Catherine Doherty & Dorothy Day: Friends, Servants of God

Some friendships were just meant to be.  Such was the friendship between Catherine Doherty and the better-known social activist Dorothy Day (click here for previous posts about Catherine).  Fr. Bob Wild, the postulator for Catherine’s cause for canonization, wrote of Catherine and Dorothy:  “They were almost mirror images of each other:  their apostolates covered roughly the same historical period, from 1930-1980, totally loyal Catholics, serving the poor, conditioned by the Great Depression, women of prayer, dedicated to the Church, founders of movements that continue to this day.” 

                 Dorothy and Catherine

Although Catherine and Dorothy never had as much time together as they would have liked, they maintained a deep friendship through correspondence and an occasional visit.  They supported one another through thick and thin, experiencing many of the same challenges in their common work of serving the poor and marginalized.  At times they were discouraged by their work – Catherine writes of times they would meet together at Child’s in New York (“where you could get three coffee refills”) – and how they would sit together holding hands and crying into their coffee cups (“I mean honest, big tears….  We had had it!”).  But they prodded one another along the narrow path – and both are now honored by the Church with the title “Servant of God” as their causes for canonization are underway.  Both women had their share of bumps along the road, and there will certainly be bumps along the road to canonization, too.  And for them, of course, the title “saint” means nothing.  They ran the good race and fought the good fight; they served until the end and poured themselves out as libations for the little ones, the ones in need, the ones who are Christ in this world.  But for us, to call them “saint” would be a privilege.  It would allow us to speak the recognition, each time we say their names, that they did the single thing we are all supposed to do – the thing we want to do but don’t have the courage:  they followed the two great commandments until it hurt.

This is how Catherine described their last meeting in 1978:

“Well, this was quite a red letter day as far as I was concerned. It was the fact that I met Dorothy Day. She had her 81st birthday. She looks so thin, so thin. Life is sort of ebbing out of her. Only her eyes are still sparkly. For me this was a red letter day. To me there was really nobody there, only Dorothy. I looked at her, and I sort of took her in with my whole heart, my mind, my eyes, my body, my everything. And I said to myself, ‘Catherine, you are meeting a saint. Don’t you ever forget it, the saint of New York.”

The relationship between Catherine and Dorothy is a testament to friendship.  In this life, we either make the way smoother for each other, or we place obstacles in each other’s paths.  The mutual love between these women, grounded in the love of God, made the road ahead of both of them a bit less dark and dangerous.  It gave them both more courage to love. 

As Fr. Wild wrote:  “[It] will be a glorious and historically significant sight when Catherine’s and Dorothy’s huge beautiful portraits shine together in the brilliant Roman sunlight on the façade of St. Peter’s.”

Click here to read Fr. Bob’s article about Catherine Doherty and Dorothy Day.

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The Cross in the Poustinia

Among Servant of God Catherine Doherty’s greatest legacies is her re-invention or re-imagination of the Russian custom of “poustinia.”  A poustinik, or one who was called to enter into a poustinia, was someone who heard the call of God and retreated into the Russian forest to live a life of solitude and prayer in a small, sparsely furnished cabin (his “poustinia”).  The poustinik would live in this cabin for the rest of his life, or until God called him out to speak the word he had learned in his poustinia.  The word was not the result of study or intelligence.  It was a prophetic word, the crystallized result of many, many hours of solitude.

In her spiritual masterpiece, Poustinia, Catherine describes this sparse cabin – the place where the poustinik would endure hours of loneliness and quiet, where he in some mystical way held all of humanity with him, where he encountered God in the silence:

The poustinia must be stark in its simplicity and poverty.  It must contain a table and a chair.  On the table there must be a bible.  There should also be a pencil and some paper.  In one corner are a basin and pitcher for washing up.  The bed, if bed there be, should be a cot with wooden slats instead of a mattress, a couple of blankets or quilts and a pillow if absolutely necessary….  Drinking water, a loaf of bread…the makings for tea and coffee.  Prominent in the poustinia is a cross without a corpus, about six feet by three feet, which is nailed to the wall, and an icon of Our Lady in the eastern corner with a vigil light in front of it.  The cross without a corpus is a symbol of one’s own crucifixion on it, for those of us who love Christ passionately want to be crucified with him so as to know the joy of his resurrection.

The most striking aspect of this description (besides the lack of mattress!) is the life-sized cross that dominated the small poustinia.  Catherine repeats the words of a Russian proverb:  “The cross of Jesus has two sides.”  One side is for Jesus.  And the other side, of course, is for each one of us.

