Gilbert House Annual Appeal

Gilbert House Catholic Worker Annual Newsletter and Funding Appeal

15 October 2009—Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

This past year has been absolutely awesome! We have been blessed in so many ways during 2009, and we have lots of news to share, though we’ll just stick to the highlights--mostly just the really amazing stuff.

We now have only sixteen thousand dollars in principal left on our hundred-year-old farm house which we are working hard towards paying off over this next year. This news is great on the one hand because when we reconcile our home loan, we will save nearly sixty thousand dollars in interest and, subsequently, be able to address some much needed repairs on the house that the former owner was unwilling or unable to do. It will also provide us with the foundation we need to buy a second house next door for multiple long-term guests and additional community members--something we not only need in this area, but that we are anxious to see to fruition.

We are so grateful for the home that we share, thanks be to GOD, and look forward to the day when we will have more room and resources to share with others.

Our garden blew a gasket this past summer, and started bearing its young in the yard (which was really nice in some ways—it certainly cut down on our mowing chores). We grew so much surplus of such a wide variety of vegetables that we were actually turned away at the local food pantry (in all, we were able to give somewhere between five- and six-hundred pounds of produce to WestCap), and when they could take no more, we started calling friends, neighbors and family.

Our autumn harvest has been excellent. What wasn’t given away to those in need and to friends of the house has been eaten up or bottled and put away for the long winter, and we hope to share it still. We have two farmers and three neighbors who regularly give us too many apples for sanity—all of which have been made into pies, crisps, ciders, and jellies...or sauced, buttered and bottled. Mr. Erickson, from Rumar Farm over in Wilson, thinks it’s wonderful that he can split his rotting apples betwixt the chickens and us “girls” and that we’ll return next Spring with a “couple-or-three” bottles of wine for him.

We are currently working on another batch of the homemade "Petta" Merlot for the American Chesterton Society’s annual conference next summer, when Chestertonians from all over the world will be able to share in the age old tradition of hospitality of “beer and beef.” Every year Mary Alice claims that G.K. Chesterton, “that fat, long-winded dead man, took our heat away," because of the personal expense of making gallons and gallons of wine, but it always manages to work out anyway. Poor G.K. (for next year’s conference, I’m shooting for eighty gallons, just so that we have a store…just don’t tell Mary Alice.)

We have printed many of Mary Alice's card designs for sale and for gifting this year, hoping to show them at craft fairs and shops in the area; she will also be volunteering at John the Baptist parish’s annual Harvest Festival again (31 Oct.), where she hopes to share her artistry once again. Miki has been creating some very intricate scrapbook albums in addition to getting started on yet another huge new batch of altar linens and vestments for her “winter months” project; she will also be spending part of the winter putting together some "family history" scrapbooks for the American Chesterton Society that Ann Petta asked her to make. Friends of the house flit in and out with every imaginable project of their own, and it all keeps us busy and productive.

We have an eighteen-year-old girl who plans on living with us for the next year or more whilst she finishes high school and then enrolls in classes to become a licensed massage therapist; she plans on coming to stay in January and we are looking forward to having her here and getting the opportunity to support her desire to graduate and start her adult life.

Miki has taken on an outside job, part-time, with a temp agency to help bolster our income and our ability to aid the people who come to us looking for help. What cash we have brought into the house usually goes right back out the door, either on house necessities, or given freely to those who need it more than we do in any given moment--a thing that is becoming more and more common as the economy flounders and more of our neighbors lose their jobs.

And, now on to the really bad news: For the past three years we have been trying to get our roof fixed. The roofer we previously had made a bad situation worse, and we now have a ruined ceiling in the dining room that has grown a lovely community of mold. It’s going to cost $20,000.00 to fix, and we are looking forward to paying off the house so that we can do this without incurring a huge debt. We would much rather invest such a large amount of currency on "promiscuous philanthropy," but if the house is to remain standing, we have no choice.

For all of those who have been to the house to help with our many projects this past year, we offer you our heartfelt thanks because without you nothing would be as rewarding. For those people who have donated to the house and helped us to provide assistance to others in our community, there are no words to express our appreciation for you and the blessing that you are! For those of you who pray for us, we offer our own prayers for you and yours in return.

If you can help us with any of our current financial needs, we are humbled and grateful for your support, and we thank you now. If you’d like to take a look at our other house needs, photos of this year’s garden, or would just like more information on what we do and why, please take a look at our house blog at: http://gilberthouse.blogspot.com/ . May our Lord bless you all, and keep you safe, this coming year!

Please remember that in keeping with Catholic Worker tradition we are not tax exempt and that we are decidedly so, as our co-founders have asked us to be. In that spirit, we ask our friends to give generously out of their abundance at a personal sacrifice, never asking for Caesar to acknowledge us with a tax credit for our gifts, but only that the GOD who knows their hearts acknowledge them as He will. So long as the poor are taxed, so will we be with them.

Wonders Truly Never Cease....

For months our computer here at Gilbert House has been on the fritz. No longer! We would like to thank Dr. James and Mrs. Joyce Uhlir of Menomonie, Wisconsin, for gifting us with a new computer!

