News from Carbon County Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
From: Ericka Williams-Rodriguez <ericka.wi...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: Invitation from Kairos Community to sign a letter
To: Bernard Survil <bsu...@uscatholicpriests.us>
Cc: Fr Terry Moran <tmo...@scnj.org>, Bill Hartman <billhar...@gmail.com>, E Farrell <efar...@scnj.org>, Claire Schaeffer <ther...@aol.com>, Shane Claiborne <circusre...@gmail.com>, Art Laffin <artl...@hotmail.com>, Kathy Kelly <ka...@vcnv.org>,Suzanne Shanley <pe...@agapecommunity.org>, Kim and Steve Williams-Baggarly <williams...@gmail.com>, Patrick O'Neill <pmto...@aol.com>, Patricia Kirpatrick <pki...@gmail.com>, Pat Sieber <pks2...@yahoo.com>, Patricia McGarvey Knebels <pab...@yahoo.com>, beth centz <beth...@yahoo.com>, Johanna Berrigan <jberr...@yahoo.com>, Margaret McKenna <marga...@gmail.com>, Mary Anne Grady Flores <gradyf...@gmail.com>, Martha Hennessy <marthah...@tds.net>, mark colville <markcolv...@gmail.com>,Carmen Trotta <trotta...@yahoo.com>, Bud Courtney <bud.co...@aol.com>, Cassie McDonald <peaceca...@gmail.com>, Marge VanCleef <m...@igc.org>, Bill Wylie-Kellermann <bwkell...@gmail.com>, Bill Quigley <quig...@gmail.com>, Robert G. Randall Brunswick II <rran...@compuserve.com>, Margaret Betz <mar...@yahoo.com>, Sarah Cool <cools...@gmail.com>, Patrick O'Neill <consist...@aol.com>, Bill & Sue Frankel Frankel-Streit <suefrank...@gmail.com>, Chrissy Nesbitt <chrissy...@gmail.com>,Chris Doucot <dou...@sbcglobal.net>, Stephen Kobasa <stephen...@gmail.com>, John Bach <john...@yahoo.com>, John Schudhardt <thehous...@yahoo.com>, Tom Quigley <tjfe...@gmail.com>, Tom Fenlon <tbfe...@aol.com>, Tom Mullian <tommu...@aol.com>, Esther Cassidy <robk...@aol.com>, Bill Dyson <dysonw...@att.net>, Brian Terrell <br...@vcnv.org>, Beth Brockman <brockm...@gmail.com>, Bill Brisotti <olmm...@optonline.net>, Paul Magno <pmag...@gmail.com>, Joseph Byrne <drjeb...@gmail.com>, Joanne Kennedy <kennedy...@gmail.com>, Amanda Daloisio <amanda....@gmail.com>, Bill Ofenloch <billof...@gmail.com>, George Day <day...@gmail.com>, Valeria Avina <vale...@gmail.com>, Dean Hammer <dhamme...@gmail.com>, Wendy Leitner-Sieber <w.leitn...@gmail.com>, Scott Langley <sc...@scottlangleyphoto.com>, Heather Scott <heathe...@yahoo.com>, Dexter Alan Lanctot <epiphan...@gmail.com>, Brian Hynes <brian...@verizon.net>, House of Grace <eini...@yahoo.com>, David Hoovler <dhoo...@ndm.edu>, Denise Griebler <dgri...@sbcglobal.net>, Teresa Grady <teresabgc...@gmail.com>, Teresa Reyes <re...@romero-center.org>, Ched Myers <ched...@bcm-net.org>, Leah Grady Sayvetz <leahl...@gmail.com>, Kate Berrigan <katebe...@gmail.com>, Frida Berrigan <frida.b...@gmail.com>, Global Network <glob...@mindspring.com>, JOHN LaFORGE <jmichae...@yahoo.com>, vincent eirene' <vincen...@gmail.com>, Kate Champa <kch...@cox.net>, Joan Wages <jmg...@yahoo.com>,Sheila Stumph <she...@langleycreations.com>, Daniel Sicken <dhsi...@yahoo.com>, Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa <nukere...@igc.org>, Jack P Travers <payden...@gmail.com>, Molly Rush <molly...@verizon.net>, Barry Roth <br...@bidmc.harvard.edu>, Grace Ritter <gracie....@gmail.com>, Megan Rice <mri...@gmail.com>, Paul&Katja Rehm <kpr...@aol.com>, Jim Reale <openbodyo...@yahoo.com>, Bill Marston <wsfma...@gmail.com>, Malachy Kilbride <malachy...@yahoo.com>, Mary Grace <mgrr...@gmail.com>, Melissa Elliott <puddi...@sprintmail.com>, Bannan Marilyn <marily...@yahoo.com>, Tim Quinn <timoth...@sbcglobal.net>, Tim Boylan <tbo...@gmail.com>, Rothlein Joan <roth...@gmail.com>, James Cunningham <james...@gmail.com>, Clare Grady <clare...@gmail.com>, Kathy Boylan <kathyb...@gmail.com>
I have been volunteering for the Carbon County Dorothy Day House food pantry for about a year now, and in that year I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what it means to be engaged in the Catholic Worker Movement. In particular I have been thinking about the Benedictine motto “Ora et Labora,” or “pray and work,” which appears in a well known print by Ade Bethune and pretty well captures the vision that Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day (who was herself a Benedictine oblate) had for the movement: untiring labor for the dignity of all, reinforced by serious spiritual contemplation.
