Dorothy Day

"A portrait of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement in New York City through photographs taken in 1955 by Vivian Cherry, a documentary photographer, accompanied by excerpts of Dorothy Day's writings selected and edited by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy"--

These diary entries written by Dorothy Day in 1948 provide an intimate look into Day's personal life as well as essential background for understanding the Catholic Worker movement, which she founded. In this book, Day writes about all facets of her life. Yet whether describing her visits to her daughter's farm or the writings of the saints, a common theme emerges, namely, the gifts of God's love and our need to respond to them with personal and social transformation. The concerns of the Catholic Worker movement are no less vital in our day: the disenfranchised poor, the benefits of the meaningful work, the significance of family, the dangers of increasing commercialism and secularism, the decline of moral standards, and the importance of faith. Available for the first time since it was originally published, this edition includes a foreword by Michael O. Garvey and an introduction by Mark and Louise Zwick that gives an overview of Day's early life and her commitment to the Catholic worker movement.

This inspiring and fascinating memoir, subtitled, “The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist,” The Long Loneliness is the late Dorothy Day’s compelling autobiographical testament to her life of social activism and her spiritual pilgrimage. A founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and longtime associate of Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day was eulogized in the New York Times as, “a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality.” The Long Loneliness recounts her remarkable journey from the Greenwich Village political and literary scene of the 1920s through her conversion to Catholicism and her lifelong struggle to help bring about “the kind of society where it is easier to be good.”

Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, has been called the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism. Now the publication of her letters, previously sealed for 25 years after her death and meticulously selected by Robert Ellsberg, reveals an extraordinary look at her daily struggles, her hopes, and her unwavering faith. This volume, which extends from the early 1920s until the time of her death in 1980, offers a fascinating chronicle of her response to the vast changes in America, the Church, and the wider world. Set against the backdrop of the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, Vatican II, Vietnam, and the protests of the 1960s and {u2019}70s, she corresponded with a wide range of friends, colleagues, family members, and well-known figures such as Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, César Chávez, Allen Ginsberg, Katherine Anne Porter, and Francis Cardinal Spellman, shedding light on the deepest yearnings of her heart. At the same time, the first publication of her early love letters to Forster Batterham highlight her humanity and poignantly dramatize the sacrifices that underlay her vocation.

Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, has been called "the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism". For almost fifty years, through her tireless service of the poor and her courageous witness for peace, she offered an extraordinary example of the gospel in action. Now the publication of her diaries offers a uniquely intimate portrait of her daily struggles and concerns.

Marking the centenary of Dorothy Day's birth in 1897, this new edition of Loaves and Fishes makes a modern religious classic available to a new generation. A companion to her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, this is Day's frank and compelling account of thirty years as leader of the Catholic Worker Movement and editor of its newspaper. Blending a journalist's perceptions with emotional commitment and warm humor, she shares experiences amid the abandoned and impoverished, the hopeful and idealistic. In the process, she brings to life a host of remarkable personalities, and reveals a life of faith in action. A unique document of American social history, Loaves and Fishes offers powerful testimony to the unswerving faith of a woman dedicated to improving the lot of all people, and creating a viable alternative to the growing ills of a chaotic world.

When she died in 1980, Dorothy Day was called "the most significant, interesting and influential person in the history of American Catholicism" (Commonweal), and "a non-violent social radical of luminous personality" (The New York Times). As co-founder in 1933 (with the French peasant philosopher Peter Maurin) of the Catholic Worker movement, and for almost fifty years editor and publisher of its newspaper, she applied the Gospels to a sweeping radical critique of our economic, social, and political system, and addressed the most urgent issues of our time: poverty, labor, justice, civil liberties, and disarmament. She saw the movement as an affirmation of life and sanity, and a way to "bring about the kind of society where it is easier to be good." The present volume is a selection of Dorothy Day's published work, spanning a period of over fifty years. Although the great majority of the pieces have been reprinted from The Catholic Worker, a number of other magazine articles are included, as well as selections from all her books. - Publisher.

"Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome -- and by far the most powerful and wealthy man in the world. Yet he was also an intensely private person, with a rich interior life and deep reservoirs of personal insight. He collected his thoughts in notebooks, gems which have come to be called his Meditations. Never intended for publication, the work survived his death and has proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from essays to one-line aphorisms, and from profundity to bitterness. Marcus wrote to console himself in the face of the shortness of life, the shoddiness of the world, and the challenges of being human. He asks the very same questions that every thinking person must ask themselves today: Does the universe have a moral purpose, and what is my role in it? What exactly is it to be a good person, and how do I get there? Life is short: what does that mean for me? How can I get to know myself better? Anyone who is puzzled by such questions or searching for answers will profit from this timeless book, which is both an important historical document and a personal spiritual diary. This annotated edition will be the definitive translation of this classic and much-beloved text, with copious notes that will illuminate one of the greatest works of popular philosophy for new readers and enrich the understanding of even the most hardcore Stoic"--

Here is an early work of Dorothy Day, who tells the story of her conversion from Communist journalist to Catholic Worker. Much of what she wrote here in 1938 would be taken up in her book "Loaves and Fishes", written more than a decade later. This first recounting of her faith journey, however, has a freshness and immediacy that the later work does not share. Part of this is because she write largely in the "second person" -- that is, she addresses her book to her brother, making an account of her heart and her life to this younger sibling with whom she shared so many ideals but not the Christian faith. Of course, this is part of the genre. Dorothy Day published her reflections to her brother in book form, so I take this to mean that she wanted to direct her message it for many other brothers and sisters, unbelievers and believers. In telling her story, she raises the hot issues of social justice, human solidarity, faith in life, prayer and self-sufficiency, politics and ethos.