This is wonderful for us, and we look forward to writing again, sharing Mary Alice's art with you, as well as sharing our life here at Gilbert House and our local community.

We are so grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Uhlir and want them both to know how appreciative we are for their kindness.

Pax!

Miki, Mary Alice and Friends

Los Alamos "Trespassers" Taken to Court For Praying....

NEWS RELEASE
14 August 2008


TAX-DAY ACTIVISTS GO TO COURT FOR PRAYING AT NUCLEAR SITE


As part of the April 15th vigil for peace, two members of Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists (TNA) were arrested across the street from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mike Butler is awaiting a court hearing on his plea bargain, but Marcus Page goes to his jury trial on Monday the 18th of August. The two men were part of a group of six who held vigil during daylight hours on April 14th & 15th, praying in opposition to war taxes and international crimes committed there by the Lab. Charged with trespassing on Department of Energy land, both men believe they were praying openly along the public road in county territory, and they believe the Laboratory has no rights to conduct nuclear weapons work anywhere. TNA continues to conduct monthly vigils on Department of Energy land at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a facility of the Department of Energy (DoE). Marcus Page received word last week that the Honorable Magistrate Pat Casados would not recuse herself. Page believes the judge is in a partnership with an employee of LANL, and was surprised by the refusal to recuse. Page says, "The DoE has set itself up in opposition to free speech in this case. The DoE's interests are at stake here. That means the people of the DoE will benefit from a verdict of 'guilty'. Shouldn't the employees of the DoE and LANL, and their spouses be excused from trying to judge who wins this case? Will nuclear abolitionists get a fair trial in a court staffed by nuclear profiteers?"


More info can be seen at http://Lovarchy.org/LANS

Contact
Chelsea @ Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists: 505 242 0497

Who Plants the Seed Beneath the Sod and Waits to See Believes in GOD

So, here's a topic we've never talked about here: Our Garden.

Today the mail arrived with the two tiny blueberry plants that Mary Alice had ordered last autumn and, since the sun was high and bright, and the wind was down we decided to start planting early.

We dragged all of the vegetable and flower seedlings, which have hitherto made their abode on the dining room table, and all over the kitchen, out into the shady part of the garden on the upper tier (there are three) and watched them wilt a bit whilst we cut up year-old Yukon Gold and russet potatoes and planted them on the second tier in mounds we tilled up by hand out of the mulch. So long as the strange fungus that has attacked half of our little town doesn't get a foothold on our plot, they should be fine.

Early last autumn we had collected a compost mound (that will later be part of our third tier) that ended up being twenty feet long, twelve feet deep and well over five feet high; now it is only about three feet high and it needs to be supplemented. So this weekend, I will borrow the neighbor's pickup and drive down the road fifteen miles to Erickson's Farm to collect my annual seven-to-twelve load "order" of composted manure and a winter's worth of chicken bedding and all the bedding from spring lambing (which all of the neighborhood dogs love to roll in....). Once I've got it all unloaded here, we'll spend a weekend turning it into last year's compost heap and then, just like every year before, we'll plant squashes, watermelon, zucchini and herbs right over the top of it just to keep the heat and moisture in and make the alley pretty whilst it does its thing.

Our tomatoes are going to be basket-planted this year and suspended from six-foot-tall garden hooks, instead of putting them in the ground and wasting precious space that we need for other things. And next week, if the weather stays, I'll be moving the blackberry and raspberry canes from the front of the house which faces north to the back alley beside the compost bin--so that they can trellis up the fencing.

Hollyhocks and iris have taken over the east side of the house all on their own--even volunteering in the cracks of the old concrete carport that will one day soon be a greenhouse--and somehow all of our strawberries mystically migrated from their little brick-walled patch into the lawn down below so that we spent an hour this afternoon putting them back in their rightful home. The roses have begun to send out new shoots and the hydrangeas are budding beneath the peeling paint on the house....the earth smells sweet and the ground is cool and soft....Now if we can just keep our neighbor from "helping" us and weed-whacking the whole lot, we'll be very happy, indeed!

So far, it's looking to be a good year.

When the Red Tape Refuses to Cease and Desist

For the sake of levity....

Noah, 2008

In the early spring of 2008, the Lord came and spake unto Noah, who was now residing in a Chicago suburb in the United States.

The Lord said, "Once again the earth has been besieged with all manner of wickedness; it is over-populated by heathens and overrun with lawlessness. I see the need to end all flesh before me and begin anew."

"Noah," the Lord exclaimed, "Build another Ark and collect two of every living creature that roams the earth along with a few good humans, if you can find them. You have six months from this hour to build the Ark according to my command before I begin to bring another deluge over the face of the earth for forty days and forty nights."

So, the Lord gave Noah a set of blueprints and left him to his work.

Six months passed. The Lord looked down and saw Noah sitting cross-legged on his Scott's Turf-Builder lawn weeping in despair. No Ark could be seen.

"Noah!" the Lord roared like a terrible thunder, "The deluge is about to begin! Where is my Ark??? Where are the animals? Could you not find one good human?"

