It is 30 years this week since Dorothy Day died. She was a quirky woman who lived on the margins of Church and United States society. But her life bears reflection if we look for directions to take in our different circumstances.
Day was born in 1897 and became a radical socialist during her university years. After dropping out, she went to New York and worked as a journalist. She was active in radical politics, briefly married, had an abortion and was jailed for her political action.
Her interest in the Catholic Church crystallised in her decision to have her child baptised in 1924, despite her knowledge that it would lead to separation from her partner.
After being torn between her faith and solidarity with the poor, she met a travelling French Catholic intellectual, Peter Maurin. Through him she found her life's work in founding the Catholic Worker newspaper with a radical commitment to social justice, beginning houses of hospitality where anyone in need could find a home, and in advocating pacifism. She was arrested many times during her life, and died in 1980.
Day's life is significant for many reasons. Like her United States contemporary, Trappist monk Thomas Merton, she held up a mirror to the Church but from an unaccustomed angle. She came to Catholicism as an adult, with memories of the experiences and passions that had first gripped her imagination. So she saw see the Catholic Church from outside and heard the Gospel played in a different key.
One of the most poignant points of her journey was after her conversion. She felt that she could not join Communist marchers in support of strikers. Catholics did not consort with Communists. But the Gospel led her to stand in solidarity between the strikers. That she felt this as a dilemma remains disquieting for later Catholic readers.
As this story suggests, Day lived her life with a radical edge. In the house of hospitality she lived with the poor, mentally ill and alcoholic, with their sounds, violent moods and smells. During the Spanish Civil War and World War 2 the Catholic Worker espoused a pacificist stance which was anathema to many Catholics. She was frequently arrested and jailed for the causes she adopted. The