Dorothy Day challenges us to ‘do the work’ of Jesus, her granddaughter says

PATRICIA L. GUILFOYLE plguilfoyle@charlottediocese.org

CHARLOTTE — Fierce. Heroic. Provocative. Pious. Granny.

These are just some of the words Kate Hennessy uses to describe her late grandmother, Dorothy Day – Catholic activist, journalist and Catholic Worker Movement cofounder.

Hennessy delivered St. Peter Parish’s 23rd annual Kennedy Lecture Jan. 28, speaking via Zoom from her home in Ireland to an audience of over 120 people. She shared personal memories of growing up with Day, working alongside her and other family members at the Catholic Worker farm in upstate New York and the Catholic Worker house in New York City.

Day died in 1980, when Hennessy was 20, yet her grandmother’s Catholic witness remains alive.

“When you encountered Dorothy Day, you spent the rest of your life wondering what just hit you,” Hennessy said.

lived a bohemian lifestyle and became a radical activist – campaigning for women’s suffrage and against World War I, befriending anarchists and communists, going on hunger strikes and being thrown into jail.

Then in her 20s, Day had a “physically brutal” abortion in a futile attempt to save a relationship, and she feared she was sterile.

So Day saw this new pregnancy as a miracle and didn’t want to squander it, Hennessy said. “She wanted to live a life that was full of meaning, that was sacramental.”

While pregnant, Day began exploring Catholicism and attending Mass. Tamar was born in 1926, and the next year she had Tamar baptized. Day followed suit in 1928. Day’s newfound Catholic faith and the teachings of Jesus became the anchor of her life’s work.

That work included opening soup kitchens and farms in New York to feed the growing number of poor during the Depression, protesting wars, lambasting Nazism and antisemitism, marching for civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., picketing for farm workers’ rights with Cesar Chavez, and opposing nuclear weapons. She also kept up a furious pace of writing.

“Prayer, the sacraments and the works of mercy fueled her,” Hennessy said.

Day And Sainthood

After the U.S. bishops’ enthusiastic endorsement in 2012, the Vatican is considering Day for sainthood. Pope Benedict XVI has cited her as “a model of conversion,” and Pope Francis has praised her “passion for justice.”

Day herself disdained being called a saint, famously remarking, “Do not call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

Hennessy said Day adored the saints, especially St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Avila. But being labeled a saint puts someone on a pedestal –out of reach and avoidable.

“Don’t put me up there and walk away,” Hennessy said Day would insist. “For us to honor her, we cannot dismiss her. We really have to be brave. We have to look inwards: who are we and what is our work?”