Yes, Peter and Dorothy's House of Hospitality is Really Going to Begin!!

By Monica      PDHOH    Columbus, Ohio

    God put into my hands two things within three days to point me in the directions of actually BEGINNING a community that lived as Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin lived: Peter and Dorothy's House of Hospitality!  Starting very small and aimed toward "street people," or those dwelling mostly outside, I finally am taking steps to start this mission, yayy!!
    The two thing that happened were these:   our St. Patrick's Benedictine Oblate organizer, Vicki Albright, said that the Vatican is wanting to step up the cause for sainthood of Dorothy Day, a Third Order Benedictine too!  We had all been praying and she asked us to continue since it was so close!  Msgr. Mottet always said that Peter Maurin should be canonized right alongside Dorothy because it was his idea, his push to be implemented, etc.  He only lived for the first 15 years, but Dorothy did it for almost 50 yrs!
    The second thing God used to point my attention to Dorothy was that my newly widowed 80+ year old neighbor, not a Catholic, gave me a book that her late husband had had and that she had never seen before going through his things.  It was the book, The Reckless Way of Love, Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day (2017)  Ha, ha!  They are not even CATHOLICS!  I am not sure many Catholics would have such a radical book, let alone an elderly Episcopal neighbor!
     I hope to eventually add the Peter Maurin House of Hospitality, Casa de Hospitalidad de Guadalupe, and Casa de Hospitalidad Oscar Romero.
    I encourage anyone who does not know much about this Mother Teresa of New York for nearly 50 years, as I have often called Dorothy Day, please read this newest pocket-sized book, The Reckless Way of Love, Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day (2017).  It is a compilation and summary of her very best inspirations!  Her life and shining witness were her greatest inspiration though, in the spirit of St. Francis of Assissi (another pacifist): "Preach at all times, only sometimes use words."
    PRAY FOR THE CANONIZATION OF DOROTHY DAY AND PETER MAURIN, please. :)

Touching the Foot of Christ on the Cross

                                                      By Monica  LCW, Columbus, Oh.
     Please pass this partial repost of last year's Lenten newsletter along to people.  There is no regular way to get to it on Bing; so perhaps this will help.  Pray.

     I had an out-of-body experience at the Mayo Clinic in early June of 2015 that has taken me this long (almost 8 mos.) to try to capture in words, to attempt to clarify, or even to understand. This intense and alarming experience cannot be subjected to words or boxed into words, which has been part of the delay, as well as illiciting a horror in me of its memory, equaled to a memory of simultaneous intense, agape-love ecstacy, in an almost mystical sense.  I am glad to have delved deeply into St. John of the Cross before (The Ascent to Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul) 3 yrs ago on a 3-week silent retreat, to begin to grasp and digest this incident. 

      Having been nudged for quite a while by the Holy Spirit to try to write about it, the final push was at mass at St. Patrick’s today where we perch on the edge of another beautiful Lenten season.  The Dominican priest, on celebrating the feast of Blessed Catherine Ricci, reminded us of the power of meditating at length on the passion of Christ, particularly of Him on the Cross (one Gospel has this being for six hours, not three) in excruciating, writhing agony, suffering for all of our sins and sinful living, that of the whole world, to set us free.

     Basically, I believe that God allowed me to touch the foot of Christ on the Cross, and for 8-10 seconds, maybe 15, as long as I could stand without letting go, I was allowed to share in SOME of the intense swirling conglomerate of pain and love that enveloped Him during His hours of “defeat” and triumph on the Cross.

     I had once seen a detective show where there was a gory graphic scene of a 20 year old woman who had been nailed to crude cross beams with large nails in her hands and feet, and was found the next day.  It was shocking.  I realized then how I had become somewhat numbed or used to seeing Christ on the Cross and had lost the true sense and appreciation of the intensity and torture of Christ’s torment on the Cross.

     For those who have not read past articles, I had donated 59% of my liver to a relative in end-stages liver disease in a surgery on June 9.  There were complications, then a fully ruptured bowel (technically the secum leading to the colon) and a second emergency surgery performed 4 ½ days later, having to be left somewhat open for several weeks.  The convalescence has been long, with almost six months off of work with many complications, and is still taking place (hence another reason for the delay in this newsletter and writings).

     I will admit that I went to the Mayo as a coward.  I was terrified and did believe that God was possibly asking my life for the sake of The Lamb Catholic Worker to begin here and for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s canonization, besides saving a relative's life.  While I said “yes,” I was more and more scared the closer the date came.  It was not until the very day before surgery that this lessened some, when the Gospel was the same as what I had planned for my funeral, the beatitudes.  This felt as a a gentle nod to me that all was in His hands totally and I could be at peace.  This is not the life anyways, the real life is to come!

