Overview

“It is no use to say that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.”

Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, has recently been proposed for canonization. Through her houses of hospitality, the practice of the works of mercy, and her prophetic work for peace and justice, she offered a radical witness to the gospel in action. But it was as much in her everyday life as in her public activities that she expressed her spirituality and found her path to holiness. This anthology explores the key themes that underlay Day’s spirituality. These begin with the call to see Christ in our neighbors, and the teaching that what we do for the poor, we do directly for him. Day’s spirituality was deeply influenced by St. Thérèse of Lisieux and her “Little Way” that showed the path to holiness in the daily exercise of patience, charity, and forgiveness. Dorothy extended this principle to the social dimension—the significance of all the little protests we make or fail to make. She frequently cited the “practice of the presence of God” and the “duty of delight”—the challenge to put love where there is none. She herself summed up her mission as a response to “the greatest challenge of the day”: “How to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”

Robert Ellsberg (editor), publisher of Orbis Books, worked with Dorothy Day for the last five years of her life, including two years as managing editor of The Catholic Worker newspaper. He has edited five previous award-winning volumes of her writings, including Selected Writings (Christopher Award Winner), her diaries (The Duty of Delight), and her selected letters (All the Way to Heaven).

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Click Here For The Table Of Contents

Click Here For The Book Preface