect people with the mentality who would say, destroy the Nazi files of those Jewish people that they are about to remove from their homes and send off to work (death) camps. All that was done to Jewish people in Catholic Germany was completely legal, even though inhumane, unethical, and immoral.

         Fr. Daniel Berrigan said in an interview for The Nation in 2008 the following: "Dorothy Day taught me more than all the theologians." Bravo to Cardinal Timothy Dolan for stepping up her cause for canonization in his April 19 article on the Archdiocese of New York website! He wants to press for interviews through the end of this year with those who knew her, attesting to her holiness of life.
        This was one month after I sent the medical records of my two surgeries with a cover letter to the priest collecting Dorothy Day information stationed at the New York office. We cannot find another survivor besides myself of anyone who has undergone this dangerous and risky procedure (of donating 59% of my liver to my nephew), requiring a second emergency surgery 3-5 days after, surviving. I relied on Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's intercessory prayers. Because they helped me, hopefully this data will help the canonization process for both of them.
         Below is a picture Abby took of me last summer at the Mayo. She was my caregiver who was truly put through the ringer day and night! This was especially so when she had to keep a secret that I was to die, I believed, offering my life for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's canonization (coming through someone else) and for the Lamb Catholic Worker to begin in Columbus.

        Why is The Lamb Catholic Worker taking so long to begin? The intercessory prayers of Moses and Abraham have been added to that of Mary, St. Joseph, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and many others! Abraham had to wait approximately 15 more years, in old age, for Sara to conceive after being told he will be the father of many nations and peoples as numerous as the stars. Moses had it the worst though! He had to wait 40 years to get to the promised land, through harsh desert conditions involving many deaths, thirst, hunger, serpent bites, fatigue, and most of all, doubt of many around him (and probably of himself at times). I presume that was hardest of all with decades of time passing. I would have given up after 3 months in so dreadful of conditions with little provisions.
         What Fr. Schalk always says, to encourage me, is "Persevere!" What Fr. Denis Kigozi says is, "the Will of God is in the present, is only right in front of you. Looking back at regrets or forward with doubts and fears, this is not the Will of God. He puts right in your path and in your heart, what you are to do right here and right now."
        I will say that Benedictine crosses and Benedictine medals, blessed in the proper way with Benedictine prayers and holy water, are powerful! It is what our Vatican trained exorcists use against the evil one and his followers. Yes, these principalities truly do exist and the spiritual battle is going on constantly all around us. We do indeed need tools as channels of God's protection, to keep us from spiritual harm. St. Benedict tried to bring the level of holiness of higher levels of monasticism to the world and all the powers of hell tried to stop him. He was given these prayers, this medal and the Benedictine cross for special added protection. I recommend it!
         Many happenings give hope though! The fact that Dorothy Day is in the spotlight again, and we may have an answer after the end of this year about her moving forward to "Venerable" from "Servant of God" in the steps of canonization is marvelous. Also, the fact that it was a unanimous vote to open her cause for canonization of every U.S. Catholic bishop, archbishop, and cardinal in the United States a few years ago shows that the Spirit is moving strong.
          I gave my first talk at St. Mary Magdalene Church on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement in March, with great encouragement. I have had priests over the years ask me to come and give a talk on her, but I decline because we are not doing it yet. I said yes only to see many faces at my alma mater.

