fuliy difficult for mosr humans ro - The Sparrows` Nest

R
A Rewlution
Essays on the
VIEw
of the Heart:
Catholic Worker
God's truth. And that truth, whether in
edited by Patrick G. Coy
Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1988.
the times ofJeremiah and Amos or those
of Ronald Reagan, has always been pain-
fuliy difficult for mosr
humans ro
accept. The truth specifically ider:tified
with the Catholic'Worker Movemenr
By Lawrence F. Barmann
Editor's note:
A Revolution of the Heart
was the Catholic Book Club's featured selection this autumn. Patrick Coy was coordinator
of SLU's peace anil justiee ministry when he
edited the book,
and its contributors include
two alumni: Janice Brandon-Falcone (Crad
'83) and Angie O'Gorman (Crad'88).
has been that of the preferential option
for the poor through voluntary poverry
and that of the role of peacemaker in the
Christian scheme of things. In an
America which has put its societal faith
in the weapons of "nuclear deterrence,"
and which makes the success of one's
acquisitiveness the measure of one's
human value, such prophetic rvitness to
Dovertv aaC peacc ilecessarily rubs
Q
aint Louis Universiry, like most pri-
L)vate American universities, has a
mission statement in the form of a
"creed." This creed is a profession of
institutional values, a justification for
the institution's existence. Saint Louis
University's creed begins by stating:
"We believe in God. We believe in the
personal dignity ofeach individual person"; and it concludes with the words:
"We believe in the teachings of Christ,
rvho held that Morality musr regulate
the personal, family, economic, political
and international life of all people if
civilization is to endure."
This particular creed is supposed to
articulate the values and atmosphere in
which education at Saint Louis (Jniversity takes place. It suggesrs that if one
attends this school, as opposed to some
other, then these values and ideas will be
a conscious dimension of the whole
educational enterprise. Now if any of the
University's alumni fear thar they
rusheci through their undergraduare
experience so unreflectively as to have
missed th_ip distinctive dime-nsion, or feel,they neej a refresher course in the values
and insights which their'education was'
supposed to be about, then they could
not do better now than to read from
cover to cover A Revolution of the Heart.
This book is about that uniquely
American lay Catholic combination of
spirituality and action, begun by Peter
Maurin and Dororhy Day in the 1930s,
and still alive and well and flourishing in
our own times, known as the Catholic
Vorker Movement. From its inception,
and through the persons ofits two originators, this Movement was prophetic in
the biblical sense ofspeaking and doing
-\ i\ 1 Vef St 4gS ,
r".-
against the grain. The Catholic Worker
witness is a constant challenge to the
always present rendenry among Christians and rvithin Christian institutions
to domesticate, and thus to trivialize, the
radical demands of biblical rrurh.
Catholic Worker houses are nor uropias,
and they are often not even very peaceful; but they are communities of Christians struggling valiantly to live the
biblical values of peace and material
detachment in the service of society's
outcasts. And these values are, in contemporary American society, in grave
danger of being lost enrirely, or worse,
. simply erplained away.
The essays in this book, as rvith any
collection from many writers, are of different lengths, different tones, and dif-
ferent quality. But all of them are
worthwhile, and all of them in their different ways act as mirrors for our ow'n
self-scrutiny as value oriented people.
The book is civicied inro lhree paiii: thrgreat personalities of the movemenr, the
theory and spirituality of the movement,
and tw'o !ase historie; of-Catholic
Worker houses. The five essays of the
first section deal wirh Pet'er Maurin,
Dorothy Day, and Ammon Hennacy.
Eileen Egan's essay on Dorothy Day is
twice as long as the others in this section, and it has a very special witness
value. Egan was a companion of Day's
for many years, serving with her in soup
kitchens, on picket lines, and in jail; and
her account of Dorothy Day has that
special charism of one who has experienced (in the fullest meaning of that
word) the person and situations of
which
she
writes. Patrick Coy's essay on
Ammon Hennacy in this section is
a
wonderfully balanced and sympathetic
presentation of rhis Christian anarchist
who thought of himself as a one-person
revolution. The freshness and insight of
Coy's presentarion of Hennary is most
likely not unconnected with the wrirer's
own lived sharing of many of Hennacy's
values and approaches to changing socie:y.
In the book's second section, Daniel
DiDomizio's essay on "The Prophetic
Spirituality of the Catholic Worker" is a
profound introduction, for any person
of good will, to the
raison d'etre a;nd
the
of the Catholic Worker
Movemenr. And the insights of this
essay are filled out by three others
<icaiing rvilh aspecrs oi rhis spiriruaiity
such as the "free obedience" of the
modus operanrli
members, the effort to live nonviolence
on a day to day basis, and pacifism. The
book's final sectioh deals with the case
histories of two Catholic Worker houses
in St. Louis and Chicago.
Saint Louis University alumni who
might be inclined ro make a spiritual
retreat to review the specifically Christian dimensions o[ their persons could
not do so more effectively than by
ruminating on the pages of this quiet but
deep collection of essays.
Dr. Lawrence Barmann (A€rS '56, P€rL
'57, Div '54) is professor of histttry and
American stuilies at the (Jniuersity.