"I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord," cried Noah, "But things aren't like they had been in ages past. I have tried my best, but I have failed to accomplish the task which You have given me. You see, I needed building permits and I've been arguing with the building inspector about whether I really need a sprinkler safety system in case of fire. And then there's the matter that my neighbors have filed an injunction against me claiming that I have violated neighborhood zoning laws by building an Ark that exceeds local height limitations; we are still waiting for a decision from the Development Appeals Board for a ruling on the issue.

"Worse yet, the Department of Transportation has demanded from me the payment of a very large bond for the future cost of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions that would impede moving the Ark out to sea. I told them that the sea is coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

"And getting the lumber I need has been another serious problem. There's a ban on harvesting local trees in order to save the Spotted Owl. I have tried to convince the environmentalist groups that the entire reason I need the wood is to save the owls, but they in turn have declared me insane and an eminent danger to wildlife safety.

"So, then I began to gather all the animals two by two....and the animal rights groups filed law suits against me insisting that I was hoarding the animals against their will. The activists have argued that my accommodations are too restrictive and that it would be cruel and inhumane to keep so many animals in such a confined space.

"And yesterday the EPA ruled that I cannot build so much as a dog house until they conduct an environmental impact study regarding Your proposed Flood.

"I'm still squabbling with the Human Rights Commission about how many minorities I must hire for my building crew which really wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is holding most of my very best workers and their families whilst they check the status on all their Green Cards. And the Trade Unions have filed an injunction stating that I cannot hire my own sons--they insist that all of my foremen be Union workers with previous Ark building experience.

"To make matters even more hellish, the IRS has seized all of my assets, claiming that I'm trying to defect from the country illegally with endangered indigenous species.

"So, please, Lord, I humbly beg Your pardon, but with all the red tape involved, it's going to take about ten years to finish building this Ark!"

Suddenly, the clouds parted, the sun shined brightly over the whole earth and a beautiful rainbow shimmered in the eastern sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and exclaimed, "Lord! Lord! You're not going to destroy the earth again after all?"

"No," the Lord sighed, "Looks like the government bureaucrats have beaten me to it."

Catholic Worker Jailed For Civil Disobedience

We'd like to ask for your prayers and financial mercy for our brother, Marcus Blaise Page, from the Trinity House Catholic Worker Community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There's a $1000.00 price tag on his head whilst he sits in jail as a guest of Big Brother for a misdemeanor charge--an exorbitant cost which will hinder other local community works of mercy that all the members of Trinity House are involved in carrying out at a personal sacrifice ....

NEWS RELEASE
15 April 2008

Contact Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists: 505-242-0497 or Chelsea: 510-499-8917

Los Alamos Lab Security Arrests Two Peace Activists; Vigil Continues for Tax Day

Two representatives from the Albuquerque-based Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists were arrested last night (April 14) at 9:30 pm during a 24 hour prayer vigil at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Three other vigilers are continuing the action today at the Lab until noon at the corner of Diamond Drive and West Jemez Rd.

The event began at noon on April 14th. Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists (TNA) had verbal permission from head of security Donna Martinez for "daylight hours" only. Two TNA members were arrested while praying, after they stated to Los Alamos police officers that they were not on the property to cause violence but to protest the nuclear weapons design happening at Los Alamos Lab. The two pled Not Guilty this morning to the charge of criminal trespass, which carries a $1,000 fine and/or 364 days in prison. They will be bonded out from jail today and expect a jury trial within six months.

TNA has two purposes for being at LANL today, Tax Day. The primary purpose is to prayerfully encourage the nonviolent, safe, clean disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, along with the clean-up of LANL, under the guidance of LANS. The second is to visibly celebrate the war-tax boycott organized by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. "This maybe the first time people have held a 24-hour public prayer for abolition here on alleged Laboratory property. Such prayer-actions are necessary for spiritual health and public health. Our nuclear New Mexico urgently needs different uses of federal income tax allocations." said Marcus Page of TNA.

This is the 9th monthly vigil for peace conducted by TNA, and the longest one so far. TNA is committed to the cause of sanity, safety, decency, beauty, love and peace--all in opposition to LANL's work. TNA consistently calls for an end to all nuclear weapons research, development, testing, refurbishing, and production. Aware of the tax money allocated for nuclearism TNA is part of the worldwide nuclear abolition movement working for social justice and spiritual integrity.

http://www.trinityhouse.catholicworker.biz/

Tamar Hennessy Dies at 82--Eternal Rest Grant Unto Her, O Lord+++

Tamar Teresa Batterham Hennessy, the only child of Catholic Worker co-foundress Dorothy Day, died subsequent to a stroke on Tuesday, 25 March 2008, in Lebanon, Hew Hampshire at the age of 82.

Born in Mahattan in 1926, she was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church in Tottenville later that same year. Tamar was witness to the inception of the Catholic Worker when she was eight years old and later conceded that this life can be difficult for any child"

"She [Dorothy Day] was traveling alot , and I was left to be taken care of by various people, and I got very ill. It was hard for both of us. She had her work, and yet at the same time she had me. She was very devoted. She was very torn," Hennessy told a reporter in 2003.

