As we come to the end of Women’s History Month, where as a school community we have reflected on the influence women throughout history have had on our society and our Church, it occurred to me how it has been women saints who have, by far, shaped my understanding of Who God is and the meaning of Christian discipleship. Augustine, Aquinas, and Loyola have—and continue to have—a profound impact on me. Nonetheless, I find myself continually drawn to Our Blessed Mother, St. Therese of Lisieux, and Dorothy Day as I try to navigate the Christian life and the wonderful gift—and challenge—of being a Catholic.
A number of scholars have suggested that the thorniest question facing the Catholic Church in the last five hundred years has been the question of what it means to be a Church in the first place. With competing visions of the Faith swirling around, it is hard to get a handle on what discipleship should look like.
In teaching the Ecclesiology course over the years, as well as reflecting on the state of the Catholic Church in the United States, I have come to recognize a divide within the Mystical Body of Christ. I call these groups respectively “Liturgical” and “Social Justice” Catholics.
With a vision perhaps best summed up by Tennyson who observed that “[m]ore things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” “Liturgical Catholics” place priority on the importance of prayer and Mass in the Christian’s life and the fact that Jesus deserves the best of our praise and worship. They note the importance of His greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind” (Mt 22:37).
That was—and remains—the greatest and most important commandment. It is the commandment that keeps us from, even with the noblest intentions, falling into making idols of our political or social ideologies. Moreover, it is a reminder that God needs to be first in our lives. But “Social Justice” Catholics remind us that we would be remiss to forget that Jesus followed up the greatest commandment by noting a second that was like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39). With Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., they recall that doing works of service and “the furthering of justice form constitutive elements of the Church’s mission.”
“The whole law and the prophets depend on these commandments” (Mt 22:40), not one or the other. Both. It’s okay if we find ourselves emphasizing one of those paths in our lives (St. Paul’s description of the Church as a body with different, interdependent parts is instructive here), but we can’t afford to ignore or denigrate the other. In too many cases, otherwise well-meaning Catholics look down their noses at those on the “other side” as somehow not being fully Christian. Doing so leads to divisions.
Divisions that shouldn’t exist. But they do. Yet ours is not an “either/or” Faith. It’s both/and”: when it comes to being spiritual or being just, we can–and need–to be both.
It is here that one of the great women I mentioned above proves especially helpful. Because to me, the embodiment of the fullness of Christianity—of being both a “Social Justice” and “Liturgy” Catholic—is Servant of God Dorothy Day.
Day’s commitment to the cause of the poor and marginalized is legendary. Founding the Catholic Worker along with philosopher Peter Maurin, she adopted a personalist approach to the poor, advocating for them caring for their basic needs. She was an outspoken pacifist, even protesting the “Good War”—World War II—as a violation of human dignity and destruction of the “Mystical Body of Christ,” which she felt encompassed all people. She fought for workers’ rights and was called a “Red”—used as a slur—for that concern (the FBI had a 500-page file on her and repeatedly recommended to the U.S. Attorney General that she be tried for sedition). At the same time, unlike some who feel they need to compromise Christian consistency in the name of political expediency, she was passionately and publically pro-life. Asked to speak in 1971 at a conference at South Dakota State University, she was introduced as one who “understood a woman’s right to choose, and that abortion was very much at the heart of empowering women.” According to Alice Lange, writing for the "Houston Catholic Worker", “Dorothy, who was sitting in the front row, rose out of her chair to her full angular forbidding height, shook her finger at the speaker, and angrily scolded her on the falseness of such a belief, on the dignity of women and the child’s right to life.” A true prophet, Day was the model “Social Justice Catholic,” reminding us all that the right to life and the dignity of the human person apply to all—not just to those our politicians tell us.
At the same time, Day was a devout “Liturgical Catholic”. Like another great “Social Justice Catholic,” St. Teresa of Kolkata, she prayed faithfully—the rosary, the Divine Office, the Mass—for upwards of three hours each day. Of these, she saw the most important was the Mass:
The reason for man’s existence is to love, honor, and serve God; [and] the greatest work of the day is the Mass, the offering of the God-man to God for His praise, honor and glory, in reparation for our sins and in thanksgiving for all His benefit.
Because of the esteem in which she held the Mass, she could be a stickler: of one Mass she attended she wrote, “Sung Mass at 8…all girls, voices none very good, but it was correctly done anyway.” In addition, during the time of liturgical experimentation in the 1970s, a priest dispensed with the traditional hosts one day, opting for another form of (crumb-laden) unleavened bread. After Holy Communion, wherein the congregants at the Catholic Worker home broke off pieces of the consecrated Bread, Day spent a good part of the rest of the morning picking up crumbs from the floor and consuming them. She understood the reality of the Real Presence. And in seeing Jesus in the appearance of bread and wine, she could also see Him in the poor and vulnerable and felt compelled to serve Him in both. As should we all.
“Ora et Labora,” “Prayer and Work,” “Liturgy and Justice.”
Catholicism.
As always when it came to such matters, G.K. Chesterton had something to say about the Church’s balancing act of seemingly opposing foci: “It has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white, like the red and white upon the shield of St. George.”
Or the red of Day’s commitment to workers and the white of her baptismal gown.
A.M.D.G. / B.V.M.H.