I’ve been listening to a book about Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, this movement’s aim is to “live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ.”[1] One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on the margin of society. To this end there are over 185 local Catholic Worker communities providing social services. Each house has a different mission, going about the work of social justice in their own ways, suited to their region of the country.
Day’s story is fascinating . . . . the great books (Dostoevsky, Dickens, etc.) moved her to give up her Bohemian ways and embrace the marginalized in the name of Christ and his church. God used her to build a significant social movement, while inspiring a generation of other movement builders who likewise embrace her vision of the whole gospel to whole person to the whole world.
One phrase in her bio captured me. Someone asked her, “how did you bring about this catholic worker movement?” She answered, “I didn’t do anything; it was thrust upon me by this question. What can I do?” People, she said, kept coming to her and saying that you can’t just write about injustice and poverty. You have to do something. So she did.
Perhaps most movements begin in the heart. They begin when we ask, “What can I do?”
“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?“–Dorothy Day
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