Still in the same interview, Ms. Hennessy expressed no regrets, "I loved the Catholic Worker. It was so exciting. I wouldn't have missed a moment of it," and her admiration for her mother was unwavering, "She loved her family so much, and in so many, many ways she kept me going. She missed understanding the material side of it. She expected alot of going without. At the same time she supported me alot, and I can't say enough good about that."

Ms. Hennessy graduated from the Acadamy of St. Dorothy in Grasmere, and studied at the Farmingdale Agricultural School on Long Island, as well as the workshop of artist Ade Bethune in Newport, Rhode Island. She married William David Hennessy, a farmer and bookseller, in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1944. The couple settled in West Virginia, but eventually returned to Staten Island, where they lived near the Catholic Worker Farm on Bloomingdale Road in Rossville.

Ms. Hennessy's great delights were her children and grandchildren, welcoming visitors, caring for animals, discussing politics and listening to jazz and classical music.

Her husband, W. David Hennessy, died in 2005.

Surviving are her two sons, David and Hilaire Hennessy; her five daughters, Rebecca Houghton, and Mary, Margaret, Martha and Catherine Hennessy; eighteen grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.

Ms. Hennessy's daughter, Susanna McMurry, died in 1986, and her son, Nicholas Hennessy, died in 1987. Grandson Justin Houghton died in 1979, and grandson Joshua Hennessy died in 2004.

Tamar Hennessy's funeral Mass was celebrated at 11 a.m. Saturday, 29 March 2008 at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Springfield, Vermont followed by a private burial. Her daughter Kate remembered her at that Mass as follows:

Remembering Tamar Hennessy: "how to see and delight in beauty"
by Kate Hennessy

Much of my mother's life has been written about by her mother, Dorothy Day. Many stories have come down through Catholic Worker history, beginning with the story of Tamar's birth, a birth that led Dorothy to convert to Catholicism, which then led to the founding of the Catholic Worker movement. And throughout the following years, my grandmother continued to write about my mother--her childhood, her marriage, the birth of her children, her farm in Vermont. My mother was intensely uncomfortable with all of this. She was a private person, a shy person; she didn't like to be written about, and knowing this, I am not entirely comfortable with speaking about her here and now. I can only hope she will forgive me, but I feel I must do this, not only to help myself and my family, if I can, come to terms with this huge loss, but also because I believe her story needs to continue to be told. I'm sure my mother is wondering what she did to deserve this-to be written about not only by her mother but by her daughter too-but she will have to continue to put up with it. (...)

The basic details of my mother's life are known to many-married young, had nine children, and after a failed marriage led a difficult life as a single mother. These facts don't reveal what to me is the kernel of her story-her dreams, her desires, her motivations, and ultimately what her gifts have been not only to us, her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, but to the greater community, for I know there are many people who came to know and to love my mother. Every day we hear from people who say to us, "Your mother saved my life." "Tamar took me in when I had no place to go." "She listened to me when I had no one else to talk to." She often just quietly, without fuss, showed up -- for graduations, for marriages, for hospital visits, for court appearances.

Her generosity and hospitality had no limits. For someone who possessed little -- she never seemed to have had an attachment to material things -- she always had something to give. Even with a house filled with kids, there was always room for one more-one more stray teenager or one more stray dog. I think she had a special affinity with teenagers. She seemed to understand the troubles they were in and knew enough to simply open the door for them and give shelter without comment.

She accepted everyone for exactly who they were. This ability of hers to love unconditionally and to accept unconditionally lies at the heart of her lessons to me. We often speak of "tolerance" and a "willingness" to accept others when we are trying to be good. Tamar didn't need tolerance or willingness. She didn't need to decide to be kind; she was innately so. Her favorite phrase was "loving kindness." "All we need is loving kindness," she'd often say. "Sure, Mom," I'd say, not really having a clue of what she meant. I have a clue now, and all I can do is pray I can achieve a fraction of what she did -- no, not of what she did, but of what she was.

She was a person of gentle humor and loved to laugh. She had an abiding curiosity and thirst to learn; there was always something new to explore, to discuss, to research, even in the face of constant physical pain. She had an eye and a love for the details of life. As her children, we learned to spin and weave, to plant and harvest, to observe and love the natural world around us.

These are simple things -- gardener, spinner and weaver. But they are hugely symbolic. They are the stuff of mythologies, of a world and spiritual view that helps us to take everyday life and place it in a larger spiritual context, or maybe it is the other way around. I think that we often have difficulty in seeing a faith lived out that is not part of a larger tradition, and we may not even recognize our own faith when it seems to lie outside these norms. Tamar often spoke of having had a crisis of faith, but I don't believe it. I believe that her faith, that is, the foundation of who she was as a spiritual being, was solid and true, and that it was a living faith, an innate faith that manifested in the love she gave. She didn't see this, of course. She often saw only her failures; she felt sorrow and regret for those she wasn't able to help, whether within her own family or without.