        Moreover, people ask me about the progress all the time, wanting to volunteer once it gets going (a list of about 100 people!). The fact that our Catholic Times included this article about Fr. Daniel Berrigan gives much hope too! Many people do not know that Pope Emeritus Benedict talked of Dorothy Day two different times of day in his last day as pope, so badly did he want her name (and cause) remembered into the next papacy. This did not make it into many Catholic papers. The Holy Spirit is indeed moving, through the intercessory prayers of Mother Mary, St. Joseph, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.
         Another sign of hope: the Spirit has also been moving in the secular world! At one of the schools I have taught at, during the Winter Concert and to honor Martin Luther King Jr, the Columbus City School children (K-5 grades) belted out at the top of their lungs an anti-war song from the Isaiah quote above. Some day these songs will be sung at Catholic school functions too!
 Gonna layyy dowwwn my sword and shield,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.
Gonna layyy dowwwn my sword and shield,
Down by the riverside,
Ain't gonna stuuuuudy warrrr no morrrre.
I ain't gonna study war no more.
I ain't gonna study war no more.
I ain't gonna stuuuudy warrrr noooo morre.
I ain't gonna study war no more.
I ain't gonna study war no more.
I ain't gonna stuuuudy warrrr noooo morre.
     A final note of hope for the world is the Holy Spirit moving strongly through my family, extended family, and especially through the Catholic Church in Columbus!  In 2017 it is the 50 anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and much of this outpouring and outgrowth of faith in younger people's lives stem from their "old time charismatic" parents and grandparents, myself included!  I am 43 years in the Charismatic Movement and it is far from dead!
    Pope Francis was fairly neutral on this movement until he went to a mass where tens of thousands broke into intense, spirit-filled "tongues" at the consecration.  He felt, "Whooaa, there really is something to this!" He has been very supportive.  Just like when the Apostles and Mary in the upper room called out to receive the Holy Spirit, and His swooshing rush came through, so He does again and again and again.  Dorothy Day had even encouraged to become a part of a charismatic group, as Msgr. Marv Mottet, overseeing this Catholic Worker.
     One last example of hope for the world: the holiness of life of many of my nieces and nephews and children (and their friends).  These are people who love to get to daily mass, like Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, who get to Eucharistic Adoration at least once or twice a week, who pray many rosaries each week, have a fair amount of religious reading, pray a lot, and are very helpful to others. Most have gone several times in the summer to a rural poor Appalachian area in Kentucky/Portsmouth, Ohio with the Appalachia Project for a week.  They build room additions for needy families, fix plumbing, paint, even chop wood for the winter.  It is sort of a mini-Peace Corps right here.
     Nine have served for a 10-month stint with NET, the National Evangelization Team, and one additional one with Christ in the City in Denver, being one with the homeless people on the streets at night.  They are excited for the possibility of this Catholic Worker getting started, to help where they can.
     Six high schoolers have contacted the vocations office to become priests from the east side church where my son, Josh, and my niece Abby (my main caregiver at the Mayo) have been youth ministers for a while.  Heidi and Jotham (niece and nephew) have also been youth ministers there.  Abby recently got married (April 15). Her first date with her husband was last year, at a morning daily mass, followed by a rosary at Eucharistic Adoration.  Rumor has it that their first real kiss was on the altar a year later.  Abby and Matt were recently blessed by Pope Francis, their dream of dreams for a honeymoon.  The Holy Spirit is moving!

 

I May Be the Miracle to Help Get Peter Maurin Canonized

    By Monica Siemer,  The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio
       Many who strongly desire to have Dorothy Day canonized want Peter Maurin, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, canonized alongside her.  She always said that HE started the Catholic Worker not her, that it was his vision, his dreams, his everything, and that she simply went along.  He only lived 15 years to see it bear fruit, while she did for nearly 50 years.
      It dawned on me, after saying so many, many times to people on my return from the Mayo hospital and the Gift of Life Transplant House, that I was supposed to die according to statistics.  Nearly all the cases of people donating part of their liver to a loved one (I gave 59% of my liver to my nephew Nick), that had need of a second emergency surgery 3-5 days out, died.  I was the worst case the Mayo, who has never lost a patient in the 215 live liver donor surgeries in 15 years, has ever seen.  At the other places that do these rare surgeries, nearly all have died that needed a second emergency surgery right away.
       I offered everything up for Nick, for the canonization of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day together, for the purification of the Catholic Worker Movement back to the diamond of its founders, and for the Lamb Catholic Worker to begin here in Columbus, Ohio.  I was 16 days in the hospital and a month in the Gift of Life Transplant House.  I constantly asked for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's intercession (along with Mother Mary, of course).  Dorothy is in the "Servant of God" stage of the beatification process but I believe that Peter is not at all.  In the Catholicism 10-CD series, Fr. Robert Barron introduces the Catholic Worker Movement with the wide grin of Peter Maurin, not Dorothy Day.
      Please Dear Papa, Holy Father, consider canonizing Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin together!  Pray for us too!!

Ellsberg On the Canonization of Dorothy Day, May, 2015

The Lamb Catholic Worker, Columbus, Ohio, Reprint

"Why I Support the Canonization of Dorothy Day" by Robert Ellsberg,
America Magazine. May 2015 also May 2015 NYC CW
http://americamagazine.org/issue/called-be-saints

In the early years of The Catholic Worker, the newspaper was largely
illustrated with Ade Bethune’s images of the saints. This was not just
for pious decoration. Depicted in modern dress, engaged in the works
of mercy, these figures literally illustrated what the editors were
trying to communicate through words and actions. The saints, as
Dorothy spoke of them, were our friends and companions, examples of
the Gospel in action. She devoted many years to writing a biography of
her favorite saint, Thérèse of Lisieux, exulting in the incredible
speed with which the Little Flower was canonized—a sign that she was
truly “the people’s saint.”

