Catherine Doherty, a certified dreamer
“All men who have religion of some sort are dreamers, and dreamers of a very special kind. They dream of unity between God and men.”
-- Servant of God Catherine Doherty, Strannik
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Photo courtesy of catherinedoherty.org.
See the updated version of this post: The Coffee Cup 2.0 published in July 2016.
There’s an old story about Dorothy Day and a coffee cup. It’s a story that’s gone around a bunch of times, told by many people, all representing Dorothy in their own way. Like the game of “telephone,” in which the message spoken by the first player at the beginning of the game is completely warped by the last player at the end of the game, the coffee cup story has actually morphed into two distinct versions of what most certainly was one actual event.
In both versions of the story, a Mass was celebrated at Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker House in New York City. Apparently, instead of a chalice, the priest chose to use a styrofoam coffee cup. The two versions of the story developed around Dorothy’s reaction. One account says that Dorothy was perturbed, even horrified, by the idea of using a coffee cup in the celebration of the Mass. It wasn’t fitting; it dishonored the Lord. This version of events says that after Mass, Dorothy found the coffee cup and carefully buried it in the earth behind the house, bringing some closure to what Dorothy felt was an error in judgment and a bit of scandal in her House.
The other version of the story says that Dorothy was profoundly touched by the use of the coffee cup. A small, white, styrofoam coffee cup is the cup of the people, the cup of the poor. It was perfectly fitting to use it in the sacrifice of the Mass; it honored the Lord. Whether or not Dorothy buried the cup in this version of events is unclear. But what is clear is the idea that this Eucharistic cup embraced the plight of the poor. The coffee cup brought together the suffering of Christ and the very real situation of human poverty.
One interesting thing about this story is that from what I know of Dorothy Day, either version could be true. She was what you might call authentically Catholic. She embraced the liturgy in all of its meaning and symbolism. She understood it; she lived it. But she also embraced the poor – their marginalization, their pain, her own responsibility toward them. She understood and lived that as well. Dorothy Day was not predictable or classifiable. She was just Catholic. She was just faithful.
In our contemporary American Church, where would Dorothy Day fit in? Would her reaction to the coffee cup place her in a certain “camp”? I doubt that either side of our polarized Church would be 100% comfortable with Dorothy. And I doubt Dorothy would spend one minute worrying about it.
After writing this, I did some digging (not literally) and it seems that the most likely “true story” is somewhere in the middle (as usual). Jim Forest, a close associate and biographer of Dorothy Day, writes that after the “coffee cup Mass”, Dorothy said nothing but simply buried the coffee cup (and the sandwich plate that was used as a paten!) in the back yard. She was always happy to have a Mass and did not criticize the way the priest chose to celebrate it. But as in all things, she wanted things to be right. I also found this striking commentary about Dorothy, also by Jim Forest:
“We live in a post-Christian world. Christian activity and Christian belief are not normal, even among Christians. Most of us are constantly trying to conform ourselves to the people at the front of the crowd, so that our religious activities aren’t too ridiculous and too embarrassing and too isolating. Dorothy Day was able to work through that and to find the place where she would be free to be a believer. And when you are with one of those people, it hits you pretty hard.”
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For an updated version of this blog post, with memories by Jim Forest, click here.
“Long ago and far away an ordinary man called John laid his head on the breast of Christ and listened to the heartbeats of the Lord. Who can venture to guess what that man felt as he heard the beat of that mighty heart? None of us can ever be in his place, but all of us could hear, if we would but listen, the heartbeats of God, the song of love he sings to us whom he has loved so much.”
-- Catherine Doherty, The Gospel without Compromise
“We Russians used to talk about this in New York. We had a very rough time when we first came. We were overworked and underpaid. We used to discuss among ourselves how we survived. We came to the conclusion that we survived because we really believed that God was our rest. When I asked a friend of mine, ‘How do we survive?’ this is exactly what she said: ‘Oh, we have Christ for a pillow.’”
-- Catherine Doherty, Poustinia
In the last blog post, I wrote about the friendship between Catherine Doherty and Dorothy Day. They prayed for one another and visited on occasion, but the “maintenance” of their friendship took place in the letters they exchanged throughout the years.
Below is an excerpt of a letter from Catherine to Dorothy. In it Catherine describes a beautiful way of praying. Catherine was known for bringing Russian Orthodox traditions to the west and “translating” them for Catholics in North America, who she felt were spiritually hungry but lacking in the deep spiritual practices she had experienced growing up in Russia. In the passage below, Catherine writes about taking “pilgrimages” into her past and visiting the “shrines” she found there: the graces, gifts, sorrows and joys that she had experienced throughout her life. In her book Poustinia, Catherine wrote that Russians were serious about pilgrimage – they traipsed all over the huge country – pilgrimage was a way of life. But even the most seasoned religious traveler discovered that in the end, to be a pilgrim means to journey within.
I invite you to reflect on Catherine’s words and consider praying this way, too. Which shrines of your past should be revisited – what joys and sorrows? Can you look back and recognize God’s presence in your life in the people, places and events that shaped you?
“It has been now over a month that a great desire to write to you has come to my heart. I have been making, as you know, ‘pilgrimages’ into my distant and not so distant yesterdays, stopping now here, now there, to render thanks to the Lord of Life, for this special grace or that, for this wonderful gift or sorrow and for that infinite moment of joy. Short as my life is, as any human life is, there are, strange to say, many a shrine in it before which, as is the custom of my people, I can bow low from the waist, touching the earth with my hands, and singing alleluias in my heart for each…. Amongst the memories of my yesterdays is a shrine that I reached into today, at which, in a manner of speaking, I still worship. Long ago and far away I arose in search of the Lord…. [O]ut of nowhere, you came, and hand in hand, we walked together.”
You can read the full text of Catherine’s letter to Dorothy in an article about the friendship between Catherine and Dorothy, written by Fr. Bob Wild, the postulator for Catherine’s cause for canonization.
Fr. Wild has also written a book assembling the letters of Catherine and Dorothy entitled “Comrades Stumbling Along: The Friendship of Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Dorothy Day as Revealed Through Their Letters.”
Catherine Doherty and Dorothy Day, 1957