Her mother, Dorothy, was the one who chose to go out into the world to make change. She was the speaker, the writer, the doer. My mother was in so many ways the exact opposite -- quiet, shy, loved to stay at home and refused to write anything. There are few people who are called to meet the challenge that Dorothy presented. The truth is we all cannot follow in her footsteps, which is what my mother was often asked in her youth. Instead, my mother carved out a life of her own-a life of family and of the land and of home.

It would be easy to say that yes, Tamar was a good woman, a good daughter, a good mother and leave it at that. This implies that her world was small, her influence narrow in scope, but I believe the lessons she has for us have no such boundaries. I say that if we, as a family, as a local community, as a culture and as part of the larger world, ignore what she teaches us, it is at our peril. Tamar's way is the quiet way, but it is a way that each of us can learn from and follow-no matter who we are or who we aren't, what we have or what we don't have, what we feel or what we don't feel. That whatever bit of earth we live on, we must and can care for it, encourage it and share it with those creatures and plants who also belong here. And in this moment, where we are now, with whomever walks through our front door whether adult or child, daughter or stranger, human or creature, that this is the divine moment, the moment in which we are given the opportunity to give, to help, to love and to create.

Spring is almost here. I think of spring as my mother's season. Last week she had already begun planting in the small way she could while being confined to her wheelchair. Soon her front garden will be blooming -- first the snowdrops and crocuses followed by the magnolia trees. And then the wisteria, violets and forget-me-nots will blanket the lawn in shades of blues and purples, and people will slow down as they drive by on Valley Street to gaze at this unexpected patch of beauty. Tamar knew how to do this -- how to invite beauty, how to see beauty, how to delight in beauty. What a gift.

Thank you, thank you so much.

The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the jusice and charity of Jesus Christ. Our sources are the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as handed down in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, with our inspiration coming from the lives of the saints, "men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses to Your unchanging love." (Eucharistic Prayer)

This aim requires us to begin living in a different way. We recall the words of our founders, Dorothy Day who said, "God meant things to be much easier than we have made them," and Peter Maurin who wanted to build a society "where it is easier for people to be good."

* * *

When we examine our society, which is generally called capitalist (because of its methods of producing and controlling wealth) and is bourgeois (because of prevailing concern for acquisition and material interests, and its emphasis on respectability and mediocrity), we find it far from God's justice.

--In economics, private and state capitalism bring about an unjust distribution of wealth, for the profit motive guides decisions. Those in power live off the sweat of others' brows, while those without power are robbed of a just return for their work. Usury (the charging of interest above administrative costs) is a major contributor to the wrongdoing intrinsic to this system. We note, especially, how the world debt crisis leads poor countries into greater deprivation and a dependency from which there is no foreseeable escape. Here at home, the number of hungry and homeless and unemployed people rises in the midst of increasing affluence.

--In labor, human need is no longer the reason for human work. Instead, the unbridled expansion of technology, necessary to capitalism and viewed as "progress," holds sway. Jobs are concentrated in productivity and administration for a "high-tech," war-related, consumer society of disposable goods, so that laborers are trapped in work that does not contribute to human welfare. Furthermore, as jobs become more specialized, many people are excluded from meaningful work or are alienated from the products of their labor. Even in farming, agribusiness has replaced agriculture, and, in all areas, moral restraints are run over roughshod, and a disregard for the laws of nature now threatens the very planet.

--In politics, the state functions to control and regulate life. Its power has burgeoned hand in hand with growth in technology, so that military, scientific and corporate interests get the highest priority when concrete political policies are formulated. Because of the sheer size of institutions, we tend towards government by bureaucracy--that is, government by nobody. Bureaucracy, in all areas of life, is not only impersonal, but also makes accountability, and, therefore, an effective political forum for redressing grievances, next to impossible.

--In morals, relations between people are corrupted by distorted images of the human person. Class, race and sex often determine personal worth and position within society, leading to structures that foster oppression. Capitalism further divides society by pitting owners against workers in perpetual conflict over wealth and its control. Those who do not "produce" are abandoned, and left, at best, to be "processed" through institutions. Spiritual destitution is rampant, manifested in isolation, madness, promiscuity and violence.

--The arms race stands asa clear sign of the direction and spirit of our age. It has extended the domain of destruction and the fear of annihilation, and denies the basic right to life. There is a direct connection between the arms race and destitution. "The arms race is an utterly treacherous trap, and one which injures the poor to an intolerable degree." (Vatican II)

* * *

In contrast to what we see around us, as well as within ourselves, stands St. Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of the Common Good, a vision of a society where the good of each member is bound to the good of the whole in the service of God.

To this end, we advocate:

--Personalism, a philosophy which regards the freedom and dignity of each person as the basis, focus and goal of all metaphysics and morals. In following such wisdom, we move away from a self-centered individualism toward the good of the other. This is to be done by taking personal responsibility for changing conditions, rather than looking to the state or other institutions to provide impersonal "charity." We pray for a Church renewed by this philosophy and for a time when all those who feel excluded from participation are welcomed with love, drawn by the gentle personalism Peter Maurin taught.

