The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.—Dorothy Day
It is 50 years since I met Dorothy Day, when I took a leave from college at 19 to work with her at the Catholic Worker in New York. Within months she appointed me managing editor of her newspaper, thus pointing me in the direction of my life’s work — not just as an editor, but as her editor.
Having edited five previous volumes of her writings, I have now edited a sixth: Dorothy Day: Spiritual Writings. It is, perhaps, my favorite, representing the fruit of a lifetime spent trying to understand the spiritual roots of her public witness.
In this book I have tried to outline the distinctive elements which integrated her faith and her engagement with the world. This began with her emphasis on the radical social implications of the Incarnation. God, through Jesus, entered our humanity and our history. This meant that we could not find him apart from other people, especially the poor. Jesus linked our salvation with the works of mercy — feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, welcoming the stranger: “What you do for the least of my brothers and sisters you do for me.” This was the basis for Dorothy’s life of radical hospitality and service, but also her commitment to work for peace and justice.
A second important theme comes from her adaptation of St. Therese’s spirituality of the Little Way — performing all our daily tasks and encounters in the presence of God and a spirit of love. In this way, daily life could become an arena for holiness. Dorothy applied this to her life at the Catholic Worker, but she also pointed to its social implications for her work for peace and justice: the significance of what we do or fail to do. We could not calculate the power of that which appears small and “irrelevant.” These actions were like the loaves and fishes that Jesus multiplied.
Another chapter describes her devotion to the saints, her effort to take them down from their pedestals and show them as fully human. Above all, they reminded us that we are all called to be saints, that this is the common vocation of all who aspire to be followers of Jesus. Dorothy also spoke of the need for new models of holiness — saints to change the social order. “Where were the saints not just to minister to the slaves but to do away with slavery?”
And then there is Dorothy’s practice of what she called “the duty of delight” — an effort to find God in all things, in the sorrows of life as well as its joys. For Dorothy this practice was a matter of the will. We can choose to put love where there is no love. This was a foundation for Dorothy’s daily life.
There is much more in this book: reflections on her spiritual journey, on prayer, and the ongoing call to conversion. There are her thoughts on the Church and the sacraments, and on Dostoevsky’s line: “The world will be saved by beauty.” And there are her views on peacemaking and what she called “the revolution of the heart.”
Dorothy Day is now herself under consideration for sainthood. I was fortunate to know her in the last years of her life. But most of what I know about her has come from studying her writings. I hope, through this book, that others can know and love her too.
Robert Ellsberg is the publisher of Maryknoll’s Orbis Books.
