Forty-Fourth Annual Time of Prayer and Fasting for
The Truth of Gospel Nonviolence
July 1-August 9
Our Lamb has conquered. Him let us follow.
FAST FOOD AD 2026, Fortieth Helping
August 9, 1936
On August 9, 1936, ninety years ago this day, in a letter to Catherine de Hueck Doherty, the Founder of Friendship House in Toronto and in Harlem, Dorothy Day wrote the following:
Dear Catherine,
You sound so discouraged and you know as well as I do that discouragement is a temptation of the devil. Why should we try to see results? It is enough to keep on in the face of what looks to be defeat. We certainly have enough examples in the lives of the saints to help us. Not to speak of that greatest of failures (to the eyes of the world) of Christ on the cross. Why look for a response? After all, we can only do what lies in our power and leave all the rest to God, and God will attend to it. You do not know yourself what you are doing, how far-reaching your influence is. God often lets us start doing one thing and many of the results we accomplish are incalculably far-reaching, splendid in their own way, but quite different from what we expected. We simply have to leave things in God’s hands. Get hold of ‘Abandonment to Divine Providence‘ by Jean-Pierre de Caussade and comfort yourself with that. It’s done more to help me these past years than any other spiritual writer. Spiritual reading is the oil that keeps the lamp burning, as you know.
I leave this ninety years old note to a friend and a book’s endorsement by Dorothy as the final FAST FOOD Helping for this years’ time of prayer and fasting that the truth of Gospel Nonviolence will again be proclaimed by all the Churches of Christianity because, I believe, if ‘Abandonment to Divine Providence‘ [the John Beevers’ translation is the very best] is seriously and carefully read, and pondered, it is the most helpful spiritual writing outside the New Testament for a Christian struggling in this hostile world to live in thought, word and deed Jesus’ unwanted and dismissed teaching of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies as revealed in the Gospels.
Venerable Midori Nagai of Nagasaki, pray for us and for all people living and dead.
Blessed Franz Jagerstatter of Austria, pray for us and for all people living and dead.
Saint Edith Stein of Germany, pray for us and for all people living and dead.
Amen.
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
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“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Love.
Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
Hosanna in the highest!