--A decentralized society, in contrast to the present bigness of government, industry, education, health care and agriculture. We encourage efforts such as family farms, rural and urban land trusts, worker ownership and management of small factories, homesteading projects, food, housing and other cooperatives--any effort in which money can once more become merely a medium of exchange, and human beings are no longer commodities.

--A "green revolution," so that it is possible to rediscover the proper meaning of our labor and/or true bonds with the land; a distributist communitarianism, self-sufficient through farming, crafting and appropriate technology; a radically new society where people will rely on the fruits of their own toil and labor; associations of mutuality, and a sense of fairness to resolve conflicts.

* * *

We believe this needed personal and social transformation should be pursued by the means Jesus revealed in His sacrificial love. With Christ as our Exemplar, by prayer and communion with His Body and Blood, we strive for practices of

--Nonviolence. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." (Matt. 5:9) Only through nonviolent action can a personalist revolution come about, one in which one evil will not be replaced simply by another. Thus, we oppose the deliberate taking of human life for any reason, and see every oppression as blasphemy. Jesus taught us to take suffering upon ourselves rather than inflict it upon others, and He calls us to fight against violence with the spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and noncooperation with evil. Refusal to pay taxes for war, to register for conscription, to comply with any unjust legislation; participation in nonviolent strikes and boycotts, protests or vigils; withdrawal of support for dominant systems, corporate funding or usurious practices are all excellent means to establish peace.

--The works of mercy (as found in Matt. 25:31-46) are at the heart of the Gospel and they are clear mandates for our response to "the least of our brothers and sisters." Houses of hospitality are centers for learning to do the acts of love, so that the poor can receive what is, in justice, theirs, the second coat in our closet, the spare room in our home, a place at our table. Anything beyond what we immediately need belongs to those who go without.

--Manual labor, in a society that rejects it as undignified and inferior. "Besides inducing cooperation, besides overcoming barriers and establishing the spirit of sister and brotherhood (besides just getting things done), manual labor enables us to use our bodies as well as our hands, our minds." (Dorothy Day) The Benedictine motto Ora et Labora reminds us that the work of human hands is a gift for the edification of the world and the glory of God.

--Voluntary poverty. "The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge and belief in love." (Dorothy Day) By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we would ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God. It would put us on the path to incarnate the Church's "preferential option for the poor."

* * *

We must be prepared to accept seeming failure with these aims, for sacrifice and suffering are part of the Christian life. Success, as the world determines it, is not the final criterion for judgments. The most important thing is the love of Jesus Christ and how to live His truth.

Reprinted from The Catholic Worker newspaper, May 2000

Aims and Purposes

by Dorothy Day

The Catholic Worker, February 1940, 7.

For the sake of new readers, for the sake of men on our breadlines, for the sake of the employed and unemployed, the organized and unorganized workers, and also for the sake of ourselves, we must reiterate again and again what are our aims and purposes.

Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must "give reason for the faith that is in us." Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not "all members one of another." Otherwise, our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.

We cannot live alone. We cannot go to Heaven alone. Otherwise, as Péguy said, God will say to us, "Where are the others?" (This is in one sense only as, of course, we believe that we must be what we would have the other fellow be. We must look to ourselves, our own lives first.)

If we do not keep indoctrinating, we lose the vision. And if we lose the vision, we become merely philanthropists, doling out palliatives.

The vision is this: We are working for "a new heaven and a new earth, wherein justice dwelleth." We are trying to say with action, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We are working for a Christian social order.

We believe in the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God. This teaching, the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, involves today the issue of unions (where men call each other brothers); it involves the racial question; it involves cooperatives, credit unions, crafts; it involves Houses of Hospitality and Farming Communes. It is with all these means that we can live as though we believed indeed that we are all members one of another, knowing that when "the health of one member suffers, the health of the whole body is lowered."

This work of ours toward a new heaven and a new earth shows a correlation between the material and the spiritual, and, of course, recognizes the primacy of the spiritual. Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul. Hence the leaders of the work, and as many as we can induce to join us, must go daily to Mass, to receive food for the soul. And as our perceptions are quickened, and as we pray that our faith be increased, we will see Christ in each other, and we will not lose faith in those around us, no matter how stumbling their progress is. It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us - to see Christ in him. If we lose faith, if we stop the work of indoctrinating, we are in a way denying Christ again.

We must practice the presence of God. He said that when two or three are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them. He is with us in our kitchens, at our tables, on our breadlines, with our visitors, on our farms. When we pray for our material needs, it brings us close to His humanity. He, too, needed food and shelter. He, too, warmed His hands at a fire and lay down in a boat to sleep.

When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us. What we do is very little. But it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did He fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest.

And why must we see results? Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest.

When we write in these terms, we are writing not only for our fellow workers in thirty other Houses, to other groups of Catholic Workers who are meeting for discussion, but to every reader of the paper. We hold with the motto of the National Maritime Union, that every member is an organizer. We are upholding the ideal of personal responsibility. You can work as you are bumming around the country on freights, if you are working in a factory or a field or a shipyard or a filling station. You do not depend on any organization which means only paper figures, which means only the labor of the few. We are not speaking of mass action, pressure groups (fearful potential for evil as well as good). We are addressing each individual reader of The Catholic Worker.

