Dorothy Day

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 (8 November 1897 – 29 November 1980) was an American journalist turned social activist. A pacifist and a devout member of the Catholic Church, she was a co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker movement. She authored several books and spoke often in public about faith and social justice.

Quotes

• We are not expecting Utopia here on this earth. But God meant things to be much easier than we have made them. A man has a natural right to food, clothing, and shelter. A certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life. A family needs work as well as bread. Property is proper to man. We must keep repeating these things. Eternal life begins now. "All the way to heaven is heaven, because He said, "I am the Way." The cross is there, of course, but "in the cross is joy of spirit." And love makes all things easy.
  • On Pilgrimage (1948)

• 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?
  • Loaves and Fishes (1963)

• The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
  • As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103

• The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
  • Interviewed in Time (29 December 1975)

• Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.
  • As quoted in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History (1997)
  • Variant: [Practicing] the works of mercy ... is our program, our rule of life.
    • As quoted in The Catholic Worker after Dorothy : Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation (2008) by Dan McKanan

Misattributed

• When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist.
  • Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop, as quoted in Peace Behind Bars : A Peacemaking Priest's Journal from Jail (1995) by John Dear, p. 65; this is a translation of "Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista."
  • Variant translations:
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist.
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.

Quotes about Day

• No force could sway her. No fear could stop her.
  • Promotional tagline for Entertaining Angels : The Dorothy Day Story (1996); the title refers to the practice endorsed in the early Christian teachings of Paul of Tarsus, of treating strangers as angels or visiting emissaries of royalty or divinity, as in Hebrews 13:2 : Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

External links

• The Catholic Worker Movement
• Industrial Workers of the World
• Whole Earth: The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right
• Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Dorothy Day: Church Was Everything to Her
• Dorothy Day’s 109th Birthday!
• Guild For the Canonization of Dorothy Day