In discussing the saints, Dorothy always acknowledged their humanity,
their capacity for discouragement and sorrow, their mistakes and
failures, along with their courage and faithfulness. There is no doubt
she wished to take them off their pedestals, to show them as human
beings who nevertheless represented in their time the ideals and
spirit of the Gospel.

She was quite aware of the dangers of sentimental hagiography—the
“pious pap” that makes saints seem somehow less than fully human. She
quoted a text about the eating habits of the saints, which read,
“Blessed de Montfort sometimes shed tears and sobbed bitterly when
sitting at table to eat.” To this, she commented, “No wonder no one
wants to be a saint.”

She felt it was important that we tell the stories of “saints as they
really were, as they affected the lives of their times.” But it was
also important to underscore their radical challenge: how St.
Catherine of Siena confronted the pope; how St. Benedict promoted the
spirit of peace; how St. Francis met with the sultan in a mission of
reconciliation.

When Gordon Zahn wrote about his discouragement with the bishops and
their failure to address the Vietnam War, she wrote: “In all history
popes and bishops and father abbots seem to have been blind and power
loving and greedy. I never expected leadership from them. It is the
saints that keep appearing all thru [sic] history who keep things
going.”

Above all, Dorothy believed that the canonized saints were those who
reminded us of our true vocation. “We are all called to be saints,”
she wrote, “and we might as well get over our bourgeois fear of the
name. We might also get used to recognizing the fact that there is
some of the saint in all of us. Inasmuch as we are growing, putting
off the old man and putting on Christ, there is some of the saint, the
holy, the divine right there.” She acknowledged, sadly, that most
people nowadays, “if they were asked, would say diffidently that they
do not profess to be saints, indeed they do not want to be saints. And
yet the saint is the holy man, the ‘whole man,’ the integrated man. We
all wish to be that.”

One of the things that attracted her to St. Thérèse was that in her
Little Way she showed a path of holiness available to all people and
in all circumstances. Dorothy—who was born the same year that Thérèse
died—wished to make known the social implications of the Little Way:
“The significance of our smallest acts! The significance of the little
things we leave undone! The protests we do not make, the stands we do
not take, we who are living in the world.”

A New Kind of Saint

And what of the meaning of saints for the church? It is important to
recognize that in canonizing a saint, the church is not bestowing a
kind of posthumous “honor.” Canonization has no impact or import for
the saint herself. Canonization is really a gift the church makes to
itself. Through recognition of certain individuals—a minuscule number
compared to all those holy men and women known to God—the church is
challenged to enlarge its understanding of the Gospel, to provide new
models that people can relate to, examples who met the challenge of
discipleship in their own time and thus inspire us to do the same.

But as Simone Weil said, it is not nearly enough to be a saint; “We
must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment.” Early in
her life, Dorothy recognized the need for a new kind of saint. Even as
a child she noted how moved she was by the stories of saints who cared
for the poor, the sick, the leper. But another question arose in her
mind: “Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding
it in the first place?... Where were the saints to try to change the
social order, not just to minister to the slaves but to do away with
slavery?” It was a question to be answered with her own life.

In 1932, as she uttered her fateful prayer at the Basilica of the
Immaculate Conception, Dorothy sought an answer about how to integrate
her faith and her commitment to justice and the cause of the
oppressed. She prayed to make a synthesis of “body and soul, this
world and the next.” In effect she was seeking a model for how to
minister to the slaves while also working to do away with slavery.
Many saints had performed the works of mercy and poured themselves out
in charity. By combining her work for justice with the practice of
charity, Dorothy made an enormous gift to the church. No one coming
afterward would have to imagine what such a saint might look like.

But there are other gifts. By far the overwhelming majority of saints,
both in history and in recent times, have been priests and members of
religious orders. Of the 1,000 or so saints beatified or canonized
under Pope John Paul II the majority—apart from martyrs—were founders
or members of religious orders. Arguably, this reinforces the
stereotypical notion that religious life is a prerequisite for
holiness.

Dorothy, in her deeply disciplined life of prayer and participation in
the sacramental life of the church, her embrace of voluntary poverty,
and her spirit of self-sacrifice and loving service, resembles many
saints who went before. Yet as a layperson, as a woman, as an
unmarried mother, as the founder and leader of a lay movement that has
always operated without any official authorization from the church, as
the publisher of a newspaper that presumed to take social positions
far in advance of the magisterium of her time, Dorothy Day represents
quite an unusual—and significant—candidate for canonization.

