Longing for reflective and prayerful time in your busy life?
Need some support and inspiration?
Hungry for justice and mercy?
Wondering about models of Christian commitment
other than the ones making the most noise these days?
If you choose to observe the season of Lent,
hoping for a life-giving Lent?
Join us for
Nine Days with Dorothy Day
an online retreat
Friday, March 7 - Saturday, March 14, 2025
What can Dorothy Day teach us? How can she inspire us? Join us to reflect on her life,writings, prayer, and practice.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
is best known as the co-founder of the Catholic Worker, an anarchist,
pacifist, lay Catholic Christian movement, and founder and editor of
the newspaper by the same name. Journalist, activist, mother, speaker,
she was also a person of prayer whose Roman Catholic religious
observance cannot be separated from her work for social and economic
justice and peace or from what Christian tradition calls “the works of
mercy.”
Click here for an informative essay on Dorothy Day if you want to know more.
For
Christians in both the Western and Eastern traditions, the season of
Lent begins next week: Monday March 3 for Orthodox Christians, March 5
(Ash Wednesday) for Catholics, Anglicans (including Episcopalians), and
Protestants.
It is a season of deepened reflection and prayer,
simplicity, and generosity -- in traditional terms, "prayer, fasting,
and almsgiving."
Some, informally, speak of Lent as a 40-day spiritual tune-up.
It is like a seasonal retreat for the church. It also is preparation for
the most important feast of the Christian year, Easter (aka Pascha), the celebration
of Resurrection. It is meant to renew
awareness of the life, teachings, acts of healing, community building, suffering, and death
of Jesus Christ. (And there's more community-building and -living after Easter!)
If you observe Lent, this online retreat will
nourish and support you in your Lenten practice. If you are not
observing Lent and/or are from a different spiritual path or religious
tradition from Christianity, you are also welcome to the retreat.
Dorothy Day's
nonviolent witness, radical social analysis, community life, and
spiritual practice can speak to you, especially in these challenging
times.
This year, a large portion of Lent coincides with the holy month of Ramadan in Islam, during which Muslims practice deeper prayer and study, observe a strict fast (daily from sunup to sundown), and practice deeds of charity. The Muslim calendar is a lunar one, like the Jewish calendar, so the coincidence with the Christian calendars (East and West) this year is an unusual one.
What
* Spiritual refreshment, nurture, and challenge
* Simple and accessible:
one quote or short excerpt per day
one spiritual exercise per day
one prayer per day
on nine consecutive days
Where, when, and how
* This online retreat takes place on a members-only blog.
This means the blog is accessible only to people who have registered and
signed onto the blog. It will be private and will not be searchable on
the internet. Conversations (taking place in the comments section of the
blog posts) will be among participants and closed to all other persons.
* You'll sign onto the blog just once (I will send easy directions once you have registered) and the blog will recognize you after that whenever you click its home page url. You do need to bookmark that home page once you have access to the blog, so that you can find it again easily.
* You will visit the blog daily for the nine days of the retreat but you can log into the retreat at any hour of the day or night that is convenient for you.
* Have your retreat time at home, on a break at work, in a coffee shop, on vacation, in your
daily life: read, reflect, meditate, and pray with the retreat materials
in a way that suits your schedule.
* You'll need 20 minutes a day of focused time (any time, day or night) and a computer or tablet with internet access. More than 20 minutes (say, 40 minutes) would be even more enriching, but 20 mns will be fine if that's what you've got!
Register and pay
Register and pay in a single transaction using the secure PayPal button below.
Note: You can use the PayPal button and its secure connection to pay with a credit or debit card even if you don't have a PayPal account.
The button offers you a choice of payment modalities. The PayPal
mechanism will record your name and e-mail address and serve as your
registration. You will receive an automated acknowledgment from PayPal
and a also personal e-mail acknowledgment from me.
Payment is non-refundable and due upon registration.
If you are in a situation of financial stress and the regular rate is too much for you, please use the hardship rate on the menu above or write me so
that we can arrange for a payment plan or a scholarship. Don't let your
lack of money prevent you from seeking spiritual support and
nourishment here. If on the other hand you wish to help make possible
more scholarships and discounts, just check the benefactor rate.
Do I have to talk to other people on this bloggy course-retreat? I'm a very private person.
See the answer to the next question.
Can I get some support here? I want some company.
This
online offering offers you a choice; it is up to you to find your
preferred balance between the solitary and the communal, between privacy
and solidarity.You
can and may remain private and just read the blog and use the spiritual
practices and meditations on your own. Nobody will force you to speak
or disclose who you are.
Or
you can and may take part in conversation with other
participants. Conversation takes place in writing, through the comments
feature on the blog posts.
Please be prepared to observe confidentiality and to respect other participants' diverse experiences and outlooks.
Use
the retreat according to your personality and your circumstances. The
online retreat is like a room in which you are welcome to sit in the
company of others and to be either visible or invisible.
What, no Zoom?
Because
this is a meditative experience and requires time for reading and
pondering, and because participants will be from different time zones, the best format for this offering is a blog.
