by Father Robert Lauder
Occasionally I offer my services to the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality on the Bowery in Manhattan by giving a lecture that I hope those who live in the House and those who attend the regular Friday evening lectures might find interesting.
Because the philosophy of personalism deeply influenced the founders of the Worker, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, I plan to offer to give a talk in the fall on the philosophy of personalism, which I teach at St. John’s University. Making these offers is not an unselfish action by me: I get much more than I give when I visit the Worker. I find visiting the Worker an inspiring experience.
For more than 80 years, people involved with the Catholic Worker have practiced the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They don’t just talk about helping the poor. They identify completely with the poor and bear witness with their lives to the love they have for the poor.
I first came in contact with the Catholic Worker when I was a seminarian going into my fourth year of college. Some of my classmates and I went over to the House on a Friday evening to hear a lecture. A priest from France spoke about his work with poor children in Paris. After his lecture, he opened the session to questions. A man who was perhaps emotionally disturbed asked a lengthy question, which made little, if any, sense.
Image of Christ
While the questioner was speaking, I looked over at Dorothy Day. She was listening with rapt attention and interest as though she was listening to Thomas Aquinas. That image of Dorothy being patient and treating the questioner as an image of Christ has stayed with me for 60 years. That image sums up the meaning of the Catholic Worker for me.
In April, I gave a lecture at the Worker and was able to pick up an 80th anniversary issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper, which has sold for only one penny for the last 80 years. The issue contained selections from some of the outstanding essays that have appeared in the paper through its history.
Just reading the names of some of the authors was a joy. Besides Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, the names included Father Philip P. Berrigan, S.S.J., Tom Cornell, James Forest, Jane Sammon, Arthur Sheehan and Bishop Thomas T. Gumbleton.
Other names included Bill Griffin, Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J., Gordon Zahn, Stanley Vishnewski, Pat Jordan, Eileen Egan, Father George Anderson, S.J., and Robert Ellsberg. It is a list of people who believed deeply in the Catholic Church’s social mission and acted on their belief.
Burden and Blessing
The following is a selection of the editorial in the 80th anniversary special issue:
“Our longevity is both a burden and a blessing. It is a rich resource, a compass when changing times present new demands, and a ballast against the capsizing efforts of the world. But it can also be a great responsibility, a weight to carry. We are indebted to those who have gone before us breathing life into this movement. But how do we go on, creating a world ‘where it is easier to be good,’ without becoming the shell of the old as we move into the next eighty years?
“In this fast-paced, technology-obsessed world, our commitment to the craft of putting together an eight-page newspaper to call ‘attention to the fact that the Church has a social program’ is so old it looks new. We carve out an uneasy path around mandatory postal regulations and bureaucratic city agencies. We try to push back against hyper-technology and the destruction of the planet. And we cry out against war-making. We use nonviolent practices that have survived the test of time – prayer, fasting and voluntary poverty. We continue to rely in the Grace of God, the wisdom of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, and the generosity of our readers.”
Entertaining Angels
The film “Entertaining Angels,” starring Moira Kelly and Martin Sheen, tells the story of Dorothy Day and the early days of the Catholic Worker. Some of my friends don’t care for the film, but I think it is quite good. It is one of the few American films that deals seriously with poverty.
Whenever I go to the Catholic Worker House, I bring friends with me because I believe that people should witness the dedication and commitment of those who have accepted the vision of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day and have tried to bear witness by their lives to the dignity and value of every person.
There are many signs of God’s love in the world. I find the Catholic Worker a very powerful sign.[hr]
Father Lauder begins his series on Pope Francis in the July 19 issue.[hr] Father Robert Lauder, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn and philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica, writes a weekly column for the Catholic Press.