Prophets Of Our Time: Single For God
Two of the greatest prophets of recent times, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, founders of the Catholic Worker Movement were “single for God” and “singular” witnesses to their vocation.
Dorothy Day – Woman of the World, God’s World
Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism was born in 1897 in Brooklyn New York. A journalist and Social Activist, Dorothy who in her young adult years flirted with Communism, lived a Bohemian lifestyle, was briefly married, had love affairs and lived with her partner Forster Battterham with whom she had a daughter, Tamar, eventually embraced a life of deep engaged faith. She experienced a gradual spiritual awakening, began attending Mass at a nearby Catholic Church and had her daughter baptized. She took the courageous step of leaving Batterham, a man she loved deeply, for the sake of a passionate response to God’s call. Dorothy herself became a Catholic in 1927. In 1932 Dorothy met Peter Maurin with whom she would found the Catholic Worker Movement.
The Catholic Worker Movement was the fruit of a, by-then single life, committed to God. The Movement began with the publication of the Catholic Worker, a newspaper first issued and sold in Union Square, New York priced at a penny a copy. It spread the word and work of Catholic Social Teaching. The Catholic Worker Movement that continues to this day was and is committed to the poor, those on the margins of society and to social justice in the face of war, violence and greed. It is grounded in the Gospel call of the Beatitudes and on a principle of respect for all persons, made in the Image of God. Dorothy’s “ultimately” single vocation, her transformation in the Sprit made all of this possible. In her lifetime she was called a saint, something she disliked enormously and yet holiness was something she believed all were called to. A woman of profound prayer, she said, “the Mass is the work”, she was also a woman of passionate action for God, for God’s people and world. An example to us all, Dorothy stands as a special witness to the holiness and potential of a single life, a vocation to true and uncompromising Gospel living in the world.
Peter Maurin – Immigrant and “God’s vagabond”
Born in 1877, one of 24 children, into a poor farming family in Sothern France, Peter Maurin spent a brief time discerning his vocation with the De La Salle Brothers. Realizing this vocation was not his call he immigrated to Canada where he tried his hand working the land in Saskatchewan. Following the accidental death of his work partner, Maurin eventually moved to New York City. For a period of 10 years he left the church saying simply “I was not living life as a Catholic should.” That was to change. Inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi Maurin embraced, with total commitment, Gospel simplicity of life and trust in God. After his meeting with Dorothy Day in 1932 he co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement being instrumental in encouraging the opening of the Movement’s houses of hospitality for the poor, simple farming communities of faith and gatherings to help people understand the treasures and call of Catholic Social Teaching for Justice. Like Dorothy Day, Maurin’s single life of faith created and sustained one of the great Gospel movements of his time and of today.