For the past few days I've been thinking a lot about Dorothy Day who, as many of you know, is one of my heroes. Feeling that this challenge to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith is at its source a promising moment of epiphany and breakthrough, I have been taken by the response of these religious women -- no rush, no politicizing, letting us know that they will take their time, they will come together in prayer and community to discern how the spirit is moving within and among them, in the sure knowledge that by doing this the way forward, in faith, will emerge. Asking for our prayerful attention and support for them and the church.
It has turned my attention to an interview with Dorothy Day when she was an older woman - it was near the time of her death in 1980. The interviewer was asking her how she felt, in retrospect, about her association with her bohemian and radical friends when she was a journalist in New York City's Greenwich Village. They were her compatriots before she converted to Catholicism. As I recall she spoke of her admiration for them and the depth of their commitments to social change. And then she said something that has remained with me all these years. I am paraphrasing here but the gist of it was: In those days we spent so much of our time strategizing and making plans about the best ways to have the most political impact. That is not the way I engage life now. When we need to make decisions at the Catholic Worker we pray and meditate, we go to Mass and receive the sacraments, and we ask "what would Jesus do" and always the answers we need and the way forward emerge.
Then this morning I go onto Facebook to find this wonderful article on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/nyregion/a-different-intersection-of-religion-and-politics.html?_r=1&ref=bigcity Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin started the Catholic Worker together on May 1, 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression by selling their Catholic Worker Newspaper in Union Square for a penny a copy and the article says the price has stayed the same to this day. So next week on May Day we celebrate the 79th anniversary of this incredible movement. Since 1980 when Dorothy Day died, the movement has had no leader. It does not have a headquarters or a board. Yet it continues to thrive and grow. There were 134 Catholic Worker communities in 1980. Today there are 210.
Think about that. No leader, no headquarters, no board of Directors and yet it thrives and grows. And believe me it is a difficult and harsh lifestyle that these communities adopt -- to live with and among the poor. To bring forward the Catholic social teachings of both solidarity and subsidiarity by living in a way that demonstrates what self-reliance really means -- that we need to rely not solely on ourselves, but we need to radically rely on each other and the spirit of life that sustains us all, in community. That is what Jesus modeled for us as "the way, the truth and the light". That is the point that Paul Ryan absolutely misses about his Catholic faith when he puts forth his budget and claims it emerges from Catholic social teaching.
The Vatican would do well to ponder both the integrity and success of this movement that has no Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith to insure orthodoxy and thereby insure its continuation. The Vatican would do well to really engage the miraculous faith and faithfulness of the women religious and members of the Catholic Worker Movement to the call of the Gospel and the spirit of our times. To see that the ends never justify means. Rather the means of prayerful communal life and decision-making with trust in the Holy Spirit insure the continuation of their meaningful work and bring about a more just and peaceful society.
I think that the growth of the Catholic Worker Movement without a living leader and without any organizational structure for the past 32 years should give all of us faith that the spirit of life - whatever we may choose to call it - has its own powerful organizational integrity. It does not require huge headquarter buildings or charismatic leaders or cumbersome organizational structures and rules. What it does require is faith in the goodness of life and the power of authentic community. Internet and social media technology certainly help to expand our sense of community.
Arab Spring. Occupy Wall Street. Catholic Worker Movement. Leadership Conference of Women Religious . . . these are good and interesting and hopeful times.
Abiding Peace
Donna
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