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Heritage Talk: Eucharist and Dorothy Day
July 20 @ 1:00 pm
Easter Sunday 2024 marked the centennial anniversary of the celebration of the first Public Mass held inside the National Shrine. The celebration of the inauguration of the liturgical life of this grand and noble votive church in honor of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, will be celebrated throughout 2024 and 2025.
We invite you to join us in the Crypt Church for the next Heritage Talk on Saturday July 20, 2024, following the 12:10 p.m. Mass.
Dr. William L. Portier, PhD, the former Mary Ann Spearin Chair of Catholic Theology at the University of Dayton, will offer a presentation entitled “Eucharist and Dorothy Day.” Dr. Portier is the president (2014-18) of the College Theology Society and a member of the National Board of the Lilly Fellows Program Network.
Following the event, the presentation will be made available for viewing on the National Shrine’s Website and YouTube Channel.
More About the Talk:
Dr. William L. Portier, noted theologian, author, respected teacher, will speak on the Eucharist and the life of Dorothy Day.
The life of this remarkable woman is filled with many twists and turns, many epiphanies that help to form a woman of conviction and of faith. Dr. Portier will speak of Dorothy’s vision of “the importance of making the Eucharist present in our everyday life.” In addition, he will speak of the sacramental life of the National Shrine and the relationship of Dorothy with the National Shrine, particularly of one day in December 1932, when Dorothy attended Mass in the Crypt Church and offered the prayer that would change her life.
Dorothy Day and the Eucharist is not something new; she was already writing about the Mystical Body of Christ in 1935. What is new is the perspective that time and history has given to scholars such as Dr. Portier, a historical and systematic theologian.
Select Publications by William L. Portier:
Every Catholic An Apostle: A Life of Thomas A. Judge, CM, 1868-1933 (Catholic University Press, 2017).
Divided Friends: Portraits of the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis in the United States (2013).
Tradition and Incarnation: Foundations of Christian Theology (1993).
Isaac Hecker and the First Vatican Council, Including Hecker’s “Notes in Italy, 1869-1870” (1985).
Publication Pending by William L. Portier:
A Mystical Body in the American Century, in which Dorothy Day is one of the main figures. Release date to be determined. CUA Press.
