Father Thomas A. Thompson, S.M., of the International Marian Research Institute (IMRI) and Marian Library at the University of Dayton will speak on The Evangelizing Message of Our Lady of Fatima (1917/2011) at the quarterly gathering of the CREDO Apostolate (Catholics in Renewal and Evangelization Dayton Ohio) which will be held Thursday, October 13, 2011 at St. Luke the Evangelist Church (Upper Level St. Dominic Chapel) 1440 N. Fairfield Rd, Dayton, OH 45432 from 7:00-9:00 PM.  His talk will be followed by healing prayer, fellowship and refreshments in Gilligan Hall (adjacent to St. Dominic Chapel).  Bring snacks to share.  All are welcome.  Handicap accessible.  For more information call: Bruce 937-415-3632 or Francesca at 937-901-4475.

Among the religious and cultural factors that influence converts to enter into full communion with the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary holds particular prominence.  Yet she is not the possession of the Catholic Church solely, for many Protestant churches are rediscovering the presence and role of Mary in life’s pilgrimage of faith.

To believe in the ongoing prayer and care of Mary for the faithful is to find the Virgin Mother's assistance in times of transitions, of new beginnings, of wandering and searching.  Sacred Scripture shows us that Mary is the Virgin of beginnings and transitions (Annunciation, Cana, Pentecost), and the Virgin of spiritual searching (Presentation, Finding in the Temple, Cana, Calvary).  It is quite natural then to experience her motherly presence in the struggles which accompany conversion, according to Father René Laurentin in A Year of Grace with Mary.

Conversions to Catholicism develop from a complex of various factors.  They result from conviction and personal experience.  But also at play are conditions and developments in the Church and society that often help or hinder conversions.  We now look at the witness of two American converts of our times.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

Although baptized an Episcopalian, Dorothy Day might be characterized as an evangelical Protestant because of her involvement in the "social gospel" movement.  She was a talented journalist who espoused radical causes, wrote for socialist newspapers, and was staunch in her support of labor unions and pacificism.

Her earliest contacts with Mary came from a rosary and a small statue.  While anticipating the birth of her daughter through a common law marriage, Dorothy Day began taking instructions so that her daughter could be baptized in the Catholic Church.  "I began to think, to weigh things," she explained, "and it was at this moment that I began consciously to pray more."  She developed the habits of praying often, of carrying a rosary, and addressing the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary which had been given to her.

Deeply concerned about her daughter, Dorothy wrote that she "turned her over to the Blessed Mother."

What kind of a mother am I going to be?  I keep thinking to myself what kind of a Catholic home is she going to have with only me?  I'm a failure as a homemaker.  I'm untidy, inconsistent, undisciplined, temperamental, and I have to pray every day for final perseverance.  It is only in these last few years that it has occurred to me why my daughter never called me "mother."  The Blessed Virgin Mary is mother of my child.  No harm can ever come to her with such a mother.

With Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which strove to establish solidarity with the working classes through a generous and convincing witness of hospitality for the homeless and of the works of mercy.  She promoted the traditional devotions in all her communities.  She prayed the rosary "on the picket lines, in prisons, in sickness and in health."  For her the rosary was not only a devotion to Mary but also a way of indentifying with the poor who had lost hope.  "Who could have given me Our Lord but the Virgin Mary?  It was easy to pray to her, repetitious though it may seem.  Praying the rosary as I did so often, I felt that I was praying with the people of God, who held on to the physical act of the rosary as to a lifeline."

The life and spirit of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little flower, fascinated Dorothy Day, "perhaps because she was so much like the rest of us in her ordinariness."  In fact she authored a small book about St. Therese to offer hope to those who felt their lives were meaningless.  She regarded Therese as Therese regarded Mary, for Therese abhorred writings and sermons that described "Mary's life as totally different from ours."  Dorothy believed that Therese "speaks to our condition."  Her approach, like that of St. Therese and the Blessed Virgin Mary, was to ask prayerfully at the beginning of each day, "What would you have me do?"

