SIGNS OF HOLINESS, Blessed are the Peacemakers

Carolyn Zablotny on behalf of the editorial team • Jun 21, 2023

Upon the publication of this first digital issue of In Our Time , which is dedicated to exploring the primacy of Dorothy Day’s nonviolence, Carolyn Zablotny (on behalf of the editorial team) offers this prayerful reflection.


Saintly people bear witness with their lives to the truth of the Gospel. When we lose hope, when we doubt or even despair, they help to restore our faith. Dorothy counted on their example: saints served as a bedrock of support.


Once she told her friend and biographer, the psychiatrist, Robert Coles, that she hoped to be remembered as “a humble person of faith who tried her best to live in accordance with the Biblical teachings she kept pondering.”

In spite of criticism, isolation, and even imprisonment, she held fast to the truth of the non-violent Jesus. Often she cited the inspiration of St. Francis of Assisi. Fr. Stephen T. Krupa, S.J., (in Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: Centenary Essays , Marquette University Press, 2001), movingly records her testament. It reads like a litany prayed to strengthen us of more wavering convictions in the “law of love”:

Day attempted to render the law of love into countless situations of conflict.

When the nation and the Church sanctioned war, Day refused to abandon
her deep-seated pacifism.

When society and the Church ignored the lynching of black Americans in the  South, Day denounced the hangings and racial violence on the front page of  her newspaper.

When labor demonstrations grew violent, Day called for nonviolent tactics of  resistance and fed and housed striking workers.

When the secular press neglected to report the hiring by factory owners of
scabs to incite violence at strikes, Day reported on the brute tactics used by  management in industry.

When the nation and the Church overlooked the persecution of the Jews by  Hitler, Day denounced the German atrocities.

When the Church ignored or disowned Catholic conscientious objectors
during and after World War II, Day helped them to organize.

When the government consigned Japanese-Americans to internment camps  during World War II, Day was one of the few American newspaper editors to  criticize the injustice in print.

When President Truman delighted in the success of the atomic missions over  Japan, Day took him on in The Catholic Worker with a caustic commentary:  “Mr. Truman was jubilant. President Truman. True Man. What a strange  name, come to think of it. Jubilate Deo. We have killed 318,000 Japanese.”

When the American masses in large cities ran for shelter during the Civil
Defense air raid drills of the 1950s and ‘60s, Day sat down in a New York City  park in protest of the government’s nuclear war propaganda and awaited  arrest for civil disobedience.

When the government and the Catholic Church refused to support  conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, Day backed the young Americans  who burned their draft cards.

When the government and the Church disregarded the misery of non-
unionized farm workers, Day left a scheduled speaking engagement in San  Francisco in the summer of 1973 to join Cesar Chavez and striking farm  workers in a Fresno jail… her final jail sentence before her death in 1980.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus tells us. And blessed, we know, is Dorothy Day. Amen!

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Our deep thanks to Bro. Martin Erspamer, OSB, for the use of his iconic images (preceding columns for “Good Talk,” “Breaking Bread,” “Sowing Seeds,” “Signs of Holiness”)

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Archived Comments

Ruth says:

August 29, 2023 at 5:17 pm

Do you have information about the beautiful art used in this post?

admin says:

October 27, 2023 at 6:32 pm

Hello Ruth, thank you for your question. It is an icon by the artist Brother Martin Erspamer, OSB.

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SOWING SEEDS, What it takes to be a lifelong Catholic Worker

By Claire Schaeffer-Duffy and Scott Schaeffer-Duffy • 26 Apr, 2024
Sharing life with the poor in crowded row houses in a neighborhood where crack cocaine flowed freely was not for everyone. It was eventually not for us. One night at dinner, Carl noted that every man at the table had punched him or Scott at least once. The mayhem we once found exhilarating now exhausted us. Like many Catholic Worker couples, we fell in love while working at the houses. We got married in Washington, DC in 1984 on the feast of a married saint, Thomas More, and then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. We found a cheap apartment and took jobs that gave us flexibility to focus on anti-nuclear activism. To keep life simple, we decided to do no hospitality. That decision did not hold. Shortly after our first child, Justin, was born, Scott served a thirty-day jail sentence for a protest against nuclear weapons. While in jail, he met an inmate who was due to be released before Christmas. Since Kenny had nowhere to go, we took him into our apartment until he could get settled. Hosting him reminded us that we liked the Catholic Worker’s unique combination of the works of mercy with the works of peace and justice. Together with three friends, we spent several months in prayer and discussion to discern the possibility of forming an intentional community. As part of our discernment, we gradually began to incorporate Catholic Worker practices. We ate together weekly and joined a local vigil against nuclear weapons. Inspired by the journalism of Dorothy Day, we began publishing the Catholic Radical, a newsletter that continues to this day. In the summer of 1986, our family moved into a large inner-city apartment with Dan Ethier and Sarah Jeglosky and started the Saints Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker.

SAVED BY BEAUTY, Artists of Hope

By Carolyn Zablotny • 26 Apr, 2024
When the Guild was contemplating the launch of the digital version of its newsletter, In Our Time , we knew we needed some “Ades” of our own to help us. We found them and they found us: Bro. Martin Erspamer, OSB, and Bro. Michael (Mickey) McGrath, OSFS. Bro. Martin is a Benedictine brother while Bro. Mickey is an oblate of the Order of St. Francis de Sales. Each is an accomplished artist in his own way. Like Ade before them, both are liturgical artists who share a vocation to create beauty that sparks our imagination, bringing people closer to God and to one another. I first met Bro. Martin through an illustration of his on the jacket of a book about the parables. Despite the proverbial warning, I confess I did get it because of its cover. I just couldn’t resist Martin’s earnest yet girlish sower: long-haired, open-eyed, and forward-stretching in spite of—or maybe because of—her pointed, mismatched slippers.

GOOD TALK, Charles E. Moore on How to Live in Community

By Gabriella Wilke • 26 Apr, 2024
Gabriella Wilke : Dorothy Day believed that the only answer to loneliness in this life is community. You have responded to the call, living as a member of the Bruderhof. What sparked your passion for community?
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