Something I’ve discovered in my short time with the Catholic Worker is the remarkable way work itself can feel prayerful. The labor I do for the food pantry is physical and repetitive, involving a lot of menial lifting and setting things down, sometimes in funny and cumbersome ways. One day I piled high, by hand, some 250 or 300 summer squash in my car because I had no boxes for them. A different day, the same thing, but with one hundred or so cantaloupes. Still another time I had a rogue cabbage bonk me in the back of the head while driving down a steep hill. I think, somehow, that it is in these moments of especially unwieldy work that I feel most connected to the Catholic Worker, its mission and its purpose.
That’s because it is in these moments that I find myself in most solemn, quiet contemplation: of the gift of food and the grace of those who do their part to share it; also of the reality of chronic hunger, the longing for peace and freedom that feel so far away from us (Isaiah 59:11). I imagine each of my movements, loading and unloading boxes, as a little whittling into the mystery of salvation and justice in this life, the way a thumb may wear down the edges of a page in meditation. They bring me a little closer to God, each of them.
This is what I think draws a lot of us to the Catholic Worker, this desire to bring together the spiritual revelation of the self through prayer with the transformation of material conditions through our labor. There is a certain duty for Catholic Workers to recognize that the work is both never ending and never enough. And that is what makes the work worthwhile.
As I write this, the Carbon County Dorothy Day House is in the process of moving into the former St. Michael Roman Catholic Church in Lansford. The construction of this building was financed by the garnished wages of mine workers, and the site, like everything around it, is located on land stolen from the Lenni-Lenape people. This is something we commit ourselves to recognizing, that mitigating harm in the present means confronting the immutable harms of the past. In some small, strange way, the humiliation of falling into a snowbank with a stack of boxes in my arms helps me connect with that duty to recognize. Humiliating is the unjust world that we have made; humbling is the work we do to change it. Ora et labora.
Count Bernie Survil of Pax Christi Greensburg and Stop Banking The Bomb Pittsburgh in on this letter to the USCCB regarding the TPNW.More attainable in the short run is to get PNC Bank to divest its $1Billion Plus in nukes. Your endorsement of the letter requested. No need to have a PNC account to endorse.Go to: http://www.abetterpncbnk.org then click the top tab "Sign onto Petition." You will find that Molly Rush of Pittsburgh and the first Plowshares action of 1980 and Helen Caldicott, MD, winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize have already endorsed.On Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 12:44:49 PM EST, Fr Terry Moran <tmo...@scnj.org> wrote:Dear Atlantic Life Community,
Find attached a letter from the Kairos Community to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urging them, in their engagement with the Biden administration, to promote the US ratifying the UN Treaty for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. If you would like to sign on to the letter, please respond by Monday, December 21 with your name as you want it to appear, any affiliation you’d like to note, and your city and state, e.g.
Mary Smith Peter Maurin Catholic Worker Sacramento, CA.
Advent blessings of peace,
Terry
Fr. Terrence J. Moran
Office of Peace, Justice and Ecological Integrity
Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth
PO Box 476
Convent Station, NJ 07961-0476