Catholic Worker Daze

By Betty Gifford and Bill Gifford

CATHOLIC WORKER DAZE tells of Betty and Charley Giffords and Bill Giffords experiences dispensing hospitality to homeless people from 1970 to 1985. Inspired by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker Movement that started in New York City in 1933, the Giffords began their ministry slowly, taking in one person at a time in their home in Memphis, Tennessee. They ended up with three houses. CATHOLIC WORKER DAZE provides vivid details of service to the poor while communicating the mission of the Catholic Worker movement. Many humorous and touching stories are told about the guests and workers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 9, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462841851

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Copyright © 2008 by Betty Gifford, Bill Gifford.

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Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE FIRST DAZE

CHAPTER TWO

ALL OUR GUESTS BRING US HAPPINESS . . . SOME BY

COMING, SOME BY GOING

CHAPTER THREE

NEW YORK CITY!

CHAPTER FOUR

THREE CATHOLIC WORKER HOUSES!

CHAPTER FIVE

SOME GIFTS AND SOME GIVERS

CHAPTER SIX

PUBLISHING A NEWSLETTER

CHAPTER SEVEN

MORE ABOUT GUESTS

CHAPTER EIGHT

REFLECTIONS AND PRAYERS

CHAPTER NINE

CHARLEY GIFFORD

EPILOGUE

AND, NOW, A POSTSCRIPT

BILL GIFFORD’S

CATHOLIC WORKER DAZE

PROLOGUE

It was a long time ago, 1970-1985, fifteen years of giving hospitality to God’s homeless poor. Why dredge up the memories now? Why not? Two of us old-timers (the name really describes only one of them), Betty Gifford, now 84 years old, and Bill Gifford, 51 years old, have been sitting around when they have the time (and the energy) and reminiscing about the good old Catholic Worker days. And, so, they thought about writing of those experiences, the good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly.

Betty, with her husband, Charley, who died in 1987, is the only one who completed the 15 years of service to God’s homeless poor in Memphis, Tennessee. Bill was involved from 1977-1983. Where to start? Maybe re-cap the early years first. Nothing like doing things chronologically, is there? As Dorothy Day said so eloquently in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, we were just sitting around when God sent people who needed help. Charley and Betty had been married some twenty-five years, had brought forth on this earth seven beautiful children and launched three of them when they heard of someone who needed a place to stay. Betty had read Dorothy Day’s autobiography in 1968 and been very impressed with her story of living hospitality on the Lower East Side of Manhattan ever since 1933, when the Catholic Worker newspaper had been started and the first of the Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality had opened. Betty often wondered, why, as a good Catholic convert and an avid reader, she had never heard of Dorothy Day before that time, but reasoned that what reading she had done had been sandwiched in between caring for her husband, house and children, and then, later, working part-time, and somehow she had missed the Catholic Worker ministry.

In 1968, she was working for a church as the Secretary to the Inquiry Forum director, and sometimes didn’t have enough work to keep her busy. When she had finished the work Jim W. had given her, she could spend her time reading, which pleased her very much. There was a small library in the basement of the church where the office was located. This was the source of much of the reading material and one day Betty picked up The Long Loneliness. She was fascinated by the story of Dorothy Day’s life and the Catholic Worker! A subscription to the Catholic Worker newspaper was ordered and she and Charley were indoctrinated into Dorothy’s and Peter Maurin’s philosophy of providing for the homeless and practicing pacifism, the latter something they had always advocated, anyway.

The Catholic Worker movement was founded in 1933 in New York City by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. Peter, a French peasant, whose family had lived on the land for hundreds of years, emigrated to North America, where he traveled throughout Canada and the United States, earning his living through manual labour. A scholar, he had a vision of how to build a world where it would be easier for people to be good.

(The following ten paragraphs were taken from a Catholic Worker publication found on the World Wide Web a few years ago, and, sad to say, the authorship cannot be traced now. If anyone recognizes them please let Betty Gifford know, so credit can be given in future printings.)

Dorothy Day was a young convert to Catholicism, a journalist with a deep concern for social justice, who was looking for a way to act on her concern. For some months after they met, Peter indoctrinated Dorothy, teaching her much about the Church and its history, and his own vision of synthesizing cult, culture and cultivation. On May 1, 1933, the first issue of a small tabloid paper called The Catholic Worker was distributed in Union Square.

The early issues of the paper spoke of the social teachings of the Church, proclaimed in little known encyclicals of the Popes. These encyclicals told of the struggles of workers to organize, the needs of the poor and the unemployed (for the Depression had affected many people), and they called for Christians to personally practice the works of mercy. Soon a community was formed by Dorothy and Peter.

Community made action imperative, for they could not speak of a vision without attempting to put it into action. (Dorothy Day’s words) Soon after the paper began, hospitality was offered—first in the small rooms where the paper was put together, and then in a series of buildings which were obtained to make hospitality possible. Before long a bread line was begun. Such a line was never seen as a good way to meet people’s needs, for small, personal efforts were better, yet the number of hungry people was large—and remains so to this day.

