DOROTHY DAY AN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL MENTOR

DOROTHY DAY AN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL MENTOR

I've written about Dorothy Day here in the past. See: https://paulluverajournalonline.com/weblog/2011/11/dorothy-day-a-modern-undeclared-saint.html She has recently been in the religious news because the U.S. Bishops, at their semiannual meeting in Baltimore,voted unanimously to support the cause of sainthood for Dorothy.

Dorothy was born in Brooklyn in 1897, where she was baptized in the Episcopal church. She attended college in Illinois but left to return to New York where she got involved in women's suffrage, issues of
war and the labor movement. She lived the life of a bohemian. There were love affairs, a suicide attempt, pregnancy with a common law husband and even an abortion. Her gradual conversion back to Christianity and her decision to enter the Catholic church resulted in the breakup of her relationship with the father of her child Tamar. It was the decision to baptize the child as a Catholic that ended the relationship with a man she deeply loved. Her decision was truly a difficult and painful one as well as one of extreme courage and commitment.

(Photo of Dorothy with Mother Teresa) 

This was no plastic saint. Dorothy day walked then talk. she was a pacifist who provided soup kitchens for the hungry and a place stay for the homeless. The Catholic worker movement she founded to help the poor and homeless is still alive 80 years after she cofounded the movement with Peter Mauin. Social justice was her life and she spent her life with the people she served. if you wanted to find Dorothy, you wouldn't look for her in big mansions or among Church royalty, but rather in the soup kitchens where she was serving the hungry.  In fact, she died in 1980 in one of the Catholic worker houses she established in New York City were the hungry were fed and the poor provided a place stay.Dorothy lived the Gospel teachings she loved.  Her own biography is The Long Loneliness. 

 

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