Day

December 27, 2022 | Justin Ferrugia TD ‘23+1

image description: person working in dirt on farm wearing casual clothing

“Do the work!” This has become a command of the historically underrepresented, oppressed,  and marginalized to their allies and others. It can be meant as a call to action, a cry for help, and an expression of the deep desire for change — for movement towards justice. When we set our sights on what we determine to be the Good, there is a natural instinct in us to re-order ourselves and bend the trajectories of others towards that Good. In short, we desire good.   

“Change” is one possible anglicization of the Greek word metanoia. Another common translation is “repent.”  Christ utters this word more than 50 times in the New Testament. Clearly, working towards  change is central in Christianity. But how do we do it? 

When Christianity enters into modern, popular political discourse it generally does so on a  spectrum. This spectrum ranges from what might best be described as fear-mongering that generally terminates in condemning an interlocutor to Hell, to a kind of universalism, where  Christ occupies the place of every person’s personal cheerleader. Both seem to leave a sour taste in our mouths. The first, perhaps most obviously because of its seeming bad-willed  flavor, and the second, because it deprives Christianity of its sustenance: a true force or will to change, and a defined object towards which to orient that change.  

It would be easy to engage in an untethered, abstract, and idealistic discussion of what true  Christian work towards change is, but these principles are pragmatically manifested in 20th century Catholic social activist Servant of God Dorothy Day. As such, I will use her personage to expose the three central components of proper social activism. Fortitude (or perhaps  unyieldingness), humility, and, chiefly, charity.  

Fortitude

Day was not looking for small change. Day’s principle form of advocacy was the written word  published in a periodical entitled Catholic Worker first published in 1933 and continuously since then. In the middle of the Great Depression, Day’s work was offensively extreme to many. They had reason to be shocked. The first lines of Day’s new publication read: 

It’s time there was a Catholic paper printed for the unemployed.  

The fundamental aim of most radical sheets is the conversion of  its readers to radicalism and atheism.  

Is it not possible to be radical and not atheist?  

Is it not possible to protest, to expose, to complain, to point out abuses and demand reforms without desiring the overthrow of religion?  

Even in today’s popular discourse, describing oneself as radical in the first sentences of a new  enterprise is a recipe for disaster—and it almost was. But if one takes a moment to examine  what Day, ever so pithily says in the span of several lines, her message is exceptional. I might paraphrase as such: Is it not possible to be uncompromising in one’s fight against systemic injustice without destroying the system itself?  

What fortitude it took to lay her life’s work on the line in four sentences. Day’s fight was not unique to her own day. In an issue of Catholic Workerpublished in  November 1933, Day “…call[ed] [her] readers’ attention to the petition published in this issue  against evictions.” She urged her readers to “…clip [them] out, attach to a sheet of paper and send back filled with the signatures of men, women and children who protest against this  injustice.” She also described a scene trying to convince authorities to halt an eviction after  which she was asked, “‘You have no sympathy for landlords, have you?’” She “…assured him  that [her] sympathy was rather with the weaker party.”  

This is nothing new. In fact, it is discouraging that the same injustices against which  Day was protesting still exist today. But Day was uncompromising in what  she believed. In a more conservative (strictly speaking) time, she would stand side by side  with even the most radical of us now.  

Humility

Those of us working to change, by nature, have high expectations— of boths. This can be said both for  ourselves and others. It would be nonsensical to embark on a project and hope that it  progresses slowly. We hope, expect, and demand that others work as hard as we have to order their lives towards our idealsthe ideal we set out. Dorothy Day was no different, but I would argue she was successful in spite of this burning desire. Her humility allowed her to march slowly  forward.

Humility can exist in two ways: in one’s dealings with others and in one’s attitude towards  oneself. While the former is important, the latter is more difficult. Finding the balance between  taming one’s ambition while still maintaining an uncompromising resolve is paradoxically  difficult. It is perhaps most cogently summarized in the last line of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val’s Litany of humility: “That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.” Here, we can see two terms in the  equation of humility: 1. The tempering of ambition (“Let others do more than I.”) 2. A steadfast  provision espousing a sense of obligation most familiar to the modern ear (“Provided that I do as much as I should”).   

Day recognized the danger in only acknowledging the second term of this equation. She  recognized that without humility of one’s own ability, one could either become paralyzed by one’s own seeming impotence or, worse, direct the anger springing from this impotence  to those around us. She makes these observations 

“To make a start, that was the thing. Not to wait until it was possible to make the perfect thing.” 

