Newsweek summed up Dorothy Day’s life in 1982 for her biography, Dorothy Day, by William D. Miller:

Dorothy Day was perhaps the most influential U.S. Roman Catholic of her time....
For nearly half a century , she was the radical heart and conscience of American Catholicism. She took the Sermon on the Mount as a practical guide for life, not as a pious ideal ...
Death ended her own pilgrimage. But at her crowded funeral Mass, there were no tears, only alleluias for her long and luminous life.

Last week, word reached my desk that Dorothy Day’s journal entries were to be edited by Robert Ellsberg, Marquette University Press (669 pages, $42.01). For the purpose of reviewing her life, I ordered it, though to have been once introduced to Dorothy, there is usually no need to be introduced once more, for she had a way of entering one’s mind and heart, then staying, and staying and staying, sometimes as a companion, sometimes as a kind of a Christian touchstone, crying out for the true and trust-worthy, and I highly recommend the biography.

My copy is more than a little battered, having traveled for decades, somewhat like an unpaid companion, whose place on my shelf reminds me of a Christianity born of true poverty, humility, patience and, above all, Gospel love, summed up in the photograph of Dorothy that graces the book’s cover.

Wisps of white hair appear to have broken loose from the braid across the top of her head. Her brows seem to be irretrievably set above the self-inflicted frown lines, shuttering those penetrating eyes that would not be deflected from the squalor of a New York City street.

When Rome gets around to investigating Dorothy Day’s claim to sainthood, Vatican City will come to a standstill. Traffic will cease in St. Peter’s Square. Fountains will stop bubbling.

Everyone, from pope to delivery boy, will walk around pondering the worth of this simple woman, whose story reads like a character out of the Grapes of Wrath, struggling with the little people, whom she would never desert.

The title of her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, pinpoints her search for community and God that tied together the disjointed pieces of her life.

Her father, John, was a confirmed atheistic journalist, who, paradoxically, never traveled without his Bible, and kept a bottle close at hand for courage and solace. As a provider, he maintained a bank account at two digits, if not at straight-out zero.

With a sense of adventure, Mrs. Grace Day supplied the touches of warmth and beauty for Dorothy, her two brothers and a young sister. When times were lean, she made the children’s clothes, and toys to make them laugh.

In his biography, Dorothy Day, William D. Miller, tells us that when Grace noticed her children were not being invited to the neighborhood tea parties, “She scrubbed the porch, put out a rug, table and chairs, and heaped the table with oatmeal cookies and molasses candy.”

Then, she invited eight children to the party. Not exactly high tea at Buckingham Palace, but it launched the Day children into the social world of the younger set.

Years later, Dorothy would scrub many a floor in preparation for guests at her Houses of Hospitality spread out over 20 cities.

After graduating from Chicago’s Waller High School at 16, and entering the University of Illinois at Urbana, she sank into a period of loneliness and depression. Fortunately, she met two Jewish students, who invited her to write for the college paper, and welcomed her into their circle. Overnight, she belonged.

Dorothy’s life journey took her into the world of communism, to Europe, and to a marriage she would never discuss, and a long-term relationship with Lionel Moise, who, Ernest Hemingway said could write four stories at one time and keep each one fresh. The rest of his life was arrogantly undisciplined, both with regard to people and drinking.

When Dorothy became pregnant, Moise let her know neither she nor her child was of any concern to him. With no money and too much pride to enter a home for unwed mothers, Dorothy had an abortion, an action she regretted the rest of her life.

Moise left her. From retreat notes dated 1953, we find her pain was still there. “All day in a state of unrest, feeling how Moise had women hypnotized.”

When Day later fell in love with Forster Batterman,. whose only ambition in life seemed to be fishing and avoiding anything that could limit his freedom, she became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl, Tamara Teresa. Batterman wanted nothing to do with religion and stormed out of the house in a rage the day after the baby was baptized, never to return.

With the help of Peter Maurin, Dorothy founded the Catholic Worker movement and the newspaper of the same name, sold for a penny then, and sells for a penny to this day.

While most of us disagreed with Dorothy on her opposition to World War II, we stood with her against the Vietnam War, as well as her stand against Operation Desert Shield.

Toward the close her life, Dorothy said, “I feel that I have done nothing well.” Yet, this Christian wanderer left a legacy that makes other Christians’ journeys less lonely, joining her army of followers, and doing what they can for the poor and the homeless.

Her light continues to shine, and her example continues to inspire millions to get out of their comfortable surroundings, to seek the lost and forgotten, “doing what they can.”

Lord, help us to look at Dorothy’s life steadily and prayerfully, seeking the love and courage to pick up our crosses, walking with Christ and Dorothy to journey’s end. Amen.

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