For Dorothy Day, Mary and Joseph shared in the plight and insecurity of the poor.  During the Great Depression she wrote, "What security did the Blessed Virgin herself have as she fled in the night with the Baby in her arms to go into a strange country?  She probably wondered whether St. Joseph would be able to obtain work in a foreign land, how they would get along, and anticipated the loneliness of being without friends, her cousin, St. Elizabeth, her kinfolk."  At another time she recalled, "St. Bonaventure says Our Lady worked in Egypt to earn the family's daily bread because St. Joseph could not earn enough.  It was all part of the humiliation of poverty for St. Joseph."  She realized that the Holy Family definitely shared the lot of the poor.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

The conversion of Thomas Merton led to a prolific writing apostolate, and he was widely followed and celebrated.  His parents were artists with little religious interest. Educated in France and England, his interest in religious questions grew out of his study of literature and philosophy.  In 1938 he entered the Catholic Church, and later became a Trappist monk at the Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky.  His talented pen produced voluminous writings in a personal style on topics pertaining to monastic spirituality, mysticism, racial justice, and peace.

Merton's references to the Virgin Mary are personal and deep, a response to a mystical attraction.  The Seven Storey Mountain is the autobiographical account of his early life and conversion.  One passage concerns his departure from England to a new life in New York City.  He describes his experience of Mary's guidance at this turning point in his life in these striking words.

Lady, when on that night I left the Island that was once your England, your love went with me, although I could not know it....  I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got to New York.  But you saw further and clearer than I, and you opened the seas before my ship, whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which even then you were preparing for me to be my rescue and my shelter and my home.  And when I thought there was no God and no love and no mercy, you were leading me all the while in the midst of His love and His mercy, and taking me, without my knowing anything about it, to the house that would find me in the secret of His face.  Glorious Mother of God, shall I ever again distrust you?

At crucial points in his life he actively sought the presence of Mary and her direction.  When discerning his vocation to the priesthood he embarked on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre in Cuba.

There you are, Caridad del Cobre.  It is you that I have come to see; you will ask Christ to make me his priest, and I will give you my heart, Lady; and if you will obtain for me this priesthood, I will remember you at my first Mass in such a way that the Mass will be for you and offered through you in gratitude to the Holy Trinity, Who has used your love to win me this grace.

Bewildered in the struggle to decide about becoming a Trappist, he turned naturally to the Mother of Jesus as any child would turn to his mother.  "I give this whole Advent, every minute, to the Blessed Virgin, begging her to help me and bring me to her house at Gethsemane to be her loving child and servant, a child of God in silence and labor and sacrifice and obscurity."  After ordination to the diaconate he wrote, "Our Lady has taken possession of my heart.  Maybe, after all, she is the big grace of the diaconate."

For Thomas Merton, Mary is always persuading from within.  "Mary does not rule us from without, but from within.  She does not change us by changing the world around us, but she changes the world around us by first changing our own inner lives."  Thus was Merton's journey of faith with Mary.

In reflecting on the Mary's "yes" to God's plans for her to be the mother of God, Benedict XVI is inviting the faithful to adhere to God's plan without fear.

The Pope reflected on Mary's "yes" today, before praying the midday Angelus with those gathered at the Freiburg airport, and after celebrating the last public Mass of his four-day state visit to his native Germany.

The Angelus, the Holy Father began, "constantly reminds us of the historical beginnings of our salvation."

He explained: "The Archangel Gabriel presents God's plan of salvation to the Virgin Mary, by which she was to become the Mother of the Redeemer.  Mary was fearful, but the angel of the Lord spoke a word of comfort to her: 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'  So Mary is able to respond with her great 'yes'."

How busy can a brother be?  Right now, Brother Tom Pieper, S.M. '67, is filling in as resident campus minister at Marycrest while still ministering to the needs of Stuart Hall, where he has worked for fifteen years.

Question (from Nick Pohlman): How has the renovation of the Chapel of Saint Joseph the Worker enhance the campus ministry in Stuart Hall?

Answer: Our chapel moved from the back of Meyer Hall to the front where the dryers and washers were located.  The chapel used to be a rectangle with burnt orange carpeting.  Now, when you walk in, it's a beautiful sacred space to have liturgy and pray--stained glass, sacred furnishings, and wooden liturgical pieces made by Brother Gary Marcinowski.  Because of its location, many more students have come to celebrate.  It's a great sign of our Marianist and Catholic presence.

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