In 1935, after experimenting with a small garden space and a house on Staten Island, the Catholic Worker bought a farm in Easton, Pennsylvania to implement Peter’s rural vision. He saw the need for agronomic universities where scholars could learn to work with their hands and gain a healthy respect for the soil, and workers could learn, after tasks were done, something of history, of why and how the world had gotten to be what it was.

A concern for workers was an important part of the early years. Articles were written in The Catholic Worker about labour conditions and injustices, picket lines were walked in support of strikes, speeches were given, and at times, as during the seamen’s strike, food and shelter were also provided.

The Catholic Worker was always a movement, not an organization. The work in New York City and the newspaper inspired a number of other, similar ventures in various places, each one independent in its own way, and Peter and Dorothy kept in touch with them, and often visited. Today, twenty-five years after Dorothy’s death and fifty-six years after Peter’s, there are over one hundred and fifty houses in the United States and a few foreign countries.

The Catholic Worker was a pacifist group from the beginning, though its stance was given more attention, of course, when wars were fought by the United States. Its pacifism has always been based on the Gospel, on the Sermon on the Mount in particular, and has always been active—opposing wars and preparations for wars, while at the same time trying to promote and practice living nonviolently. The Catholic Worker believes in building a society based on justice, where each person would have what they need, where differences would be settled through discussion, rather than with arms. Sometimes these beliefs led Dorothy and others to take part in peaceful public picketing and protest and to be arrested.

As the years went on, there were some changes outwardly in the Catholic Worker movement—less emphasis on labour, for example, as unions became big and bureaucratic, often more representative of management than the workers—yet the essential aims remained: working to build a world more in accordance with Christ’s teachings. The works of mercy—feeding, sheltering and clothing those in need, visiting the sick and the prisoner—were the means through which life was protected, and threats to life—such as war—were protested.

Constant through the years was the primacy of the spiritual life. Dorothy and Peter, as well as many other Workers, went to Mass daily, and those who wanted to were welcome (and still are) to join in nightly community prayer. Yearly retreats were attended. Though basically a lay movement, priests and religious came to visit often, and sometimes stayed to help run a house or left to open a Catholic Worker house of their own.

Clarification of thought (a Peter Maurin phrase) was important throughout the years, in the hope that thought would lead to action, and action to deeper understanding and further study. Friday night meetings are still a regular opportunity for clarification at the New York house and many others, and discussions on various topics are ongoing. Visitors and other groups are welcomed, and contribute to the education of the Workers.

Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980, at the age of eighty-three. Her life was a witness to her strong faith, and an inspiration to thousands of people who saw in her life and work a vibrant example of Christian service to the poor. Today, the work in New York City is carried out at St. Joseph House and Maryhouse, and the other hundred and fifty houses throughout the United States and in some foreign countries follow the example set long ago.

Dorothy Day once wrote, The vision is this. We are working for ‘a new heaven and a new earth, wherein justice dwelleth’. We are trying to say with action, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. We are working for a Christian social order. We, at the Catholic Worker, though our efforts often falter, are trying to learn from and live out the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, bearing in mind that ‘They knew Him in the breaking of the bread.’

Another aspect of the Catholic Worker movement is that from the beginning Dorothy Day preached against taking money from the government in the way of applying for an official non-profit status. Most Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality follow this tenet to this day. In The Memphis Catholic Worker newsletter of April, 1982, this position was clarified for readers/donators.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

It has always been the belief of the Catholic Worker movement to trust in God and His bounty. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, our founders, were adamant in not accepting help from the government. We humbly follow in their footsteps and apologize if we have misled anyone. We are not now and have never been an official non-profit organization, so designated by the State. We are, of course, non-profit. Everything that is donated to us is used for the 3 houses of hospitality. But since we have not applied for and been granted non-profit status by the State, any donations are not deductible from your income tax. We hope you will continue to support the houses as you have done so generously in the past. We know that ‘give, and it shall be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over… ’ Our Lord’s words from Luke 6:38.

Donations continued to come into the coffers of the Memphis Catholic Worker houses. On the other hand, volunteers were harder to come by and that led to the ultimate demise of the houses in Memphis.

Peter Maurin was a great talker/preacher. He also wrote what he called Easy Essays, pithy, profound poems about social/religious issues. This one was written about 1940.

Modern society calls the beggar bum and panhandler. But the Greeks used to say that people in need are the ambassadors of the gods… As God’s Ambassadors you should be given food, clothing and shelter By those who are able to give it… People no longer consider hospitality to the poor as a personal duty. And it does not disturb them a bit to send them to the city… At the expense of the taxpayer. But the hospitality that the city gives to the down and out is no hospitality Because what comes from the taxpayer’s pocketbook does not come from his heart… We need Houses of Hospitality to give the rich the opportunity to serve the poor… We need Houses of Hospitality to show what idealism looks like when it is practiced… We have Parish Houses for the priests, Parish Houses for educational purposes, But no Parish Houses of Hospitality… People with homes should have a room of hospitality So as to give shelter to the needy members of the parish. The remaining needy members of the parish Should be given shelter in a Parish Home.

Betty and Charley Gifford were so impressed with Dorothy and Peter and the Catholic Worker movement that, when she and Charley heard of a stranger in a strange land who needed shelter, they responded by opening their home. A few