…  

And just a few Sundays ago we heard a little talk from a parish priest down in Staten Island. He was talking to the children about their posture in kneeling and the necessity for a vehement Amen to the final prayers said by the priest at the foot of the altar.

“Snap to it!” he had shouted, right in the midst of those final prayers. It was the children’s Mass and he kept them afterwards for a talk, telling them that if they didn’t do a thing right instead of  half-heartedly, they might as well stay outside the door.  

And I thought sadly, if we waited to pray until we had the fervor of a saint, we’d wait a long time. 

From this, we extract two central messages. First to begin with something. Day’s own magnum  opus began with a five hundred word statement of intent, published to merely a dozen people, and  with uncertainty for continued publication. Day admitted, “It is not as yet known whether it will be  a monthly, a fortnightly or a weekly. It all depends on the funds collected for the printing and distribution. Those who can subscribe, and those who can donate, are asked to do so… The  money for the printing of the first issue was raised by begging small contributions from  friends.” Day’s work was not perfect but she deeply understood the imperfection of humanity  and of herself. Her work begs the humble question: How can we expect perfect work from  imperfect people?  

The second central message we see in Day’s work is a tempering of expectation— an  understanding that no amount of anger, coercion, or even cold hard facts will be enough to  change as many minds as we want. Even if our anger is justified by injustice as Day’s clearly was, it is an act of humility to prevent one’s anger from escaping.  

Charity  

It is fitting to talk about the virtue of charity last because, as is the case in the ethical  frameworks of many theologians, it should order the rest. This, too, is the point at which Day’s  religiosity becomes essential to the discussion.  

Charity is more than simply being nice. It is even more than its most common definition: love. 13th century Catholic moral philosopher and theologian St Thomas Aquinas defines charity  chiefly as a friendship with God. Charity is a Theological and an Infused virtue. Theological as  opposed to Cardinal because of its object: God immediately, and Infused as opposed to Acquired because of its efficient cause: God. 

Without treading too deeply into what is currently a fraught topic in contemporary St. Thomas  scholarship, we can extract two principles from Thomas’s definition. Charity is given by God  and by God alone, and it changes the way we understand ourselves as such and our  relationship to others. I like to think of charity as a filter over our world that places God at the  height of our relational hierarchy— even above ourselves. Thus, we do love others and love  ourselves but we love them because and insofar as they are loved by God.  

Indeed it is because the Christian concept of charity transcends the idea of “being nice” or  “loving” (at least in the way it is understood in our time) that we are required to “do the work.” It  is not “nice” to admonish a friend or an enemy for perpetrating an act contrary to the Good. It is not “nice” to have difficult conversations, to call out hypocrisy, or to remove people from  positions of authority.  

Conversely, it is not charitable to let evil go unjustified.an evil act go unadmonished. It is not charitable to avoid  necessary change-provoking conversations, to conceal hypocrisy,let hypocrisy be hidden, or to turn a blind eye  on one not ready for authority. When, in Matthew, Christ tells us to “…love [our] enemies too,”  he does not preclude us from calling out evil within them, he commands that we must.  

The vital caveat, one that Day understood so well, was that all our actions must be based on our united identities as children of God, rather than allegiance to any ideology or political party.made not  out of an allegiance to an ideology, political party, or identity other than our united identities as  those loved by God.  

One can see this no more clearly than in a July 1933 issue of Catholic Worker, during which Day severely criticized the banking tycoon J.P. Morgan’s opulence and condemned the fact that he had gone three years without paying taxes (sound familiar). At the end of a long description of Morgan’s yacht, Day does nothing more than describe the living conditions of one of her former  neighbors. Both are loved by God. One is committing an injustice.  

“The Corsair, which is Mr. Morgan’s boat, was empty and barren and beautiful within. But it was unused. There it was standing useless, and poor Mr. Morgan, hailed down to Washington by the Senate Committee, was forced to sit, day by day, and be interrogated. There is some consolation in the thought.  

And we thought, too, in respect to Morgan’s utility holdings, of poor Mrs. Cutler who lived next door to us a year ago down on Twelfth Street, and how she had her electricity and her gas shut off, and how her husband, a house painter, was and had been out of work for two years. And how that afternoon when we dropped in to see her little girl who was sick, we found that there was nothing to eat in the house, neither cereal nor milk for the child, nor an orange to quench her thirst…”

Christians are not called to condemn. Christians are not called to apathy. There exists a  middle ground, and the person who I argue best embodied it is on the path to sainthood.  Dorothy Day came from very little, and made many mistakes throughout her life. Yet, she  embodied fortitude, humility, and charity. I can only hope that when we fulfill our obligation to  “do the work,” we can embody these virtues as she did.