Raised in New York City, Dorothy Day was the daughter of nominal Christians who rarely attended church. As a girl, she developed strong convictions about social action and community formation and became an avid reader of socialist literature. She worked as a staff writer for New York socialist publications. After an unhappy love affair with a journalist, Day had an abortion, a decision that she would consider the greatest tragedy of her life. “I thought I was a free and emancipated young woman,” Day said. “and found out I wasn’t at all.” After a marriage, divorce, and many failed relationships with men, Day converted to Roman Catholicism. She met Peter Maurin, a Roman Catholic social activist who taught a vision of Christian social activism that was both radical and deeply rooted in Jesus’ teachings. Day and Maurin launched The Catholic Worker newspaper, a monthly publication that worked for a pacifist “green revolution” of communal farming and hospitality for the poor. Day practiced radical hospitality in her own life, devoting herself to the poor and becoming an advocate for the dignity of all human life, from the womb to the grave. “Christ is in the stranger,” Day said. “In the person who has nowhere to go and no one to welcome him. Those who cannot see the face of Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.”
Almighty and everlasting God, you kindled the flame of your love in the heart of your servant Dorothy Day to manifest your compassion and mercy to the poor and the persecuted: Grant to us, your humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who give thanks for her righteous zeal may profit by her example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Art & bio by Ben Lansing.