Martha Hennessy in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, March 19. (HCH photo | Darlene Dela Cruz)
Dorothy Day is pictured with her grandchildren in an undated photo. (CNS photo/courtesy of Marquette University archives)
The statue of the diocese’s patroness in downtown Honolulu has a crown of braids atop her head and holds an olive branch symbolic of universal goodwill. She also carries close to her the child Jesus, in whose hand is contained the sphere of the world.
Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of the late Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, notes an interesting coincidence as she stands before the gilded sculpture on March 19. Hennessy, a successor of Day’s work in justice and charity, reads the statue’s inscription, “Our Lady of Peace,” with a tinge of emotion.
“She wears her hair just like my mother and grandmother,” Hennessy said.
Peace-building and Christian advocacy for the poor are among the topics scheduled for discussion at two upcoming events hosted by Hennessy at Chaminade University.
On Saturday, April 5, she will lead a workshop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. titled “Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: A Relevant Discipleship for Today.” A lecture April 6 at 4 p.m. will shed light on Day’s possible canonization as a “Faithful and Courageous Saint for Our Times.”
Hennessy stopped by the diocesan chancery March 19 to share fond memories of her grandmother and the lessons she gleaned from Day’s remarkable life of service.
The Catholic Worker
Dorothy Day is a candidate for sainthood whose cause in 2012 was endorsed with a voice vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
She was a co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement in 1933. Together with French immigrant Peter Maurin, Day helped establish Catholic Worker “houses of hospitality” and farming communities across the country. Thousands of poor men, women and children continue to be served by Catholic Worker volunteers today.
Day’s life was marked by altruism for others, but included tumultuous periods of personal heartbreak, soul-searching and conversion.
She was born Nov. 8, 1897, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Day was baptized Episcopalian, but her family did not regularly attend church.
Day’s family later moved to San Francisco, then to Chicago. She attended the University of Illinois in Urbana before leaving college to work at a socialist newspaper in New York.
While back in the Big Apple, Day experienced a period of “drifting.” She became involved in several love affairs and had an abortion.
Day eventually entered a common-law marriage with biologist Forster Batterham. In 1926, she gave birth to her only child, daughter Tamar. Day became interested in Catholicism during her pregnancy and embraced the faith. She had Tamar baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Staten Island, N.Y.
Day’s conversion to Catholicism contributed to the dissolution of her relationship with Batterham. Afterward, she spent several years traveling the country with Tamar, taking on writing jobs and other work before returning to New York City.
She and Maurin created the Catholic Worker newspaper, in addition to the movement, in 1933. As the paper’s editor, Day featured stories that promoted Catholic social teaching.
Throughout her adult life, Day took strong stances on various world issues, including war and nuclear weapons, civil rights and discrimination against migrant workers. She also fasted and prayed in Rome during the Second Vatican Council.
She died at Maryhouse, a Catholic Worker shelter in Manhattan, in 1980.
First memories
Martha Hennessy, 59, is one of Day’s nine grandchildren. Hennessy has been involved in promoting her grandmother’s sainthood cause and continues the work begun by Day at Maryhouse.
Hennessy said Day was a wonderful grandmother, who was “very warm, but very reserved; very serious and very focused.” Day was often away traveling, but she regularly visited Hennessy’s mother Tamar and her family at their farm in Vermont.
“My very first memories of (Day) was when I was perhaps 3 years old, sitting on her lap,” Hennessy said. “She was a regular grandmother, but she was also extraordinary. We knew that she was an extraordinary person by her presence, but she did her best to just be normal.”
Day would share with her grandchildren many of the books she loved and gifts from her various travels. She also cared for them with a loving maternal instinct. Hennessy recalled being sick in bed one day at age 13, and Day consoling her with a book by Louisa May Alcott and a piece of chocolate fudge.
“It’s really important to know her in that context,” Hennessy said.
Hennessy was 25 when Day died in 1980. She was able to see how Day reached out to others through the Catholic Worker movement, and how much impact its service communities have made in drawing people to the Church.
“She just had a way of understanding God and just seeing the world that was very powerful, very unique,” Hennessy said.
“A lot of people say, ‘It’s the Catholic Worker that keeps one foot in the Catholic Church for me,’” she added. “We all come together as a family to try and share in community. This is what she’s given us — this incredible model integrating faith in daily life with the works of mercy.”
Hennessy continues Day’s legacy at Maryhouse, where she cooks, cleans and shares in the burdens of the poor she serves. She calls these duties “the sacramentality of family life” and notes that Day modeled for her the Christian imperative to treat all of God’s people as one ohana.
“She gave me a definition of family that is way beyond biological, which is what the world needs,” Hennessy said.
Serving the poor is only one part of social justice, Hennessy noted. Her grandmother taught her as well the importance of ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to live free from war, and the need for those in power to be held accountable for injustices in the world’s economic systems.
Maui conversion
Hennessy said she has become more involved with the Catholic Worker movement and in her Catholic faith during the past decade. Parts of her own faith journey parallel that of Dorothy Day.
She currently spends time balancing life with her husband in Vermont, and keeping in touch with their three grown children. Hennessy is also a proud grandmother of six. When not in Vermont, she commutes to serve at Catholic Worker houses in New York City.
An occupational therapist by trade, Hennessy has traveled the world to care for patients as far away as Amman, Jordan. She lived in Maui for a brief period in 2005 while working with Imua Family Services, providing rehabilitation care for babies and toddlers.
She experienced a major conversion in Hawaii after falling away from the church.
“It was all a complete miracle how the job fell into place and God brought me 4,000 miles away from home,” Hennessy said. “My landlady was Filipino, and she put a little crucifix in the (place) that we rented. I put a picture of Granny next to the crucifix, and all kinds of things started happening.”
Her involvement as a peace activist has since led her to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. She has just begun to travel around the country giving talks and retreats based on grandmother’s work.
In her upcoming events at Chaminade, Hennessy is eager to engage local Catholics further in the mission for social justice. She said she hopes one day to hear of a Catholic Worker house being opened in Honolulu.
She also hopes Day’s far-reaching legacy of compassion will ultimately lead to her canonization. Although Day’s anti-war message and personal faith journey were at times controversial, her call for all Catholics to live proactively for those in need nonetheless is exemplary for our time.
Day “is such an ‘unusual’ person, which is all the more reason to have her as a 20th century saint,” Hennessy said. “The more we live it, the more we walk the walk … the more our rough edges are worn off in serving others. I believe she is a saint.”
For more information on Hennessy’s events at Chaminade University, visit www.marianisthawaii.wordpress.com, or call 232-6691.
