Dorothy Day challenges us to ‘do the work’ of Jesus, her granddaughter says

PATRICIA L. GUILFOYLE plguilfoyle@charlottediocese.org

CHARLOTTE — Fierce. Heroic. Provocative. Pious. Granny. These are just some of the words Kate Hennessy uses to describe her late grandmother, Dorothy Day – Catholic activist, journalist and Catholic Worker Movement cofounder.

Hennessy delivered St. Peter Parish’s 23rd annual Kennedy Lecture Jan. 28, speaking via Zoom from her home in Ireland to an audience of over 120 people. She shared personal memories of growing up with Day, working alongside her and other family members at the Catholic Worker farm in upstate New York and the Catholic Worker house in New York City. Day died in 1980, when Hennessy was 20, yet her grandmother’s Catholic witness remains alive.

“When you encountered Dorothy Day, you spent the rest of your life wondering what just hit you,” Hennessy said.

Anti-human trafficking event set for Feb. 8

lived a bohemian lifestyle and became a radical activist – campaigning for women’s suffrage and against World War I, befriending anarchists and communists, going on hunger strikes and being thrown into jail.

Then in her 20s, Day had a “physically brutal” abortion in a futile attempt to save a relationship, and she feared she was sterile.

So Day saw this new pregnancy as a miracle and didn’t want to squander it, Hennessy said. “She wanted to live a life that was full of meaning, that was sacramental.” stage,” Sister Mary Raphael said. “Receiving the decree from the bishop, it felt like our father was saying, ‘I give you my blessing’ and the Church looks upon this now. She recognizes his daughters.”

While pregnant, Day began exploring Catholicism and attending Mass. Tamar was born in 1926, and the next year she had Tamar baptized. Day followed suit in 1928.

Day’s newfound Catholic faith and the teachings of Jesus became the anchor of her life’s work.

That work included opening soup kitchens and farms in New York to feed the growing number of poor during the Depression, protesting wars, lambasting Nazism and antisemitism, marching for civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., picketing for farm workers’ rights with Cesar Chavez, and opposing nuclear weapons. She also kept up a furious pace of writing.

“Prayer, the sacraments and the works of mercy fueled her,” Hennessy said.

CHARLOTTE — Modern-day slavery is a chronic problem in North Carolina, and this month Catholics are being urged to learn more about how to help fight it.

Human trafficking is the second-largest criminal enterprise in the world. According to the United Nations, nearly 40.3 million people are victims of modern slavery, of whom 24.9 million are trapped in forced labor and sexual slavery and 15.4 million subjected to forced marriage. In the U.S., about 20,000 women and children are coerced into exploitative labor or sex work each year.

North Carolina public safety data consistently ranks the state among the top 10 states for human trafficking. More than 250 cases of human trafficking in the state were reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2022 – but many more cases go unreported, state officials say.

The Daughters of the Virgin Mother have eight women in various stages of formation: one postulant, two novices and four who have taken temporary vows. Only Sister Mary Raphael has made final vows, giving her life in service to the Church as a Daughter of the Virgin Mother.

“The distinctive mission of the Daughters of the Virgin Mother…is to actively serve Christ the High Priest through His ordained priests, and those aspiring to it, by assisting in their spiritual and practical needs with an evangelical availability animated by a life of contemplative prayer in the image of Our Lady,” Sister Mary Raphael said.

Father Matthew Kauth, rector of St. Joseph College Seminary, serves as the Daughters’ spiritual advisor. He applauds the “joyful, balanced atmosphere that is created by the presence of the sisters” amid the flourishing seminarian program.

With its membership increasing, the Daughters of the Virgin Mother has outgrown its Loreto Convent in Gastonia, prompting the purchase of a second property in Belmont, called the Bethany Convent. Renovations are under way so that all of the members can live in community under one roof.

The Daughters’ growth, the bishop’s decree and the future convent have inspired the sisters to pray even more fervently for the diocese and for an increase in priestly and religious vocations, Sister Mary Raphael said.

As for the next step – petitioning Rome to become a religious community – that is up to the Holy Spirit, she said, and not on any specific timeline. “I will be docile to the Holy Spirit. I will be patient, always working in collaboration with our bishop, listening to his advice.”

Learn more

At www.daughtersofthevirginmother.com

Find out more about the Daughters of the Virgin Mother and their work

Bishop Jugis also will recognize consecrated men and women who are celebrating milestone, or “jubilee,” anniversaries in 2023. Jubilarians this year include Trappist Sister Genevieve Durcan (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance) and Franciscan Sister Jane Russell (Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis), who are both celebrating 60 years of professed religious life.

— SueAnn Howell

Prayer for religious brothers and sisters in the diocese

For those consecrated to God by the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, that they may seek to live their baptismal promises more intensely and have the grace to persevere in their commitment to the Lord and serve with open hearts and willing spirits. Amen.

The Nine Provocations of Dorothy Day

1. Make yourself deeply uncomfortable.

2. Follow your conscience. Listen to that still, small voice within.

3. Find your vocation. You will know your vocation by the joy it brings you.

4. Face your fears.

5. Make friends with failure. We all fail, but we have to persevere. Perseverance is one of the greatest virtues.

6. Open yourself up to beauty. Let it transform you.

7. Don’t do it alone. Create a community through love.

8. Take delight in the humorous. Laugh at yourself.

9. Pray – abundantly, extravagantly, and in any way you can.

“She was so powerful,” Hennessy recalled, but not in a political sense. “Her power really was the power of presence, it’s the power of authenticity. What you saw was who she was.”