     In my weeks leading up to leaving for the Mayo, the fear had become so intense (certainly tangled in  and magnified by menopausal hormones) that I went to The Book Loft in German Village to find any kind of relief in the religious section.  I had gone to MANY Eucharistic Adorations, and they helped to appease it while I was there, but as soon as my foot was outside, it all came flooding back.  More than anything, I was ashamed at how scared I was and wanted to pretend to be brave, or to REALLY BE brave.

     Only two things caught my eye in the few minutes I stayed at the bookstore.  One was simply a book cover that said, “Living Courageously:  You Can Do Anything, Just Do It Afraid.”  That was it!  It IS courageous to do something anyways, even as a scaredy-cat, so I convinced myself. I just wanted to take a big straw and suck His strength and His braveness into me.

       The second thing I found was truly amazing and perfect.  It was a short story of an orphanage during the Korean War.  It had been hit directly by bombing and corrugated metal and parts were everywhere.  Underneath everything was a 4 year old girl with a severed leg, bleeding to death.  The doctors asked all the orphan children that were her blood type if one would come forward and give them their blood or she would die.  A little 6 year old boy finally stepped forward.  They began taking his blood and he started to cry.  He was asked if it hurt and he said no.  They continued and he cried so hard he was wailing.  They stopped and said he did not have to if he was afraid or if it hurt, and he said, “I am NOT afraid, keep going.”  They did and he screamed and screamed. 

     When finished they asked him why he was crying so hard if he was not afraid and it did not hurt much.  He said that he thought he had to give her all his blood, and that he would die instead.  They asked him, “WHY would you do that?!  Why would you be willing to give her all of your blood?”  He said, “She is my friend.”

      I felt God’s grace pour over me that it is okay if I am not this perfect martyr, but a big baby.  As I walked out of the bookstore, a beautiful sight unfolded before my eyes.  The trees, I think Magnolias, were shedding their white, pink-lined blossoms like snow, with no breeze to cause this.  I sat down on the benches to soak it up, the petal-covered ground and pedestal bird feeder looking as a beautiful wedding.  As petals fell on my clothing I thought of the Scripture, from Revelations, that goes something like, “the wedding feast of the Lamb has begun; the bride has made herself ready, adorned with the finest of linen glistening and pure..”
      At the Mayo, I lay in bed one day in particularly excruciating pain.  My memory was after the first surgery but before they had found and acknowledged the perforated secum (ruptured bowel). The pain meds were not cutting it much at all.  I couldn’t pray or use words well in my head.

       Every split second was beyond any pain level I had ever experienced, including five childbirths with no painkillers or epidurals.  I couldn’t even hold up one hand by itself toward God, so I took my hand I was trying to hold up and barely held it up at the wrist, with my other hand. 

       We had been listening daily to a song Abby Evans, my niece and caregiver, kept playing for me called “I Surrender,” by Hillsong (the 12-minute concert version on Youtube is the best).  It goes:

I surrender,

I surrender,

I want to know you, Lord

I want to know you, Lord.

Like a rushing wind,

Jesus breath within,

Lord have your way,

Lord have your way,

Innnn Me.

Like a mighty storm

Stir within my soul,

LORD, HAVE YOUR WAAYYY,

LORD, HAVE YOUR WAY,

INNNN, MEEEEEE.”

It gets pretty intense!

       I was trying to sing this song with intensity in my head, and then praying: “Have your way in me, have your way in me, have your way in me, have your way in me,...  You could stop this if you really want to; you must be willing this.  Have your way in me, have your way in me, I say yes, have your way in me. I offer this for the canonization of Dorothy Day!  For the canonization of Peter Maurin!  Then almost screaming in my head too – “I do this for ______’s SALVATION!” (one of my five children who is an atheist).
      That’s when it happened. Eyes closed, with my hand barely pointing upward from my abdomen, I was suddenly touching something warm, round, and slimy, with a sharp-edged metal piece coming out of the top.  I opened my eyes in my mind and it was the foot of Christ on the Cross.  I couldn’t see the other foot, I was in such close proximity.  I looked up and could not even see His knee, the bright blinding light from above was so intense, completely swallowing the entire room.  I was almost instantaneously drawn into an inferno of pain, like fire all over my whole body, wracking, and boiling my skin. Later when I was remembering, I recalled that the most intensity was in my palms and feet.

