A conservative Roman Catholic Cardinal Dolan of New York is in the news today on public radio for furthering the canonization process for Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Society (see NYT link below to its story of the news about Dolan on November 27, 2012). One is reminded of widening turns of the gyre and how Dolan's endorsement can come to be given the penchant of Dorothy Day for a knowing love of her Church:
"I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardine said the Church is the cross on which Christ was crucified. One could not separate Christ from His cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church,"
Dorothy Day in The Long Loneliness at pgs 149-150. Day was during her lifetime “notorious” for her pacifism and social revolutionary positions and efforts. Her devotion to her Catholic faith led to a growing commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. The Social Gospel proponents, of which I believe I am one, see in her the very onus of faith in a loving God and the second half of the Great Commandment. Read her story in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, published in 1952 by Harper and Row. Day in a postscript to her story wrote:
"We cannot love God unless we love each other, to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship."
(Id. at p. 285). To her credit and the gift of a subscription to the Catholic Worker newspaper,, as a young man I found no inspiration in the materialist social revolutionaries who would, being falsely radical would supplant one tyranny for another such as had happened in the communist and atheist ascendancy in Russia of the Bolsheviks and its movement's decay into Stalinism. I was bent on pacifism and rejection of the Viet Nam War as a solution to imbalances in power and wealth. War like capitalism or communism were only symptoms of the great soul sickness of the human race without any reliance on God and the Law of Love.
Even today, communists in Red China who have embraced capitalism have proven that wrong turns by materialistic socialism are a sad and dangerous human legacy in a toxic elixir of statism, atheism, and materialism. Pundits of capitalism love to deride socialism as the enemy while failing to mention capitalism's decay inherent in its daliances with statism (fascists and nazi movements) and capitalism's love affair with the atheism of Ayn Rand and her enshrinement of selfishness as a virtue upon which to build wealth, as opposed to creating a just and loving community. Dorothy Day stands in stark contrast to the worship of Mammon by modern day capitalists and the wreckage and carnage left in the wake of unbridled capitalism, rampant poverty and disease with endless wars to perpetuate exploitation of the wealth of the planet for the aggrandizement of the rich and the powerful.
The real revolution is the one that happens inside the human heart when nihilism or materialism are overthrown in favor of governance by the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor. Humankind's search for meaning can be resolved in favor of a God of Love, a Spirit of Compassion, and Adoration of Author God of the Creation. So when I say Dorothy Day understood that dynamic for real change, the evidence of her life time commitment survives her and is a standing legacy to her God and to her convictions as well.
Her conversion to Catholicism occurred after an earlier time in her life when she was secular and materialistic, and even resorted to abortion. Her life parallels in more than one sense with her contemporary, Thomas Merton of Gethsemane Monastery of Kentucky. When she later was able to bear a child, it was after she had the spiritual resources and reliance on God’s restorative grace which is available to all.
On a personal note, today, I received by this news (at least news to me) the strongest possible incentive in my recent embrace of the Roman Catholic Church. If Dorothy Day could live a life of devotion to God and the imperative to love God and neighbor within the Church, well then I can too.
I have lived decades in the wilderness, in exile really, as a rebel, and only now discover my rebellion ultimately can not be against a Church that stands with the poor and the disenfranchised and as well stands with the advocate of social conscience, persons such as Dorothy Day.
My personal affront to God was that at times in my life I did turn away from dependence, trust, and reliance on God and surrender to his Divine Will for us. If God wills, I recommit myself to a life of service to my fellow man and to do this as a reclaimed son of the Church.
See the New York Times (NYT) article online at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/sainthood-for-dorothy-day-has-unexpected-champion-in-cardinal-timothy-dolan.html?pagewanted=all.
"I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardine said the Church is the cross on which Christ was crucified. One could not separate Christ from His cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church,"
Dorothy Day in The Long Loneliness at pgs 149-150. Day was during her lifetime “notorious” for her pacifism and social revolutionary positions and efforts. Her devotion to her Catholic faith led to a growing commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. The Social Gospel proponents, of which I believe I am one, see in her the very onus of faith in a loving God and the second half of the Great Commandment. Read her story in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, published in 1952 by Harper and Row. Day in a postscript to her story wrote:
"We cannot love God unless we love each other, to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship."
(Id. at p. 285). To her credit and the gift of a subscription to the Catholic Worker newspaper,, as a young man I found no inspiration in the materialist social revolutionaries who would, being falsely radical would supplant one tyranny for another such as had happened in the communist and atheist ascendancy in Russia of the Bolsheviks and its movement's decay into Stalinism. I was bent on pacifism and rejection of the Viet Nam War as a solution to imbalances in power and wealth. War like capitalism or communism were only symptoms of the great soul sickness of the human race without any reliance on God and the Law of Love.
Even today, communists in Red China who have embraced capitalism have proven that wrong turns by materialistic socialism are a sad and dangerous human legacy in a toxic elixir of statism, atheism, and materialism. Pundits of capitalism love to deride socialism as the enemy while failing to mention capitalism's decay inherent in its daliances with statism (fascists and nazi movements) and capitalism's love affair with the atheism of Ayn Rand and her enshrinement of selfishness as a virtue upon which to build wealth, as opposed to creating a just and loving community. Dorothy Day stands in stark contrast to the worship of Mammon by modern day capitalists and the wreckage and carnage left in the wake of unbridled capitalism, rampant poverty and disease with endless wars to perpetuate exploitation of the wealth of the planet for the aggrandizement of the rich and the powerful.
The real revolution is the one that happens inside the human heart when nihilism or materialism are overthrown in favor of governance by the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor. Humankind's search for meaning can be resolved in favor of a God of Love, a Spirit of Compassion, and Adoration of Author God of the Creation. So when I say Dorothy Day understood that dynamic for real change, the evidence of her life time commitment survives her and is a standing legacy to her God and to her convictions as well.
Her conversion to Catholicism occurred after an earlier time in her life when she was secular and materialistic, and even resorted to abortion. Her life parallels in more than one sense with her contemporary, Thomas Merton of Gethsemane Monastery of Kentucky. When she later was able to bear a child, it was after she had the spiritual resources and reliance on God’s restorative grace which is available to all.
On a personal note, today, I received by this news (at least news to me) the strongest possible incentive in my recent embrace of the Roman Catholic Church. If Dorothy Day could live a life of devotion to God and the imperative to love God and neighbor within the Church, well then I can too.
I have lived decades in the wilderness, in exile really, as a rebel, and only now discover my rebellion ultimately can not be against a Church that stands with the poor and the disenfranchised and as well stands with the advocate of social conscience, persons such as Dorothy Day.
My personal affront to God was that at times in my life I did turn away from dependence, trust, and reliance on God and surrender to his Divine Will for us. If God wills, I recommit myself to a life of service to my fellow man and to do this as a reclaimed son of the Church.
See the New York Times (NYT) article online at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/sainthood-for-dorothy-day-has-unexpected-champion-in-cardinal-timothy-dolan.html?pagewanted=all.
A Prayer for the Canonization of Servant of God Dorothy Day is available online and directly from this publisher:
Claretian Publications
205 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60606
312-236-7782 ext. 474
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