In her ecumenism, her commitment to liturgical renewal, her
affirmation of religious freedom and the rights of conscience, her
resistance to racism and anti-Semitism, and her prophetic
implementation of the church’s “preferential option for the poor,” she
anticipated so many themes of the Second Vatican Council and the
postconciliar church. And if there is now real thought about her
canonization, it is in part a reflection of how far the church has
traveled in catching up with her witness. That is something to
celebrate.

But there is more. Dorothy was inspired by the Gospel and the lives of
the saints to respond to the needs of her day—both the needs that
everyone could recognize (the Great Depression) but also the needs
that were overlooked by almost everyone else. Dorothy, more than
anyone, helped the church recover the forgotten peace message of
Jesus. She confronted war and violence in all its forms—not just in
words but in prophetic actions. In the purity of her vision and by her
courageous witness she continues to walk ahead, beckoning the church
to follow.

The Symbolism of Sainthood

There are inevitably symbolic or, if you will, political
considerations associated with the making of saints. There is always
the question, what lesson or message does the church wish to impart
through this canonization? The belated recognition of Oscar Romero as
a genuine martyr, and not just a pious churchman, is a significant
example. In naming Romero a martyr who died because of “hatred of the
faith,” the church acknowledges that he did not die for getting mixed
up in politics, as his ecclesial critics charged, but because he
faithfully followed the Gospel. Perhaps it is meaningful that this
pronouncement has awaited the pontificate of Pope Francis. In this
context, Romero walks ahead, beckoning us to fulfill the pope’s vision
of a church that is “poor and for the poor.”

By the same token, I believe this particular ecclesial season provides
a very special context for promoting the canonization of Dorothy Day.
Pope Francis, it seems to me, is the fulfillment of Dorothy’s dreams.
If she had let her imagination run free, she might have conceived of a
pope who took his name from St. Francis, who set out to renew the
church in the image of Jesus, promoting the centrality of mercy,
reconciliation and solidarity with those on the margins. So often she
criticized ecclesial trappings of power and privilege. How she would
have delighted in Francis’ gestures of humility, his call for
shepherds “who have the smell of the sheep,” his washing the feet of
prisoners (including women and Muslims), his tears on the island of
Lampedusa as he contemplated the deaths of nameless immigrants and
lambasted the “culture of indifference.” With her love for the Cuban
people, how she would have rejoiced in his role in overcoming decades
of intransigent enmity between the U.S. and Cuban governments. How, on
the eve of an imminent war with Syria, she would have eagerly
accompanied him in his vigil for peace. How moved she would be to
learn of his deep friendship with a Jewish rabbi, his love for opera
and Dostoevsky, and his exhortation to spread the “joy of the Gospel.”

Some have suggested that the new atmosphere under Pope Francis has put
wind in the sails of Dorothy’s canonization. But I would put it
another way. I think the cause of Dorothy’s canonization helps put
wind in the sails of the pope’s agenda. Support for her cause, in this
context, means more than keeping her memory alive. It contributes to
the ongoing program of renewal of the church—not for its own sake but
for the sake of a wounded world.

What of the concerns that canonization will cause her witness to be
watered down and homogenized? I think her full story—so inseparable
from her “message”—is clear and widely available. To be sure, there
has at times been a tendency on the part of some to put all too much
emphasis on her abortion, to make that experience a central feature in
the narrative of her journey from “sinner to saint.” In fact, as we
know, the driving force of Dorothy’s conversion was not shame over her
sins but gratitude for God’s grace. The turning point in her story was
not her abortion but the experience of becoming pregnant and giving
birth. In the end, I believe that canonization is the best insurance
that her story and the distinctive features of her holiness will be
remembered—not just in our time but far from now in the future. Just
as the beatification of Franz Jägerstätter lifts up the memory of his
“solitary witness,” so I believe the canonization process for Dorothy
Day will spread the story of her going to jail to protest civil
defense drills and the blasphemy of all preparations for nuclear war.
It will move her witness from the margins to the center of the
church’s memory.

The Making of a Legend

Of course, we regularly witness the domestication of radical prophets.
Francis of Assisi becomes the patron saint of bird baths. Martin
Luther King Jr. is universally remembered for his “dream” of a
post-racial America—but not for his critique of militarism and
capitalism. Dorothy Day is hardly exempt from this danger. Even while
she lived, Dorothy had to confront pious legend-making. She upbraided
Catherine de Hueck Doherty for promoting the myth that she shared her
bed with a syphilitic homeless woman. (Dorothy retorted, “I can’t even
sleep with my daughter, she wiggles too much!”) She was exasperated
with people who asked if she bore the stigmata or enjoyed visions.
(“Just visions of dirty dishes and unpaid bills!”) With or without
canonization, some people will always prefer the myth. The answer, I
think, is not to reject her canonization, but to assume the task of
proclaiming her story with all its radical edges, making sure that
nothing of her humanity is discarded.