      Simultaneously, there was a burning in my heart for Christ as I have never experienced, equally as intense as the pain. I felt this ferocious love for me as well, my direction. I could only hold on for probably 8-10 seconds or so, maybe 15, before letting go.  THIS had been 100 times worse than my pain.  When I “came back,” although still in a GREAT deal of pain, I took a nap!  It was NOTHING, nothing in comparison, not even in the same galaxy, as this pain Christ led me through.  Nothing in my life from this point on will ever compare, even if I were to be crucified somehow.  Christ had had the “sins” of the world rip through His wounds and His torture - not just metaphorically, but physically. 

      My love for Him was forever changed, transformed to heights I did not think possible.  It was a gift, a gift. Just brace yourself if you say or sing that you want to really know Him, as in the song, and to have His way in you. It is almost too much for us to bear, his level of love for us. Those who wanted to walk closely right up with Christ, his beloved Apostles, to know Him, love Him dearly as a friend, learn from Him, and follow Him closely, were all martyred.  The exceptions were Judas Iscariot and John (although his "martyrdom' may have been the worst if he touched Christ's foot as support, but even if not, witnessing what he did!).  These grueling deaths though were after living incredible lives of great joy in the Spirit, building His Kingdom on Earth. Better yet, now they are at His side forever, seeing His beautiful beautiful face, laugh, Spirit.

      

           My Sweet Savior, Jesus Christ, through constant prayer and the intercession of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and through the loving care of my family, Lisa, Abbie, and Dory are mainly what got me through this ordeal.  I think of St. Paul, and after having had a particularly torturous scourging, was singing praises to God even after midnight in the jail, chained heavily (against his wounds in dirt and skin agitation), when the walls shook and the chains fell off everyone.  He stopped the guard from killing himself, and was “cleaned up” at the guard’s house before baptizing him, showing he was quite a mess.  Wow, singing praises in this situation, not knowing his fate too.
       I was not always singing God's praises at the Mayo, but hope to if I am ever in another situation of intense physical suffering for Christ. My heart goes out to our modern martyrs in dangerous places. As my niece Bernadette Rogers, young Catholic mother of eight has tattooed on her, "Make my suffering perfect."




    Take Up Thy Cross

Take up thy cross, the Savior said,
If thou wouldst my disciple be;
Deny thyself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
Fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
His strength will bear thy spirit up,
And brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.

To Thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
All praise for evermore ascend;
O grant us in our home to see
the heav'nly life that knows no end. Amen

From the Liturgy of the Hours for Benedictine Oblates, St. Meinrad Archabbey, P. 184

 

           

Pray for the canonization of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, please!

Archbishop Oscar Romero, Official Church Martyr, Presente!

          By Monica Siemer, Mayo Clinic Gift of Life Transplant House, Rochester, MN
         In the spirit of Archbishop Oscar Romero, especially in light of Pope Francis' recent declaration of his actual martyrdom and the status of an official Church martyr,  I reprint a section of the LCW newsletter covering our family experience, of mostly my father, peace activist Tom Siemer, and myself at the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University (with Rev. Richard McSorley, S.J.) of either Romero or El Salvador in an era of grave genocide against the Salvadorean people.  This is our testimony.  New information and pictures are added.  Gracias Pope Francis!

          My father actually had a conversation with Archbishop Oscar Romero less than a year before he was assassinated. We were at a synod, Celam III, of all latin American bishops and cardinals of the world in Pueblo, Mexico, outside of Mexico City. I believe it was January, 1979, when I was 16 yrs old (and I was there but standing away from him). We were appealing to Pope John Paul II and the hierarchy of the Church for Catholics to be told to have no part in weapons of mass destruction (nuclear weapons and their making, handling, potential use, etc), purposely designed to solely be used against entire populations of innocent civilians, or entire cities.  Archbishop Romero thought my father was from the press (with his "Press" badge) and begged and begged him to go back and tell the president (Carter at the time, who gave $5 million per year in "military aid") to stop funding the government with military money, which was being used against the people. 

       He explained that the money went into armaments and training of the soldiers in the military and in the juntas of the oligarchy who were terrorizing the campesinos, killing and mutilating many of them. 

        My father called over both Roy Larson, of the Chicago Sun and Ken Briggs of the New York Times to talk with Archbishop Romero.  Ken told my father later that Romero would not live long by talking like that, and my father replied, "They would never kill an archbishop!"  Our government not only did not listen, but when President Ronald Reagan became president, shortly after, he quintupled the military funding to El Salvador, giving a huge green light to those committing atrocities.  Archbishop Oscar Romero was martyred within a year. The U.N. reports that over 75,000 people, many poor women and children, were killed over the course of the next decade or so in El Salvador.   