Day And Sainthood

After the U.S. bishops’ enthusiastic endorsement in 2012, the Vatican is considering Day for sainthood. Pope Benedict XVI has cited her as “a model of conversion,” and Pope Francis has praised her “passion for justice.”

Day herself disdained being called a saint, famously remarking, “Do not call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

Hennessy said Day adored the saints, especially St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Avila. But being labeled a saint puts someone on a pedestal –out of reach and avoidable.

“Don’t put me up there and walk away,” Hennessy said Day would insist. “For us to honor her, we cannot dismiss her. We really have to be brave. We have to look inwards: who are we and what is our work?”

DAY, BEAUTY AND LOVE

Day introduced Hennessy to one of her favorite writers, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky’s words “the world will be saved by beauty” was one of Day’s favorite quotes, and Hennessy made it the title of her 2017 biography of Day. Day loved literature, art and music, especially opera, Hennessy said, with a childlike joy. Even in her work amid dire poverty and injustice, “Granny had a very heightened sense of finding beauty wherever she could.”

“Beauty is the language of God, it is the language of Love, it is what opens our hearts,” Hennessy said. “When we open our hearts to it – when we allow it in fully, without protecting ourselves – we will be transformed.”

Day was called – and calls us – “to see people as they really are, as God sees them.”

“We are saved by beauty every day, but we’re just not paying attention,” Hennessy said.

“This way of perceiving the world fully engaged –not judgmental, not rejecting – this was something my grandmother was able to do, even up to her death.”

Asked how people should view her lasting legacy, Hennessy said Day would reply, “Stop it. Look to yourselves. Do the work.”

PHOTO PROVIDED BY JUAN MALAGON CASTANON

Monk professes solemn vows

BELMONT — On Jan. 14, the monastic community of Belmont Abbey celebrated the profession of solemn vows (also known as final vows) by Brother Bede McKeon. The celebration occurred during the regular 11 a.m. daily Mass at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians. The Mass was open to the local community of Belmont and the community of Belmont Abbey College. Brother Bede was accompanied by his mother, father and brother, who participated in the Mass as lectors and gift bearers. Abbot Placid Solari concelebrated the Mass alongside 13 priests who joined the community to witness the monk’s profession of vows and entrance into the community. Brother Bede now joins the monks at Belmont Abbey as a full member of the Benedictine order and will take on the duties that come with the vocation to consecrated life. He is pictured above laying prostrate before the altar, part of the rite of profession.

Day stood nearly 6 feet tall, with piercing blue eyes and a no-nonsense attitude, Hennessy said.

“She was provocative, she could really challenge people,” Hennessy said, listing what she calls the “Nine Provocations of Dorothy Day.”

“If she’s not scaring the bejeezus out of you, then you’re not listening to her.”

DAY’S CONVERSION AND VOCATION

Day converted to Catholicism shortly after the birth of her daughter Tamar, Hennessy’s mother.

Day had grown up nominally Christian and became an Episcopalian as a teenager, but as a young adult

“Respond to the need at hand,” Hennessy said. “One of her favorite questions was: ‘What can we do in the here and now?’” – especially in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems.

Visit people in prisons, hospitals and migrant labor camps. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, Hennessy said. “Find what moves you.”

More online

At www.stpeterscatholic.org/kennedy-lecture Watch the recorded 2023 Kennedy Lecture, hosted by St. Peter Parish and sponsored by Thomas and Richard Kennedy in memory of their parents, Keith and Joan Kennedy

Learn more At www.ccdoc.org/education

Get more details about the Feb. 8 anti-human trafficking event in Lenoir At www.ccdoc.org/humantrafficking

Find more information, resources and how to get involved with anti-trafficking organizations

Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte is highlighting this issue at a free program on Wednesday, Feb. 8 – the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of trafficking victims. People are encouraged to come and pray and learn more about how to spot the signs of human trafficking in our community.

It will be held 6:15-7:15 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, located at 328-B Woodsway Lane N.W. in Lenoir. The event will include a bilingual prayer service to pray for victims of human trafficking, followed by an information session to raise awareness on the issue of human trafficking.

It is being sponsored by Catholic Charities’ Human Trafficking Awareness Committee and St. Francis of Assisi Parish.

The Human Trafficking Awareness Committee emphasizes that human trafficking is often right in front of us: in massage parlors, nail salons, construction sites and in the hospitality industry. It’s also found behind the scenes, on farms and in factories where our favorite goods and products come from. It is present online, where vulnerable women and children are targeted, groomed and exploited by the pornography industry. Working toward eliminating human trafficking is a top priority for the Catholic Church. Catholic social teaching proclaims the dignity of every human person and the sanctity of all human life.

Pope Francis has said, “Modern slavery, in terms of human trafficking, forced labor and prostitution, and organ trafficking, is a crime against humanity. Its victims are from all walks of life but are most frequently among the poorest and most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.”

— Catholic News Herald

Report trafficking hotline

Suspect an incident of human trafficking or need help for a potential victim? Contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

Who was St. Josephine Bakhita?

Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery in Sudan and Italy. Once Josephine was freed, she became a Canossian nun and dedicated her life to sharing her testament of deliverance from slavery and comforting the poor and suffering. She was declared a saint in 2000. Her feast day, Feb. 8, is now also celebrated as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking.