Bridgefolk brings 2 churches together for dialog, worship
Dorothy Harnish is one of the local organizers for this year’s Bridgefolk conference in Akron, Pennsylvania. A local paper in Lancaster did the following feature story on her:
By JOAN KERN
Correspondent
Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal / New Era
Dorothy Harnish was a cradle Mennonite. And a teen Mennonite and a young adult Mennonite and a middle-aged Mennonite.
But now she’s a senior citizen Catholic, a member of Lancaster’s St. Leo the Great Catholic Church.
Harnish, 69, of Landisville, will gather with about 75 other Catholics and Mennonites at the 11th annual Bridgefolk Conference, Thursday through Sunday, Aug. 7.
Mennonite Central Committee, 21 S. 12th St., Akron, will host the national conference, on the theme of “Forgiveness, Hospitality and Worship,” with speakers, worship services and social gatherings.
“It’s like a family reunion,” she said. “People are drawn to the conference because they want to sit in friendship with others on a common journey of integrating our faith traditions.”
She said the Mennonite stance on peace and justice appeal to some Catholics, whereas Catholic liturgy, rituals and traditions appeal to some Mennonites.
“Part of what I love about the Catholic faith is the holy mystery. That’s what the Eucharist is all about: How our union with God and Christ comes about.”
Harnish previously attended the conference four times at other locations across the country, and is a member of the planning committee for this conference.
Local speakers will include Joseph Dougherty of Lancaster’s Catholic Worker House; Paul Zehr, of Witmer Heights Mennonite Church, Smoketown; spiritual director Mary Lou Houser of Community Mennonite Church; Arli Klassen, MCC executive director; and Monsignor Thomas Smith of St. Joseph Catholic Church.
Harnish, a Lancaster native, was raised in Strasburg Mennonite Church and begin attending St. Leo’s while she was a member of Landisville Mennonite Church.
“I often shared my hunger,” she said. “It didn’t come as a surprise. I’m not leaving the friendship and community of that church.”
Her conversion began when she was an inquisitive young adult perusing the spirituality section in bookstores.
“I was drawn to St. Julian of Norwich and St. Benedict of Nursia and Henri Nouwen (a Dutch Catholic priest and author of 41 books).”
Harnish graduated from Lancaster Mennonite High School in 1959 and Eastern Mennonite College in 1969.
She received a master of divinity degree at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 1973 and graduated from the school of religious education at Union Theological Seminary in 1984.
She worked in adult education for the Lancaster Mennonite Conference from 1984 to 1994 and as a consultant for the Parish Resource Center from 1994 to 2004.
She was one of six Mennonites who founded the Kairos School for Spiritual Formation in 1990.
“We shared our spiritual journey together, and we all had the feeling that other people were longing for a deeper spiritual life and not finding it,” she said.
She served on Kairos’ leadership team for 10 years before redirecting her energies, studying grief and bereavement counseling at the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colo.
She retired last year as a chaplain for AseraCare Hospice.
At St. Leo’s, which she joined in 2008, she serves as a Communion minister.
“It’s been quite a pilgrimage,” she said of her conversion experience. “I got involved from the inside out, from my own spiritual hunger for more, for a closer walk with Christ, for a tradition that attended to my own spiritual longing and nature.
“I am a cradle Mennonite. This whole journey, I’ve always brought both traditions together in my practice, but I never considered leaving the Mennonite Church.
“I integrated my nascent tradition, Mennonite, with my journey into the hunger of my soul and being at home with Catholic teaching and practice.”