Kate Hennessy

Looks at the life and work of the provocative Catholic social reformer from the personal point of view of someone who knew her well, her granddaughter.

An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother

Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty

Dana Kraft

I could read about Dorothy Day all day long, but I think that's the wise, inspired, "saintly" version of her. This book presents some of that but also her more human, flawed self. At some level, that's less interesting to read about but it's hearteneing to see. This book reinforced for me that we all have our own vocation and that many of us have to struggle to find, understand and follow it. It would be nice if someone just told us what to do or if we could just follow the Dorothy Day recipe, but it's not that simple.

As others have noted, this book does drag a bit in the middle sections.

Favorite quotes are:

'There are answers-they're just not calculated to soothe.'" CH 23

"She [Dorothy] reminded me of how often I had failed to find that boundary between meeting people's needs and not being eaten up by them." CH 25

"To his way of thinking, it wasn't a lack of ambition but the refusal to be ambitious." describing Forster Batterham, father of Dorothy's daughter. CH 3

"The three hours [of Dorothy's planned prayer time] turned out to be fifteen minutes of actual prayer as her mind wandered, full of internal conversations and debates." CH 9

"She [Dorothy] saw things in all of us that lay beyond the ragged threads of our miseries." CH 12

"She is looking for a herd to join," Tamar said to Dorothy. "Not a community," she added pointedly, "but a herd." Talking about a cow who broke her chain and escaped Tamar's farm. CH 12

When asked about her spiritual practices..."she sighed and then laughed. 'The best way to wake up in the morning is to say, as in the Psalms, 'Now I have begun.' One of the Desert Fathers said, 'Each morning I wake up with all these solutions, and joyous I lay waste the day.'" CH 20

Quoting Dorothy at age 79. "The older I get the more I feel that faithfulness and perseverance are the greatest virtues--accepting the sense of failure we all must have in our work, in the work of others around us, since Christ was the world's greatest failure." CH 25

Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother

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