FROM THE CARDINAL

SPRING 2019

IN DECEMBER 1932, DOROTHY DAY KNELT in the crypt of the newly built Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. “I offered up a special prayer,” she wrote, “that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.”

The following day, she would return to New York and find the visionary Peter Maurin waiting for her with a brilliant proposal that would become the blueprint for the Catholic Worker movement. Listening to him, Dorothy had the grace to understand that her prayer had been answered. She went on to become perhaps the most influential American Catholic of the 20th century, a true servant of God and, maybe one day, Saint Dorothy Day.

Reading this issue of Archways, I hope you will feel the joy with which Dorothy greeted God’s creation, even when she felt frustration with an earthly system that impoverished some and visited injustice on others. I hope you will feel God’s hope, which stirred within her and made her capable of picking herself up again and again – “the duty of hope,” she called it – to bear witness on behalf of Christ in the world and continue working for the needy.

Most of all, I hope you will feel the love of God as it coursed through Dorothy to the people she served and taught. She was famous for her ability to love the unlovable; to continue serving individuals who responded selfishly, ungraciously or destructively. “They are our brothers and sisters in Christ,” she reminded us.

Elsewhere, you will find a testament to the love of God’s children lived out by the women and men of ArchCare, the health-care service of the Archdiocese of New York. The doctors, nurses, chaplains and other caregivers of ArchCare, both professional and volunteer, deliver God’s love in the very tangible forms of medicine, food and shelter, but they also deliver the intangible: warmth, attention, caring, the sense of being part of a community and a family. I am thankful every day for this extraordinary team that is dedicated to serving others.

As we welcome spring, looking ahead to milder weather and the deeply meaningful liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter, let us join Dorothy Day as she prayed back in 1932. We’ve had setbacks lately regarding the sanctity of life – but let us remember Dorothy’s “duty of hope” as we pray for a way to redeem a world riven by partisanship and poisoned by cruelty and injustice. And let us be open to receiving and transmitting the love of Christ.