FOOTSTEPS TO FOLLOW:

GReat American Women: Dorothy Day.[1]

INTRODUCTION: Of the five women we’ve looked at this month, only one has been proposed for “sainthood,” which is not common vocabulary for most Unitarians. But according to Phyllis McGinley, “The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got angry, scolded God, were egotistical, testy and impatient, made mistakes and regretted them. Still, they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.” Or put more concisely, “Saints are the sinners who keep on trying.”

That seems especially apt in describing Dorothy Day’s journey. She had an abortion that she later wrote a book about; she also wrote a book on “free love” – in 1910, mind you. She never married, but lived together for several years with two different men, having a pregnancy and abortion with one, and a pregnancy and a daughter with the other. She spent time in prison and jail – the last time when she was 76. And she was cofounder of a movement that started a string of caring communities for the poor, more than 135 of which exist today. She opposed World I, World War II, and the Vietnam War.

In 1983, the Claretian Sisters nominated her to Pope John II for sainthood. He granted permission to the Archdiocese of New York to open Day's "cause" for sainthood in March of 2000, which in Catholic parlance meant she was officially a “Servant of God” in the eyes of the Catholic Church. And in 2001, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

As Oscar Wilde once wrote, "The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that the saint has a past and every sinner has a future." If that be true, I propose that we sinners look at the past of an incredible woman: Dorothy Day.

BIOGRAPHY.

She was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1897. From there, her family went to San Francisco. After surviving the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, her father was out of work. They then moved to Chicago, and a tenement flat on the South Side.

            When Dorothy’s father, John Day, finally secured a job as sports editor of a Chicago newspaper, the Day family moved into a comfortable house on the North Side. It was then that Dorothy happened to read Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, about the plight of the workers in the Chicago meat packing industry. It inspired her to take long walks in poor neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side. It was the start of a life-long attraction to areas that many people avoid. And as she grew older, it fed the notion that the social order of this nation is unjust.

She won a scholarship to the University of Illinois campus at Urbana in the Fall of 1914. She dropped out of college two years later, and moved to New York City, where she found a job as a reporter for The Call, the City's only socialist daily. She covered rallies, demonstrations and interviewed labor organizers and revolutionaries.

            She next worked for The Masses, a magazine that opposed American involvement in WWI. In September 1917, the Post Office rescinded the magazine's mailing permit. Federal officers seized back issues, manuscripts, subscriber lists and correspondence. Five editors were charged with sedition.

Then in November, she was one of forty women in front of the White House protesting women's not having a vote. They were arrested, and sent to a rural prison workhouse, where they were handled harshly. The women responded with a hunger strike. Finally, they were freed by order of President Woodrow Wilson.

In 1924, Day met Forster Batterham, an English botanist. He was an anarchist opposed to marriage and religion. She wrongly presumed that because of the abortion that she had in her previous relationship that she could not get pregnant. That was important because Battenham didn't believe in bringing children into such a violent world. Day, however, was thrilled when she became pregnant, carried the baby to term, and then arranged for her daughter’s baptism in the Roman Catholic Church. That effectively ended her live-in relationship.

In 1932, while Herbert Hoover was still in office, Day provided news coverage for a couple of Catholic magazines of a protest in Washington, D.C. The protest was calling for jobs, unemployment insurance, some form of government assistance for seniors, welfare for destitute mothers and children, as well as health care and housing. (Just by chance you missed it, that was 1932, not 2009. Can you believe that in 2009, we have seven Republican governors in some of the hardest hit states, who have announced that they will not accept money available for unemployment benefits for jobless workers! Hoover would be proud!)

The Washington march was coordinated by communists. While Dorothy Day agreed with their concern for a change in the social order, she did not accept their opposition to religion. But she was in turmoil over not being able to do address the issues they were protesting.

The next day after returning home, she met Peter Maurin, a French immigrant, 20 years her senior, a former monk, who was celibate, and had a vision of society instilled with basic values of the Gospel "in which it would be easier for men to be good," as he put it.

Maurin encouraged Day to start a newspaper in which she would publicize Catholic social values and promote steps to bringing about the peaceful transformation of society. Day readily embraced the idea. The Paulist Press agreed to print 2,500 copies of an eight-page tabloid newspaper for $57. Day’s kitchen was the paper's editorial office.

She decided to sell the paper for a penny a copy, "so cheap that anyone could afford to buy it," as she put it. (That is still the subscription price, although they do charge for shipping.)

On May 1, the first copies of The Catholic Worker were handed out on Union Square. It was an immediate success. Within six months, 100,000 copies were being printed each month. The newspaper supported labor unions, challenged urbanization and industrialism. It was radical, but also religious.