The work grows with each month, the circulation increases, letters come in from all over the world, articles are written about the movement in many countries.

Statesmen watch the work, scholars study it, workers feel its attraction, those who are in need flock to us and stay to participate. It is a new way of life. But though we grow in numbers and reach far-off corners of the earth, essentially the work depends on each one of us, on our way of life, the little works we do.

"Where are the others?" God will say. Let us not deny Him in those about us. Even here, right now, we can have that new earth, wherein justice dwelleth!

---

To Our Readers

by Dorothy Day

For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight.

For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain.

For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work.

For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight - this little paper is addressed.

It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program - to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare.

FILLING A NEED

It's time there was a Catholic paper printed for the unemployed.

The fundamental aim of most radical sheets is the conversion of its readers to radicalism and atheism.

Is it not possible to be radical and not atheist?

Is it not possible to protest, to expose, to complain, to point out abuses and demand reforms without desiring the overthrow of religion?

In an attempt to popularize and make known the encyclicals of the Popes in regard to social justice and the program put forth by the Church for the "reconstruction of the social order," this news sheet, The Catholic Worker, is started.

It is not as yet known whether it will be a monthly, a fortnightly or a weekly. It all depends on the funds collected for the printing and distribution. Those who can subscribe, and those who can donate, are asked to do so.

This first number of The Catholic Worker was planned, written and edited in the kitchen of a tenement on Fifteenth Street, on subway platforms, on the "L," the ferry. There is no editorial office, no overhead in the way of telephone or electricity, no salaries paid.

The money for the printing of the first issue was raised by begging small contributions from friends. A colored priest in Newark sent us ten dollars and the prayers of his congregation. A colored sister in New Jersey, garbed also in holy poverty, sent us a dollar. Another kindly and generous friend sent twenty-five. The rest of it the editors squeezed out of their own earnings, and at that they were using money necessary to pay milk bills, gas bills, electric light bills.

By accepting delay the utilities did not know that they were furthering the cause of social justice. They were, for the time being, unwitting cooperators.

Next month someone may donate us an office. Who knows?

It is cheering to remember that Jesus Christ wandered this earth with no place to lay His head. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. And when we consider our fly-by-night existence, our uncertainty, we remember (with pride at sharing the honor), that the disciples supped by the seashore and wandered through corn fields picking the ears from the stalks wherewith to make their frugal meals.

Reprinted from The Catholic Worker, May 1933, 4 (First Issue)

An Extraordinary, Difficult Childhood

by MARGOT PATTERSON

Though more Catholic Workers today may be seeking to combine the ideals of the movement with parenting, the effort goes back generations. Dorothy Day’s daughter, Tamar, was the first of many children raised in the Catholic Worker movement.

“I loved the Catholic Worker. It was so exciting. I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it,” Tamar Hennessey told NCR in a phone interview from Vermont. Nonetheless, like her mother, Tamar Hennessey said it’s difficult to combine being a Catholic Worker with parenting. Hennessy said there may be some people who can do both, but usually people find they have to choose between them.

“I think you’ll hear a lot of contradictory stories. A lot of other children did have a difficult time being in the Worker,” Hennessy said. “I think Dorothy was very aware of the fact that you can’t do both well, and she was right.”

For herself, Henessey remembers growing up in the Catholic Worker as stimulating but physically grueling, especially with her mother often on the road.

“I was only 8 years old when it started. She was traveling a lot, and I was left to be taken care of by various people, and I got very ill. It was hard for both of us. She had her work, and yet at the same time she had me. She was very devoted. She was torn,” said Hennessy. “I did end up in boarding school for four years, which worked out well.”

Hennessy offered a sympathetic, nuanced account of Dorothy Day the mother.

“She loved her family so much, and in so many, many ways she kept me going. She missed understanding the material side of it. She expected a lot of going without. At the same time, she supported me a lot, and I can’t say enough good about that,” Tamar Hennessy said.

Hennessy acknowledged that Dorothy Day could be exacting. “She wanted everybody to be like saints. I mean, who can measure up to that?” asked Hennessy.

Married when she was still a teenager, Tamar Teresa Day Hennessy went on to have nine children and for many years led a hardscrabble existence living in the country. She was attracted to the Catholic Worker vision of rural families living on the land and tried to live that out with her own family, she said.

“I tried to hold on to those values. I tried to live simply. I tried to follow the Catholic faith. It did not turn out well. Right now I seem to have lapsed,” she said of her own religious faith.

Hennessy said people sometimes try to invent a rift between her and her mother that doesn’t exist. “I admired her overwhelmingly,” Hennessy said of Dorothy Day.

Other grown-up children of Catholic Workers have their own stories. Some have ended up staying in the movement; others have gone on to lead more so-called “normal” lives. Many say that the ideals they grew up with have stayed with them for a lifetime.

“The bad points were I grew up in the McCarthy era in San Francisco. We really had to keep a very low profile,” said Regina Burke, 64, a medical technician in California who remembers that when she and her sisters entered high school her parents gave them a copy of the Bible, Berlin Diary by foreign correspondent William Shirer, and the social encyclicals of the Catholic church.

