'The Long Loneliness': Dorothy Day

Generational spirits
Msgr Rossetti

 

I think so. Yes. I have been wondering.

 

I'll dedicate a Rosary for them, Ann!

 

In the 3rd sorrow of Mary, the loss of Jesus for 3 days, Mary blamed herself for Jesus 'disappearing' for those 3 days..
I'd often thought that given what she had gone through, not long back from the 7 year flight into Egypt... coupled with the ongoing pain of the prophecy of Simeon, that she'd be well within her rights to spit her dummy out and say to God, "what are you up to now!" (as I'd have certainly done!). But oh no, she blamed herself...
There's a quare oul lesson in there for us all!!

 

Thank you so much Terry.

 

Maybe we can trade prayers? I usually perform baptisms at St. Anne, Mother of Mary Parish. A request has come in for a Baptism from an unmarried couple. The Grandmother of the babe is a parishioner, a faithful Catholic who desires the little one to be baptized. The couple live in the area, but...The following article accurately points out that a babe can be baptized only if there is a reasonable hope that it can be raised Catholic. I ask myself if the parents aren't even married would they have any intent to raise the child Catholic. I have the names of potential godparents. Would they want the child to be raised Catholic; would they help out? Canon Law doesn't allow for a babe to be secretly baptised unless there is danger of death. The obvious reason is if a babe is baptized into the Church he or she must be connected in some fashion to a Faith community for the child's faith to be inculcated!

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/can-i-secretly-baptize-my-grandchildren

What a wacky world we live in!

 

Oh boy, I can see how a situation like this could get very complicated. Praying for this to be sorted out so the baby can be baptised. I would not want to be the one to have to tell the grandmother that her grandchild 's baptism may have to be postponed.

 

I believe Pope Francis, commenting on this Mystery, said that Jesus could be bad just like other little boys in getting lost like this.

My jaw dropped open.

 

In her little seaside cottage in Staten island Dorothy was shacked up with and English guy David who was an militant atheist/anarchist and very anti Church indeed. Dorothy had a lovely little bay girl to him called Tamara and although she doesn't mention it so far in the book I believe she had previously had an abortion.

But it was then incredibly enough she had a conversion and became a Catholic. Why? Well she simply had a loneliness, a hunger for God and His Church.

But the cost of this conversion was truly immense. It reminds me very much of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac when God asked it. The definition the Church gives to one who is a saint is that they practiced, 'Heroic virtue'. There is no doubt that is her conversion that Dorthy practiced Heroic virtue to an extreme degree.

Lets list the things she gave up.

She turned her common law husband away from her door because he would not marry in a Church. Someone she loved very,very deeply and who was the loving father of her child. In doing this she was giving his protection and company and sex up just when she might have needed them most. He was a good father and loved the baby very much.

She was pretty well giving up all her Communistic friends who repulsed by what she was doing. For such a social person this must have torn her in two.

She was turning her back on an entire way of life which she had been been wed to since earliest adulthood.

What more she was doing so to go to a Church that seemed little interested in Social Justice, quite the opposite.

On top of all this she did so with very little spiritual consolations. On the contrary her prayer life seems clouded and darksome at this period.

Like a say true Heroic virtue.

Abraham and Issac.

 

I will pray for your intentions here. In the old days if I recall correctly the emphasis was on the child's soul. Baptizing to save the child regardless of what the parents intended. I ran up against this with my grandchild. I wanted very badly to baptize them knowing that my son would never do it. I was told a flat no. I couldn't do it without incurring sin. What a heartbreak watching them grow up without that saving grace of God. I will certainly pray for this.

 

Dorothy's descriptions of Staten Island in the 1920's reminds me of little villages and islands in Ireland today. I was curious to have a look.

But I think even back then it would have been far, far richer and more populated and bustling than rural Ireland. When Dorothy talked of it being quiet I think she meant compared to the rest of New York.

 

That's unfathomable. It is incomprehensible....

I reflect upon this sorrow daily. And there are those (saints and scholars among them), who believe that this sorrow was the greatest of all of Mary's sorrows. And for a myriad of reasons.
For example, in all the other sorrows - she had Jesus with her. Whilst in addition, the thought tormented her - that she had offended God. And she believed this was why Jesus was taken from her. She was truly at her wits end at the thought of having offended God. It is such a profound and deep sorrow that it should be reflected upon with great care.