In front of the Celam III Synod, Pueblo, Mexico, 
outside Mexico City, 1979, with a group of 
protesting mothers of the "Disappeared" in El 
Salvador.  I am at the right and my mother, 
Dorothy Siemer, at the far right in red pants.

Salvadorean mothers of the "disappeared," those
whose bodies were never found.  I am on far
right, with literature for the Pope, cardinals,
 bishops, and press against weapons of mass
 destruction (nuclear)

Mothers of the "disappeared" (sons, husbands, 
brothers, etc) desperate for help from the Church

My father, Tom Siemer, and I in Mexico City 
outside Pueblo, Mexico, 1979

         A year or so later, I worked at the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University with Fr. Richard McSorley, S.J.  At that time another Georgetown professor, Dr. Jean Kirkepatrick, who was a campaign advisor to President Reagan then cabinet member, blamed the murders (Dec. 2, 1980) of the three religious sisters and an American lay worker on themselves for even being there with the poor: Jean Donovan, Sr. Maura Clarke, Sr. Ita Ford, and Sr. Dorothy Kazel.  Kirkpatrick believed that, according to Noam Chomsky, "traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies," and so her views were put into use "most clearly in Central America, by supporting the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and the military juntas in Guatemala and El Salvador, all of which perpetrated massive human rights violations while countering a perceived communist threat." (Chomsky, Turning the Tide, 1985).  She was not too thrilled when the United Nations Security Council came down on the United States and she talked of withdrawing much of the monetary support to the U.N., as well as for the United States to withdraw completely. This would have been quite an example of genuine virtue, Christian values, and peace to the world.

Sr. Dorothy Kazel, Presente!

Sr. Maura Clark, Presente!

Sr. Ita Ford, Presente!

Lay Worker Jean Donovan, Presente!

       I witnessed firsthand large graphic close-up glossy photos being sent to the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University (that I helped Fr. Richard McSorley, S.J. run in the 80's) from El Salvador.  Neutral brave witnesses and groups were trying hard to provide evidence of  the atrocities and sent these pictures to several places as documentation, including to ours.  Prior to the Reagan Administration, the bodies of the dead at the hands of the military and juntas had one form of killing done to them (besides the women always having been raped).  As Fr. McSorley always said, "When you choose the lesser of two evils, you soon forget you chose evil in the first place."  There is always a third choice.

       When Ronald Reagan became president, and particularly after the stepped-up "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," or terrorist/guerilla warfare training ("terrorist" in the true sense of the word) at Ft. Benning, Georgia of "Latin American personnel" from El Salvador at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (formerly called, the SOA), now called Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), things drastically changed.  To describe,  murdered victims appeared with three or four types of torture performed, acid in the eyes being one of the favorites. This spilled over to Honduras. Guatemala, and Nicaragua as well, sadly. 

        Many Americans turned a blind eye to all of this because of the fear whipped up by those who would even sell their soul to the devil against the "Communist scare."  One cannot say that President Reagan and others did not know because we at the Center for Peace Studies and the St. Francis Catholic Worker protested numerous times at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, which made it in the Wasthington Post. My favorite sign I made and carried at the time of the martyrdom of the sisters read, "U.S. Guns Kill U.S. Nuns." It fell on deaf ears for nearly a decade though, even with the hierarchy of the Church, sadly.  Many brave priests, sisters, and religious stepped up for peace though, in the spirit of Dorothy Day, Archbishop Oscar Romero, St. Francis of Assisi, and of Christ, the Prince of Peace.  Thankfully Pope Francis is balancing the scales of God's justice in deeming a martyr, Archbishop Oscar Romero, living out the call of a martyr in a very dark era in El Salvador's history and in that of the United States.  Gracias Pope Francis!

       Most of the refugees at our Catholic Worker in D.C. witnessed much of this firsthand, and yes, it was the country's military doing much of it. Huge Carlos witnessed a savage group murder from a corn field, and when he tried to run, they caught a visual of him and hunted him down.  He and his wife Maria (pregnant) got their six other children to another part of the country and ran to the U.S. where they were the first Salvadoreans to be granted political asylum.  Their baby Leonardo was baptized with my first son, Shamus, at our Catholic Worker, St. Francis Catholic Worker, in Washington, D.C. (now the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker), in a Catholic worker soup pot.  It had been the former mother house of the Trinitarian order, and they had a fully functioning chapel in the basement.

