For almost fifty years, through her tireless service to the poor and her courageous witness for peace, Dorothy Day offered an example of the gospel in action. Now the publication of her diaries, previously sealed for twenty-five years after her death, offers a uniquely intimate portrait of her struggles and concerns. Beginning in 1934 and ending in 1980, these diaries reflect her response to the vast changes in America, the Church, and the wider world. Day experienced most of the great social movements of her time but, as these diaries reveal, even while she labored for a transformed world, she simultaneously remained grounded in everyday human life: the demands of her extended Catholic worker family; her struggles to be more patient and charitable; the discipline of prayer and worship that structured her days; her efforts to find God in all the tasks and encounters of daily life. A story of faithful striving for holiness and the radical transformation of the world, Day’s life challenges readers to imagine what it would be like to live as if the gospels were true.

The compelling autobiography of a remarkable Catholic woman, sainted by many, who championed the rights of the poor in America’s inner cities. When Dorothy Day died in 1980, the New York Times eulogized her as “a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality . . . founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and leader for more than fifty years in numerous battles of social justice.” Here, in her own words, this remarkable woman tells of her early life as a young journalist in the crucible of Greenwich Village political and literary thought in the 1920s, and of her momentous conversion to Catholicism that meant the end of a Bohemian lifestyle and common-law marriage. The Long Loneliness chronilces Dorothy Day’s lifelong association with Peter Maurin and the genesis of the Catholic Worker Movement. Unstinting in her commitment to peace, nonviolence, racial justice, and the cuase of the poor and the outcast, she became an inspiration to such activists as Thomas Merton, Michael Harrinton, Daniel Berrigan, Ceasr Chavez, and countless others. This edition of The Long Loneliness begins with an eloquent introduction by Robert Coles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and longtime friend, admirer, and biographer of Dorothy Day.

“The publication of the letters of Dorothy Day is a significant event in the history of Christian spirituality.” —Jim Martin, SJ, author of My Life with the Saints 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 ’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. “These letters are life-, work-, and faith-affirming.” —National Catholic Reporter

"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."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a well-known American journalist, activist, and Catholic convert whose cause for sainthood has been endorsed by the US bishops. She wrote numerous articles over a period of several decades for the prominent lay Catholic magazine Commonweal. Hold Nothing Back is gleaned from those writings. It includes reflections on her life as a single mother, her time in jail for civil disobedience, her struggles to keep the Catholic Worker movement she cofounded afloat, and her travels on crowded buses to report from the front lines about labor disputes, racial inequality, and poverty. At the heart of whatever Day wrote lies a profound and prophetic faith. Hold Nothing Back--a new, abridged edition of the previously published Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal--gives a glimpse of her remarkable humanity and endurance, and of the vibrant spirituality that underlay them.

"A collection of writings from the 1960s by Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement"--

In his September 2015 speech to the United States Congress, Pope Francis credited American journalist Dorothy Day (1897–1980), cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, for her deep faith and social activism. Day’s devotion to her Catholic faith and its traditions reverberated through a series of four reflections published during Advent 1966 in The Ave Maria magazine, a Catholic weekly founded in 1865 by Rev. Edward F. Sorin, C.S.C. These reflections, available for the first time as an eBook collection with a new reader’s guide and an excerpt from “On Pilgrimage,” are as important today as they were fifty years ago. Written a year after the close of the Second Vatican Council, Dorothy Day’s Reflections during Advent address a Catholic Church in a time of tremendous upheaval. Catholic devotions fell out of practice. People sought God separate from Church life. Seminarians, novices, and vowed religious were turning away from religious life. American affluence and materialism seemed to know no bounds. It was a time in the Church not unlike the world today. “One of the most intriguing things about Dorothy Day was how she managed to harmonize a radical social vision with the most orthodox and traditional kind of Catholic piety,” writes Lawrence S. Cunningham, the John A. O’Brien professor of theology (emeritus) at the University of Notre Dame, in his introduction to the collection. “Her views on society would cause the most ‘progressive’ Democratic voter to pause, but her spiritual life was fueled by her fidelity as a Benedictine oblate to the Liturgy of the Hours, her meditations on sacred scripture, her love of the lives of the saints, and her assiduous participation in the Eucharistic liturgy.” Day begins her series of four reflections with a powerful witness to prayer, the Rosary, the Angelus, and her devotion to the Blessed Mother. Then she turns her attention to the three evangelical counsels of the Catholic Church—vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—providing insights into a Catholic way of life that benefits all, whether lay person or religious. The reflections exhibit Day’s personal and rousing writing style with stories that fans of her 1955 landmark autobiography, The Long Loneliness, will welcome as captivating insights into the continuation of her life story. The reflections are told in her unique voice and filled with stories about Day’s childhood, conversion to Catholicism, devotional life, Catholic Worker communities, work with Peter Maurin, and much more. With each word, you will feel her dedication to the compassionate defense of the dignity of every human person, especially the poor and outcast of society. This work is a must-read for every Advent season, a timeless reminder of Day’s witness to faith that echoes Pope Francis’s words in his historic address to Congress: “Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.”

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.

"In this early autobiographical work with a new foreword by Pope Francis, Dorothy Day offers the first account of her dramatic conversion"--

Dorothy Day was co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, and one of the most challenging and inspiring figures of recent history.In her lifelong option for the poor and her unstinting devotion to active nonviolence, Day fashioned a new face for the gospel in our time. In 2000 the Vatican recognized her cause for canonization, and she was officially termed ‘Servant of God.’ Dorothy Day: Selected Writings is recognized as the essential and authoritative guide to her life and work. The writings collected here reflect her spirit: meditative, ironical, combative, filled with love for the Catholic Worker family, and suffused with her special sense of the ‘holy sublimity of the everyday'.