But didn’t Dorothy say, “Don’t call me a saint; I don’t want to be
dismissed so easily”? I am astonished that so many people—even those
who would be hard-pressed to come up with another quote—can recite
those words (though their exact source is unclear). A real saint could
hardly have said otherwise. But in Dorothy’s case, this was more than
humility. She worried that people would put her up on a pedestal, that
they would believe her to be without faults, imagining that if she
performed seemingly difficult things, it was because they were not
really difficult for her—she, after all, being a saint. She felt this
was a way for people to dismiss her witness and let themselves off the
hook. She didn’t believe she was better than other people. She didn’t
believe people should set out to imitate her. They should look to
Christ as their model. All Christians were called to “put off the old
person and put on Christ,” to conform their lives to the pattern of
the Gospel, to respond to their own call to holiness—whatever form
that might take.

I once heard her say, “When they call you a saint, it means basically
that you are not to be taken seriously.” But when Dorothy used the
word saint, she certainly wasn’t indicating someone to be dismissed
easily; on the contrary, a saint was someone to be taken with the
utmost seriousness.

Still, there is a natural cynicism that arises in relation to this
process, with all its elaborate bureaucracy, protocol and, yes,
expense. Ken Woodward, in Making Saints, acknowledged this issue in
his chapter on Dorothy Day. Whereas the usual question with regard to
a potential saint is whether the candidate is worthy of the process,
in the case of Dorothy Day there is a suspicion that the process is
not worthy of her. Perhaps, some might say, it is better that she
remain a “people’s saint”—not an officially canonized figure.

Before initiating her cause, Cardinal O’Connor conducted a series of
conversations with people who knew her (sadly, many of them no longer
with us). I was privileged to be part of those discussions. I was
deeply moved by Cardinal O’Connor’s humility in discussing his
admiration for a woman he had never met. He took the discussion very
seriously, noting that if God meant for Dorothy to be called a saint,
he could not live with himself if he had stood in the way. But at the
same time he made it clear what it meant if we proceeded:
canonization, he noted, is a “process of the church.” If we weren’t
comfortable with that, he said, there was no point in going forward.
Those present, who included many of Dorothy’s close friends and
associates, listened to what he said; none of us raised an objection.

Since then it has become clearer that there are in fact significant
expenses involved in pursuing the lengthy process of
canonization—legal fees, the costs of official transcripts and such.
The Archdiocese of New York has made a sizeable contribution; other
funds will be raised by the Dorothy Day Guild, without any impact on
contributions intended for the Catholic Worker.

We may stand aloof from her canonization on the grounds that she is
“too good” for this process. But if we do, we should probably
recognize that this is not an attitude Dorothy would be inclined to
share. She certainly challenged and criticized the church for its
failings. It was, as she liked to quote Romano Guardini, “the cross on
which Christ was crucified.” But for her the church was the mystical
body of Christ, of which she was also a member. She had enough
knowledge of her own sins and failings to include herself among all
those called to penance and conversion.

The story of Dorothy is becoming known around the world. In the United
States she is undoubtedly more widely known and respected than at any
time since her death, or even in her lifetime. In recent years stories
about her have appeared in almost every Catholic magazine, and many
conferences have focused on her thought. Some may worry that Dorothy
is being appropriated by elements in the church that do not share all
her radical positions. It became clear to me long ago that Dorothy did
not “belong” just to the Catholic peace movement, any more than she
belongs solely to the Catholic Worker movement. I frankly welcome the
occasion she offers to unite disparate and sometimes polarized
elements in the church.

But ultimately the question of Dorothy’s canonization is not about
drawing greater attention to her, but whether, through her witness,
more attention will be drawn to Jesus and more people will be inspired
to comprehend and joyfully embrace his message of radical love. I
believe the answer is yes. That is why I support her canonization.

Robert Ellsberg is the editor in chief and publisher of Orbis Books.
From 1976 to 1978 he was the managing editor of The Catholic Worker,
where he served alongside Dorothy Day. This article is adapted from an
article in the May 2015 issue of The Catholic Worker.


ROBERT ELLSBERG,Publisher
Orbis Books
Box 302
Maryknoll, NY 10545
tel: 914-941-7636 x 2210