3 Lessons From Dorothy Day on Work
“My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121: 2).
Dorothy Day is well known for living Catholic social teaching through her solidarity with the poor. She had profound views on everything from faith, prayer, and discipleship to beauty, love, and community. As I’ve read and learned more about her, I’ve also discovered the value of her insights on work, giving me yet another reason to study her life.
I was specifically interested in what strengthened her each day to follow Christ. Her abiding love of God gave her strength to respond to his will and see him working in her daily life—from the menial tasks to the meaningful successes. When we ask ourselves whether and how we can follow the way of Jesus in our work, we have a formidable guide in Dorothy.
1. Faith, Prayer, and Sacraments
All of Dorothy’s work grew out of her relationship with Christ. The Gospel call to love impressed upon her the demands of self-sacrificial love. For her, this love meant preparing food, washing dishes, and serving people who were not always kind or receptive to her love. She embraced the mystery of the poor through her solidarity with them.
What sustained her? Scripture and daily Mass nourished her soul. In “The Duty of Delight,” she writes, “Without the sacraments of the church, primarily the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper as it is sometimes called, I certainly do not think that I could go on. I do not always approach it from need, or with joy and thanksgiving. After thirty-eight years of almost daily communion, one can confess to a routine, but it is like a routine of taking daily food. But Jesus himself told us at that last supper, ‘Do this in memory of me’ (Luke 22:19).”
She understood the importance of spiritual nourishment. Even though she lived and worked in community, she also made space for prayer, reflection, and solitude. Doing our work with eyes turned toward God helps transform it into something holy.
2. Beauty, Art, and Literature
One pivotal moment in Dorothy’s conversion story is when she heard Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven.” Her friend Eugene O’Neill, a playwright, recited it in a Greenwich Village bar, and it stayed with her for years. In her first autobiography, “From Union Square to Rome,” she writes how this poem made her realize she “would have to pause in the mad rush of living to remember my first beginning and last end.” Dorothy’s capacity to receive beauty in all its forms—literature and art, in particular—also expanded her moral imagination, enabling her to cultivate her love of neighbor.
Her love of the beauty of nature, art, and literature gave her strength and wisdom in her work. In “The Long Loneliness,” Dorothy explains how she would look at “Van Gogh’s pictures of the poor, the coal miners, or Daumier’s” and find “strength from the way those writers and artists portrayed the poor.”
Whether looking at a painting reproduced on a postcard or rereading an underlined passage from one of her favorite books, she “tried to take those artists and novelists to heart, and live up to their wisdom (a lot of it came from Jesus, as you probably know, because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy kept thinking of Jesus themselves all through their lives).”
I find that most, if not all, work is an opportunity to flourish creatively by attending to the beauty set before us in all its forms. Reading great literature, contemplating art, and going for a walk are all ways to help us see the world with more clarity and wisdom.
3. Community
In 1933, Dorothy founded the New York Catholic Worker, a communal home of hospitality for those in need of a home, with Peter Maurin. In her writing, she frequently attests to the human need for community. In “Loaves and Fishes,” she writes, “The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community. The living together, working together, sharing together, loving God and loving our brother, and living close to him in community so we can show our love for Him.”
We were not made to love, serve, or work alone. As a writer and editor, I have always thought of my work as done mostly in solitude. But I’ve come to realize how many friends, collaborators, and communities I rely on for my work to flourish.
Through books, the saints, and her neighbors, Dorothy harnessed the beauty and transformative love of working in community. She embraced her identity as a daughter of Christ created to share her gifts with the world. Today, she shows us how to live and work with our gaze always directed toward Christ by nourishing ourselves in prayer, the sacraments, great books and beauty, and community.
Jody C. Benson is a writer and editor and an instructor in Thy Olive Tree’s Fiat Self-Publishing Academy. She is the author of Behold: A Reflection Journal Where Wonder, Creation, and Stewardship Meet. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and children. Learn more at jodycbenson.com and jodycbenson.substack.com.