The truth about Dorothy Day, from someone who knows

I've always been drawn to Dorothy Day. Maybe it's the powerful combination of her words and actions. I think more so it's my awe for someone who's able to do what she did. To be willing -- happy, even -- to be mistaken for a homeless woman. To so radically embrace the poor and so faithfully embrace the Church. A modern-day St. Francis, but totally her own. Totally new.

Author and Orbis Books publisher Robert Ellsberg, who worked alongside Dorothy Day for the last five years of her life, writes beautifully and eloquently today (on Huffington Post) about Dorothy -- who she was, what she stood for, and the things we should never forget:

Despite all the sadness and suffering around her, she had an eye for the transcendent. There were always moments when it was possible to see beneath the surface. "Just look at that tree!" she would say. It might be an act of kindness, the sound of an opera on the radio, or the sight of flowers growing on the fire-escape outside her window: such moments caused her heart to rejoice. She liked to quote St. Teresa of Avila, who said, "I am such a grateful person that I can be purchased for a sardine."

Above all she was a woman of prayer. She attended daily Mass, when she was able; she rose at dawn each day to recite the morning office and to meditate on scripture. After years of reading the breviary the language of the Psalms had become her daily bread: "Sing to the Lord a new song ... sing joyfully to the Lord."

When I went to the Catholic Worker I was not motivated by explicitly religious interests. Like Dorothy, I had been raised in the Episcopal Church, but I had pretty much drifted away from organized religion. What drew me to the Catholic Worker was Dorothy's lifetime of consistent opposition to war, and the fact that her convictions were rooted in solidarity with the poor and those who suffered. Ultimately, I came to appreciate not just Dorothy's anti-war convictions but the deeper tradition and spirituality that sustained her. I understood nothing about Dorothy if I didn't realize the importance of the sacraments, prayer, liturgy, and the communion of saints, in which her witness was rooted. When I understood that, I felt a need to become a Catholic myself.

Reading that recollection gives me courage and hope. So often today we're led to believe we can either be true to the Church or be true to ourselves. Dorothy shows that we can be both. What a comfort and motivation to do more, be more, trust more.

If that doesn't get you, then try this conclusion to Ellsberg's post:

Dorothy was a great believer in what Jean-Pierre de Caussade called "the sacrament of the present moment." In each situation, in each encounter, in each task before us, she believed, there is a path to God. We don't need to be in a monastery or a chapel. We don't need to become different people first. We can start today, this moment, where we are, to add to the balance of love in the world, to add to the balance of peace.

Start today. Right here. Right now. And be sure to go to HuffPo to read the full post by clicking HERE.