“This is not the normal thing people get when they reach high school,” Burke said. “I think being raised in a family that had ideals that were not exactly popular, it brought us together more as a family. We didn’t have the problems of rebellion that a lot of families had. Even though you didn’t hear a lot about it in the ’50s, the big movie of our time was ‘Rebel Without a Cause.’ We didn’t have that problem in our family because it was us against the world,” said Burke.

Burke’s parents did not run a Catholic Worker house of hospitality, but Burke said both her mother and father were much influenced by Dorothy Day and by Edith Stein, a German Jewish philosopher who became a Catholic nun and died at Auschwitz and was declared a saint. Burke’s father was active in setting up printing apprenticeship programs for convicts in prisons so they would have a skill they could draw on when they left prison; her mother was a teacher who was active in the Girl Scouts. Both were unafraid to embrace unpopular causes.

“It was an interesting way to grow up. During the ’60s we were all out in the streets for equal rights. We had some problems with people we invited to our home and then there would be problems with the neighbors. My parents weren’t very polite when the neighbors passed the petitions against the kind of people we had as guests in our home,” said Burke, remembering one friend of her parents who was of Japanese descent and others who were interracial couples.

“My mother knew Dorothy Day,” Burke said. “She was a great heroine, and that was held up to us. That and the fact that if you don’t go out and make the change, don’t expect anyone else to. You must be the change you want to see,” Burke said, paraphrasing Gandhi. A one-time lawyer who left the practice of law because she said the most honest people she met were criminals, Burke said her parents’ ideals have influenced her for a lifetime. Burke has been active in community organizing; one of her sisters is a Catholic nun who represents her religious community in the group of nongovernmental organizations that support United Nations public information efforts.

“The older we get, the more we recognize the fact that our parents were extraordinary. The most radical feminist we met was our father,” Burke said.

Confronting different values

Joachim Zwick said he was 10 or 12 when his parents started the Casa Juan Diego Catholic Worker in Houston in 1980. “Absolutely it was difficult,” said Zwick, remembering his childhood. “If you didn’t have the right clothes, you weren’t cool.”

Now, as an adult, Zwick said, he doesn’t have any problems with the way he was raised at all. Friendship with the immigrants and undocumented workers whom the Houston Catholic Worker assists changed his worldview for the better, he said, mentioning how jarring it is for him today to hear “wetback” jokes that are common in Houston. Like Burke, Zwick said the most unsettling aspect of growing up in a Catholic Worker family was coming into contact with people whose values were at odds with those of his family. “The worst of it was junior high when I just didn’t understand how to respond to peer pressure and society and the cruelty of children concerning different values,” he said.

For a time, Zwick’s older sister lived and worked at the Houston Catholic Worker full time. A musician and computer consultant, Zwick said he lives simply but has not chosen to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

“I don’t know that I could do what they do given my interests and desires,” he said. “I don’t see myself at this point in my life dedicating my life to the poor. That’s where I am now. I’m not as religious as my parents are, certainly in a specific Catholic sense. They have a much stronger faith than I do, and there’s a direct connection with that and what they do.”

Tom Christopher Cornell and Deirdre Cornell are Catholic Workers following in the footsteps of their parents, Tom and Monica Cornell. “I never wanted to reject it outright. I’ve rebelled in the sense of wanting to do it differently,” said Tom Christopher Cornell, who with his parents is part of the community at the Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, N.Y.

Middle-class ‘normal’ life

But perhaps just as typical is the experience of the Dowdy family at the Peter Maurin Farm. Ralph Dowdy, whose sons were 5 and 7 when he and his wife moved to the Peter Maurin Farm, said neither of his sons, now ages 22 and 24, has any desire to stay with the Catholic Worker.

“They don’t want voluntary poverty. They want to live a middle-class ‘normal’ American life,” Dowdy said.

“I fought with them about this,” said Dowdy. “Not to buy such expensive cars or clothes. You can have good transportation and not spend $18,000 on a car.”

Dowdy remembers his anxiety about the safety of his sons when the family first moved to the Peter Maurin Farm. “I was really paranoid about it, to be honest,” he said. For their part, Dowdy said he knows his sons faced some sensitive moments negotiating the differences between how their family lived and how their friends’ families lived.

“I know when my kids’ friends came over and realized we live in a renovated barn, [my kids] were a little embarrassed. But it didn’t seem to affect their relationship with those kids too much,” Dowdy said. “They participated in school.”

Is there advice Catholic Worker parents would give to others seeking to combine family with the movement Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin founded?

Ralph Dowdy said a couple should examine how solid the relationship is between them. “It’s always harder on the woman. The woman is expected to cook, to take care of the kids, to take care of the hospitality, and so often the man is off saving the world,” Dowdy said.

Start off small, advised Monica Cornell. “Be familiar with Dorothy and Peter’s legacy.”

Tamar Hennessy said no advice is necessary. “That’s the wonderful thing about the Catholic Worker. Everybody does it in their own way. They don’t need advice. They work it out.”

National Catholic Reporter, March 7, 2003