The Six Jesuit Professor Martyrs of 1989, University of El Salvador, Their Housekeeper and her Daughter,  Presente! :

• Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.
• Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J.
• Segundo Montes, S.J.
• Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J.
• Joaquín López y López, S.J.
• Amando López, S.J.
• Elba Ramos (the cook and housekeeper)
• Celina Ramos (16 years old, daughter of Elba Ramos)

     Fr. Richard McSorley, S.J. said that over 200 Jesuits in the highest of Ivy League-type schools put in their resumes to take the place of these martyred university professors in El Salvador. 

My father, Tom Siemer, and Dom Helder Camara

         Pope Francis has preached so passionately about not being part of two great evils in the world today:  "the culture of indifference and the culture of distraction."  May we set aside our computers and cell phones for much more time spent in prayer and meditation.  They say, "Satan doesn't make you bad, he makes you busy." May all of us intervene on behalf of  wartorn areas and peoples of the world, in our prayers and in moral responses, pleasing to the Lord.   
       A final note is from the bulletin here at St. John the Evangelist Church across the street from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where I am currently.  I am still here trying to recuperate from the live liver surgery (I gave 59% of my liver to my nephew, Nick Evans in end stages liver disease) and emergency second one 4 days later for a ruptured cecum (leads into the colon) and weeks of infections.  I am at the Mayo's Gift of Life Transplant House.  Please see the Lamb Catholic Worker article, "Purify the Catholic Worker, Jesus, to be the Diamond of It's Founders," to see the main reason why I did this transplant besides trying to help save Nick.  The day before surgery Abby Evans and I went to a daily mass at St. John's and the following was written by their pastor, Fr. Jerry Mahon, about Archbishop Oscar Romero (in their June 7, bulletin we had found):
      "The recent Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero is a call for me to live with courage and speak the truth as I discover the presence of Christ. This martyr was speaking the truth and confronting the violence of the government towards the poor, but not with a sword, but a heart of conviction with the One he loved and proclaimed Jesus Christ. The certainty of his walk, path was founded in a profound belief that Christ was present in the reality of the poor and even though he had been warned to stop speaking, he lived as so many Christians do today, with a clear desire to be faithful, and was assassinated while celebrating the Eucharist. As we have heard over the centuries, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of faith for the world and this witness of his life is a sign of being alive with certainty in Christ. There was no room for being a cynic even though there was good reason, but a fullness of life in the Spirit is full of freedom for Another."
       If you wish to follow Nick and I's progress you can go to caringbridge.org under the "search site," "monica siemer."  We try to update it from time to time.  Here is a gift to all of you who have been praying so hard for Nick and I.  Please keep the prayers coming as we are still dealing with challenges and surprises.  Here is a long praise and worship song to edify your soul:      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcnfT4arZtI
      If the link does not work, please go to YouTube and put in "I Surrender by Hillsong 2012 concert version" that is about 10 minutes long, with 43 million hits.  It has saved me here through the worst of this ordeal, as we listened and prayed it almost daily while in the hospital.  Enjoy!

      Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us and for people of all kinds!  Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and Archbishop Oscar Romero, please pray for us!   

St. Gabriel Radio's Dorothy Day Talk Excellent

THE LAMB CATHOLIC WORKER, Columbus - Thanks to St. Gabriel Radio for broadcasting the superb talk yesterday (July 16) that Fr. Connor gave on Dorothy Day in his series on famous Catholic converts.  Beautiful!  I particularly liked the comment that a bishop, or even archbishop, had used caution not to denounce her because she could very well be a saint [in service to our Lord Himself]. We shall see - most likely some time soon!  How humble of him though, to set aside his own personal history and opinions so as not to stand in the way of God.  Our dear Lord will reward him.  All of her work for the destitute, spanning nearly fifty years, will be a credit to him as well.  Somewhere in sacred Scripture it says that giving alms to the poor covers or wipes away a multitude of sin.  One can imagine how much sin or debt would be eliminated by living with and serving the poor twenty-four hours a day for decades; or being a support for others who are willing to do the same.
       If Dorothy Day, in her great holiness, appeared controversial, she was in very good company.  Jesus was not popular among those religious who could not fathom His depths of love and mercy, as well as His high, beyond this world, follower expectations of the same love and mercy towards every other person, especially the most destitute.   - Monica

Love of Dorothy Day, Friend of the Forgotten

 THE LAMB CATHOLIC WORKER, Columbus --
"This blindness of love; this folly of love - 
This seeing Christ in others,
everywhere
And not seeing the ugly,
The obvious,
The dirty, the sinful - 
This means we do not see the faults
Of others,
Only our own.
We see only Christ in them.
We have eyes only for our Beloved,
Ears for His voice.

                               - Dorothy Day,
                                Duty of Delight, p. 80