The life of the poustinik may seem unattainable and even unreal to most of us.  But according to Catherine, we are all called to be poustiniks (more on this later!).  For now, it is enough to ponder – have you seen the cross on the wall of your own poustinia?  Do you turn away from it, or do you meditate on it?  Are you willing to suffer on your side of the cross, so that you may love him passionately, and know the joy of his resurrection?

The Hope of the World by William Kurelek depicts a poustinia on the grounds of Madonna House, Combermere, Canada,

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Encouraging Words about Our Church

Catherine Doherty (see Feb. 18 post) was a woman of prayer who could rightfully be called a mystic.  She was a mystic who was equally comfortable spending days in silence with God, or sitting in a diner having coffee with an old friend.  Her mysticism came out of something very primitive:  a core belief that human beings belong in the presence of God. 

I recently read a passage from one of Catherine’s classics, Molchanie:  Experiencing the Silence of God.  In it she describes a spiritual journey into the silence of God.  She tells of the temptations she faces, the things she sees, the ways she experiences God.  The passage that had my attention was her description of the Church, which she encounters while on this pilgrimage of prayer.  She sees the Church torn apart.  She fears for the Church. 

I could identify with what Catherine saw and what she feared.  We all can.  We worry about our Church, like we worry about our families.  We wonder what to do to breathe life into her, to serve the folks falling through the cracks, to restore the image of the Church as something beautiful but humble.

I found Catherine’s words very comforting, because she reminded me what Christ does for his Church, that he loves her more than I ever could, and that I too can rest “among the pines” in the knowledge that the light of the Church is continually renewed by Christ himself:

“From a vantage point in gentle mountains I saw the Church….  There she stood, above the tree line, shining in the rays of the noonday sun.  She was beautiful and simple, with her doors wide open, and into her streamed rich and poor alike.  As I beheld the Church, awe took hold of me.  These words from the Old Testament came to me:  ‘Take off your shoes; the place is holy”….

When I looked again, the scene had changed.  A disruption, a dismemberment or tearing apart seemed to be taking place.  The doors through which so many people had passed were being barred.  I shook my head and tried to clear my eyes, for they were filling up with tears.  I couldn’t believe the people of God were causing all this turmoil!  But they were.  Each had his own idea of the Church….

As my father had taught me to do, I lifted the ‘two arms’ – of prayer and fasting – for the Church.  At the same time I realized that the Church was the beautiful, shining Bride of Christ.  He had said that the gates of hell would not prevail against her.  I knew that she was his beloved, and that he, God, was all tenderness, all love, towards her.  She passed in front of my eyes, the beloved of God....

Yes, I saw the Church torn apart.  I was going to weep, but then I saw Christ putting her back together again, she who had come from his side.  There was music in the air, and she became whole again.  So I was at peace for a little while, because I knew that the Church is forever being restored and renewed in her Lord.  We celebrate his resurrection from death once a year, but he restores his Church every moment of the day and night.  

I relaxed among the pines.  It was night.  Brighter than all the stars and the moon was the Church, shining in the darkness.”

Excerpt from Molchanie:  Experiencing the Silence of God, Madonna House Publications.

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The Baroness

One of my favorite spiritual guides is Catherine de Hueck Doherty, known to many as “The Baroness”, or affectionately, “The B.”  Catherine lived an unbelievable life – full of adventure and sacrifice – from wealthy aristocracy, to war refugee, to waitress, to career woman, to voluntary poverty.  Despite her fantastic life, Catherine remains relatable.  She had all the ups and downs of life that “the rest of us” experience.  She experienced many failures – of relationships, of her work.  She had moments of desperation and confusion, times of financial ruin, doubts about being a good mother.  Once she stood on a bridge in New York City and came very close to jumping off.  But Catherine believed she saw the face of Christ in the water, and she kept on living.  Even though she was not always certain of her path, she kept chugging, and the trajectory of her life resulted in amazing things. 

Catherine Doherty – like her contemporary and friend Dorothy Day – is now honored with the title “Servant of God” as the cause for her canonization is officially underway.  I’ll be posting more about her life and spirituality, but if you’re interested in learning more, you’ll find information about her life and excerpts from her writings at www.catherinedoherty.org. And if you’re looking for an insightful read that just might change your perspective on prayer, I highly recommend one of Catherine’s classics:  Poustinia. 

Below is a photo of the young Catherine taken by Thomas Merton!

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