We offer this Saints Novena in gratitude for the ways God lives and moves and has being in the lives of all the saints who are part of this online community. We give thanks for you and for the gift of God that you are to us and to the world. It is because of people like you that there is this awesome place of hospitality and gospel community. This novena is written by the A Nun’s Life Community.

7 Saints Novena – Dorothy Day – by Bcoop

Reflection: Dorothy Day (born: November 8, 1897; died: November 29, 1980)

Dorothy Day on picket line with farm workers in Lamont, California, 1973

I wonder how Dorothy feels about being “nominated for official sainthood”? She is reputed to have said: “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.” Saints do run the danger of being “photoshopped” – all their quirks and warts smoothed away until they appear as bland as marshmallows. That might be more difficult to do with Dorothy.

Dorothy’s whole life was marked by concern for the injustices of society and the plight of destitute people. She spent her life joining charity and justice. As she said: “There was a great question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying social evils instead of avoiding them in the first place? . . . Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves but to do away with slavery?” (Long Loneliness, p. 45)

Dorothy’s first job as a journalist was with the New York Call, a socialist newspaper. Her reporter colleagues were socialists, communists, labour organizers for the American Federation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World and various free thinkers and anarchists opposed to conscription and the entry of the United States into World War I.

The labour movement, socialist ideas, and her own experiences of hardship had a strong influence on Dorothy’s commitment to social justice. At the same time, she was searching for some inner connection with the God who was enticing her. Brought up in a nominally Protestant home, Dorothy was drawn to the ritual of the Catholic Church.

In 1927 Dorothy’s daughter, Tamar, was born and was baptized in the Catholic Church. Dorothy said: “I did not want my child to flounder as I had often floundered. I wanted to believe, and I wanted my child to believe, and if belonging to a Church would give her so inestimable a grace as faith in God, and the companionable love of the Saints, then the thing to do was to have her baptized a Catholic.”

Dorothy’s interest in religion, as well as the birth of Tamar, led to the break-up of her common-law marriage. This freed her to be received into the Catholic Church and started her on a search to bring together her faith and her social values.

In 1932 Dorothy met Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker was born. These communities still work to fulfil these words of Dorothy: “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”

Prayer:  Help us dear Dorothy, to overcome our fear with love, our selfishness with compassion, and our anger with peace.

Suggested Reading:

• Main website for the Catholic Worker
• Social Justice Teachings, Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City

Join A Nun’s Life Community for a day of events in honor of All Saints! See the schedule for the day’s events in the sidebar to the right. And please consider participating in A Nun’s Life fundraiser going on now through November 9. We need to raise $10,000 for much needed equipment and supplies. See our fundraiser page for more information. You may be eligible to win a brand-new iPad 2!

AS068 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on April 15, 2011, at the Motherhouse of the Racine Dominicans. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org Ministry. Topics include: making your own scapular, opposing human trafficking, becoming a nun, the Stations of the Cross.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Can you make your own scapular?
• How can scapulars be blessed, and what does the blessing do?
• Do the Racine Dominican sisters have associates, and if so, what is associate life like?
• The call to social justice–how the Racine Dominicans and other sisters are working against human trafficking?
• Ways to pray the Stations of the Cross, including an app for your smart phone!

Do you have a question for us? Visit our new portress Sister Mary Evoca http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

A prayer for peace in honor of Memorial Day by Pope John Paul II …

Mary, Queen of Peace, we entrust our lives to you.

Shelter us from war, hatred and oppression.

Teach us to live in peace, to educate ourselves for peace.

Inspire us to act justly, to revere all God has made.

Root peace firmly in our hearts and in our world.

Amen.

For whom would you like to pray this day?

Don’t miss this article by Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, “Quietly Doing God’s Work” (April 17, 2008). Here’s a quote from the article:

At approximately the same time the pope was standing in the White House, Sister Carmen Soto was standing in a food pantry on Monroe Street in Mount Pleasant, 3 miles north of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave….

In the last week I’ve received a couple personal requests for help. Normally I do not write about such things because requests are often difficult to verify, but these two really struck me as authentic calls for help. Both have web sites which you can check out should you choose.

1. Brittany Harrison is a young woman who is seeking entrance into a religious community. She has student loans to pay off before she can enter. This is a requirement of Canon Law, that a person entering religious life be debt-free. This can often be a challenge, especially for those of us who put ourselves through college. Brittany has asked people to help her pay off her student loans so that she can enter the community. Visit Brittany’s blog Into the Deep to learn more about her story.
2. Velia Koppenhoefer is the mother of Efren Paredes, Jr. She is asking for justice for her son, a Latino honor student who was arrested at age 15 and sentenced to life in prison for a murder and armed robbery he did not commit in 1989. Velia is asking for people to learn more about her son’s story and to consider signing a petition seeking a new trial for her son. You can read more about the petition and Efren’s story at www.petitionspot.com/petitions/4Efren. You can also check out the following web sites:

• www.4Efren.com
• www.myspace.com/4Efren
• www.facebook.com/p/Efren_Paredes_Jr/751765345