For the first half year of its existence, The Catholic Worker was only a newspaper, but as winter approached, homeless people began to appear at the paper’s office. Part of that was occasioned by Maurin's essays in the paper calling for renewal of the ancient Christian practice of hospitality to those who are without a home.

In response, Day and her co-workers first rented space for ten women; shortly afterwards a place for men. Next came a house in Greenwich Village, and then two buildings in Chinatown.

All the while, there was no effort to convert or reform the residents. The staff received only food, board and occasional pocket money.

The Catholic Worker eventually became a national movement. By 1936 there were 33 Catholic Worker houses spread across the country. Due to the ongoing Depression, there were plenty of people needing them.

These weren't always the "deserving poor," but many times what others characterized as drunkards and good-for-nothings. A visiting social worker once asked Day how long the "clients" were permitted to stay. "We let them stay forever," Day answered fiercely. "Once they are taken in, they become members of the family. Or rather they always were members of the family. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. They live with us, they die with us, and we give them a Christian burial. And we pray for them after they are dead."

Some objected with biblical quotations, such as, Didn't Jesus say that the poor would be with us always? "Yes," Day replied, "but we are not content that there should be so many of them. The class structure is of our making and by our consent, not God's; we must do what we can to change it."

Today, there are some 135 Catholic Workers communities.

EXPLICATION.

Let’s pause for a moment now to examine Day’s theology just a little closer. There are two verses that were critical for her among the sayings of Jesus:

1.     One was the response of Jesus to the man who asked him which of the 613 commandments in Jewish scripture – that includes what we call the 10 commandments – which of all of those was the most important? Jesus answered, “Well, actually the most important one is “Thou shalt love the lord they god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”[2] Then like a good teacher, he added, “But there’s another one just as important: It says, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.’”[3] In other words, love for self, for others, and for God are intrinsically connected.

2.     But here’s the distinction Ms Day made, by adding yet another verse to what Jesus had said. It comes from Matthew 25, which envisioned the Day of Judgment when everyone gets an evaluation on how their lives shaped up. Those facing judgment learn the criteria for passing the bar are: feeding Jesus when he was hungry, giving him water when he was thirsty, providing clothes when he was naked, welcoming him even though he was an immigrant, and visiting him when he was in prison.

The assembled souls are all stunned and ask, “Why Jesus, when did we ever see you in that kind of situation and not feed you, give you a drink, clothe you and visit you in prison?” He answered, “When you didn’t do it to the least of those in need.”

Ms Day made this important distinction in interpreting this verse: One’s love for God is directly proportional to how much we love the “least.” You can’t have gobs and gobs of love for God and then give what’s leftover to those in need. No, she said, your love for God is directly equivalent to the love you have for the poor, the hungry, the destitute, the immigrant, the imprisoned, those without clothes. The degree of our love for the poor is directly proportional to our love for God.

APPLICATION.

To me this brings up a very provocative issue: How personal are we to take the needs of our society? Whether it is hunger, housing, healthcare, hospitalization? At what level are we expected as people of faith to intercede?

When we know that there are hungry here in Ft. Myers, what do we do? When there are immigrants needing a welcome, what is our responsibility? If there are those needing clothes, how should we respond?

What about the alliance between government correctional systems and the prison industry? It is a growth industry at the forefront of pushing for more prisons across the nation, and promoting being “tough on crime.” Only now that it’s about to bankrupt some states – specifically, California – what do we do about those in prison?

Dorothy Day’s answer on all of those questions was, we help in every way we can – directly proportional to our vision of faith. Maurin taught Ms Day to oppose the idea that people of faith should take care only of their friends and family and leave care of strangers to impersonal charitable agencies. Every home should have its "Christ Room," he told her, and every church parish should have a house of hospitality ready to receive the "ambassadors of God" – which is what he called the poor.

That kind of vision sustained Dorothy Day’s life…a vision first fed when she herself lived in a tenement, and then when she saw the results of poverty on the South Side of Chicago.

The combined vision and concern continued throughout her life. In fact, in 1973, at age seventy-six, Dorothy joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in California's San Joaquin Valley for a nonviolent demonstration against the Teamsters Union. She was arrested with other protesters and jailed for ten days. That was her last imprisonment. But her voice and vision live on to this good day.

CONCLUSION.

I close with this prayer written to hasten the declaration of sainthood for Dorothy Day entitled:

Prayer for The Canonization of “Servant of God,” Dorothy Day.

Merciful God, you called your servant Dorothy Day to show us the face of Jesus in the poor and forsaken. By constant practice of the works of mercy, she embraced poverty and witnessed steadfastly to justice and peace. Count her among your saints and lead us all to become friends of the poor ones of the Earth, and to recognize you in them. We ask this through your Son Jesus Christ, bringer of good news to the poor. Amen.

Shalom. Salaam Aleikum.

 Amen. And blessed be.