Personally, I believe it is a sorrow for all ages, all times - but, particularly for our age and for our time.

Mary obviously could not sin nor offend God. But when Jesus was removed from her, what did she do.... She set the example for us, in these sinful times, to follow.
For she sought Jesus in sorrow, constantly - and without giving up. Eventually, she found him in the temple.
Therefore, when Jesus is removed from us, we should follow Mary's example and seek him unendingly until we find him.
This sorrow, I believe, is a nod to that bible passages: seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened.

It is also a nod to confession....

Yet, I am but an ignorant, simple man. I have no religious schooling other than the few classes in secondary school as a teenager..
So how comes I know that this sorrow has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus sometimes being a naughty boy?
God forgive me for saying this, but the pope is way, way, way off the mark here...

 

I think maybe if you read the commentary online of the Mystical city of god by venerable Mary of Agreda it will throw considerable light..

let me see if I can get it...

https://www.ecatholic2000.com/agreda/vol3/vol3.shtml

 

I have it saved for later...
I'll defs get a read at it..

 

I think your meditation is profound. And our poor Pope Francis looks at things it would seem in a very worldly way. Education has little to do with it actually I think. It is a matter of knowing with the heart.

 

Thank you, Jackzokay!

 

Still reading Dorothy Day!

I had no idea that both herself and her movement were so hugely influential in the USA and elsewhere. I should not really talk of Dorothy as the sole Founder as there was a French gentleman Peter Maurin from Brittany in France who seems to have been the main theorist. Dorthy describes Peter as a peasant but I would be more inclined to call him an intellectual. He had the most profound Docility to the Providence of God. He allowed himself to be carried in God's Providence day by day as to some extent or other did they all.

They dreamed dreams, they had a huge vision, they had a causes, they were deeply sensitive to the hurts and needs of others. They had this huge burning rage at injustice.

They were deeply, deeply Catholic.

 

It is really strange with Peter Maurin. I read some of his thoughts and instead of being left wing or Socialist they strike me as profoundly Conservative in fact pretty far to the right.

Two examples . He did not believe in Government Welfare. He believed that charity should come from person to person rather than the Government being everyone's big mother. This is deeply Conservative and is exactly in line with what the American black Conservative Thomas Sowell always said. Thomas Sowell talked about the huge harm the Government Welfare programme had done to blacks in the USA.

Another thing he said was that Government Power and Reach should be as limited as possible. This is at the heart of Conservative thought.

 

I was thinking of Dorothy Day last night and this morning. Every Catholic has their own Spirituality many being as different as chalk and cheese and we have also many families of Spiritualities such as Jesuit, Carmelite, Franciscan, Benedictine and so on.
Dorothy's was intensely communal and active. I often go for days without meeting or talking to anyone and love this. I doubt Dorthy ever stopped meeting and talking with people for hardly a second in her entire Day (apart from perhaps the Mass and personal prayer, I suppose) .

Her journey was outwards a Ministry to change the World and people. Mine is only to change myself and if God chooses to use this journey , through this to change others. Inwards, not outwards.

She had a huge Passion for Justice and changing things. My passion would be through God's grace to change only myself.

It is written that Dorothy had a huge interest in Mystics and Mysticism but I don't see this anywhere at all in her writings. A pity because we might have had that at least in common.

I have the uneasy feeling that Dorothy would have considered my life wasteful, selfish and disinterested. I hope not.

I in turn am a little concerned about not much talk in her writings of her own inner journey. Of the pilgrimage towards God. It is there, I am sure but perhaps she considered it just too personal to talk about. A huge pity. For it would be in this most of all I would have had the most interest.

I deeply respect her and all her works, but it is rather as if we were walking in two totally opposite directions along the same Catholic street. But difference can be a great teacher. I hope if we had met we might have been friends anyway.

But I am afraid in many respects she looses me

 

Maybe Padraig you will become the patron saint of the loner lol

Some people prefer to live a quiet life and enjoy their own company. Your spiritual life is profoundly interior. Yet, it still radiates around the world.

I am like you in many ways even though I am married. Apart from my wife I have no really close friends and I love solitude. My spiritual life also lies within where it flowers as God wills.