29 November 2014
Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
In March of 2000, Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open the cause for canonization of Dorothy Day who died on November 29, 1980, allowing her to be called a “Servant of God” in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI, on February 13, 2013, in the closing days of his papacy, cited Dorothy Day as an example of conversion. He quoted from her writings and said: “The journey towards faith in such a secularized environment was particularly difficult, but Grace acts nonetheless.”
Dorothy Day was an agnostic and even Marxist until her conversion to Catholicism at age 30. A year after her baptism as a Catholic, her confessor gave Dorothy Day the autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux’s to read. Therese’s Little Way, the way of absolute abandonment to the love and mercy of God, then became the source of inspiration for Dorothy Day. The Little Way is the ordinary way we can all become saints. Through this Little Way, Dorothy committed herself to becoming a saint and she expected that all who follow Christ should want to become saints as well. Later, she discovered her own Little Way within her experience of Catholic Worker life. The Little Way of Therese became Dorothy’s way as well, the way to make saints and to transform the world.