I always know that when I get an e-mail from my son-in-law Rick he's giving me something to think about. One I received recently was no exception. He began:
"My 2 cents for a column idea. It's the 75th anniversary of the Catholic Worker's presence on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and Dorothy Day is being considered for canonization."
Rick and my daughter Mary have long lived in Manhattan. Like many people there, they take great pride in the history, good people, tremendous art works, buildings, etc., that bring people from all over the world to the island. Manhattan is also the place that welcomed the poor, as proclaimed by the poem at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
But as development of an area booms, history tells us, often the poor are left behind. And here is where Dorothy Day comes in.
"Anything but saintly in her young years," Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of New York, once wrote, "she discovered the Lord and his church in 1918 through hours of prayer in St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village and Our Lady Help of Christians Church on Staten Island." She was "reborn," he said, and "went to Mass and Communion every day. ... She prayed the rosary with never-failing delight.
"And all the while, she handed herself over totally to the humble and courageous service of the poorest of the poor by fighting for their causes in her newspaper, The Catholic Worker."
Egan said Day provided the poor with "food, clothing and shelter in her Houses of Hospitality, which today number over 130 in urban centers across the nation."
Dorothy Day founded this service for destitute people in Manhattan 75 years ago with a French peasant named Peter Maurin. Maurin never stopped preaching that the Gospel had to be lived literally. Together they worked to help create a society where people would be better, not necessarily better-off. They put flesh on Catholic social teaching --- helping the poor, the unemployed, the hopeless, the sick, working constantly for peace and justice.
The work Day and Maurin did clearly falls under the definition of sainthood.
I often link Day with another incredible layperson, Frederick Ozanam of 19th-century Paris. So moved was he by the poverty and disorder in his city in the early stages of industrialization that he formed a Catholic organization of laypeople devoted to personal holiness and aiding the poor. Inspired by St. Vincent de Paul, he called his workers the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Many people like me believe that if you want to define sainthood just say Frederick Ozanam or Dorothy Day!
In July 2005, Egan wrote, "Will Dorothy Day ever be declared a saint by the church of her beloved Savior? I, of course, do not know. Still, in my own mind she is marvelously saintly, for whatever that might be worth. For those who share this conviction, there is something they might wish to do --- namely, join the Guild of Dorothy Day, which was founded on June 7, 2005.... And secondly, ask the Lord to help the process along by speaking to him of her in prayer."
For information on the guild, contact George Horton or Lourdes Serra at the Archdiocese of New York, 1011 First Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022; (212) 371-1000.
It is so heartwarming to know that the light of Day --- Dorothy Day --- still shines far and wide since it was turned on in Manhattan 75 years ago! Antoinette Bosco is an author and columnist. |