Light of Day

Lives that change the world challenge us to live differently.

A woman I have never met has been in my life since college. That’s when I first learned about her.

Pure chance?

Maybe, but the Catholic vision of life, the communion of the saints, says we remain connected in one Church even with those who have gone on to eternal life. They can act in our lives according to God’s design and word because they are in heaven, which is the fullness of life.

Her name is Dorothy Day. She is undoubtedly alive and active in my life, not in any way I can call supernatural, but in ways that challenge and inspire me. I placed the image I share below on my home altar a few years ago because I feel connected to her work, faith, and activism.

She spoke truth to power, disagreed with those who held it, and asked them to do better. She was a pacifist, journalist, writer, and activist who lived poorly to share her life truthfully with the poor. She was rooted in and held to the truth of the Catholic faith from the moment she entered the Church as an adult.

The picture of the image of Dorothy Day on my home altar. The original is by Tracy L Christianson. I purchased it from her Etsy store, Portraits of Saints. 

For me, her life represents the uncomfortable space where ALL Catholics are called to live. Many Catholics might disagree, but we can’t be strictly conservative or liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, a Libertarian, a Capitalist, a Socialist, a Communist, or whatever political or economic label might come to be in the future. As Catholics, we are called to live out the truth because Catholicism is not about labels but about a relationship with Jesus, his Church, and the world. And it’s not always easy to live that way.

This discomfort challenges us every day. The saints aimed for that, and Dorothy Day did, too. People who call religion an opiate have no idea how challenging Christianity is. I learned about her when the director of the Newman Center at my college invited me to get uncomfortable over spring break during my sophomore year.

I don’t remember why, but I was at the Latino student organization's office one day. I was probably doing homework, and as I was leaving, a man I had never met introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Kerry. I work at the Newman Center.”

I introduced myself and shook his hand.

“Do you want to go on a trip for spring break?” he asked.

He handed me a flyer for a trip to El Paso and Ciudad Juárez to see the effects of the new factories —called maquiladoras— that had popped up on the Mexican side of that border metropolis. The Mexican government painted them as a solution to unemployment and a road to economic development. US and multinational corporations said something similar, and people flocked to them from the Mexican side, hoping to land jobs that would improve their lives. The reality was different: cheap labor, long hours, few worker protections, exploited people, pollution, and a degraded environment.

It was an eye-opening week, but it also helped me see the Chicago region, my home, in a new way. The industrial corridor that hugs Lake Michigan from South Chicago across the state line into Hammond, Whiting, East Chicago, Gary, and beyond was once considered the workshop of the United States. Steel production was the common denominator. That’s what pulled people up from Mexico in the early 1900s. My parish, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, was born from that first community about 100 years ago.

Families benefitted from that boom. The evidence is in the neighborhoods surrounding those mills, but so are the effects of its downfall. Many environmental challenges remain even decades after that apex. Among them is the plume of arsenic somewhere near the Grand Calumet River. The federal government offers no real remedy for it. And tens of thousands of jobs vanished. Many families that once lived here have passed on or moved away. And yet, Dorothy would influence one response to this reality.

On that spring break trip, I learned that Kerry also lived in East Chicago, Indiana. He, a priest, and a woman pooled their money, bought a house along an abandoned stretch of East Chicago near the steel mills, and opened the César Chávez Catholic Worker House. The building was probably a restaurant at one point in its past, but it became a community center under their care. They opened it up to their neighbors for photography workshops, pick-up basketball games, backyard cookouts, and, most importantly, hospitality. They took in people who needed a place to stay for weeks or months. I volunteered for some work on the place.

I also listened to the weekly discussions about faith and culture at the Newman Center. The first time I participated was upon my return from El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. We shared insights and observations from that trip. People from different walks of life would share their views on various topics. At one talk, one professor discussed a trip to Cuba. Another spoke about the development of Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. The topics were endless and engaging. The food seemed endless, too, but it wasn’t always good. It was edible and just enough to keep people coming. Those experiences sparked my interest in Dorothy.

A few weeks ago, I found Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story for free on YouTube. I had seen it some years ago and wanted to watch it again. It is an independent, small-budget film with solid acting and high production value. It offers an honest image of a woman on the road to formal sainthood in the Catholic Church. It reminds us that if we want to change the world, we must begin with ourselves and our small corner of this planet.

I continue to reflect on two scenes. The first is when she invites friends to eat at her seaside cottage. It’s like the first step in what would become part of her ministry: feeding people in every sense of the word. The second, and the scene that I find most moving, is the one of her baptism. She had finally found a home after a life of drifting. It’s a surrender that solidifies her mission. She changed from that day forward and created a ministry that continues to serve people today, often one person at a time.

When I feel discouraged about the state of the world, I reflect on Dorothy's words: “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.” Ultimately, part of what marked her life was a steadfast commitment to her mission one day at a time. May we learn from that example.

You can watch the film about her life for free on YouTube. Click on the image below:

A screenshot from the 1996 film Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story.