Day 5 Hope in Hard Times: A Novena with Dorothy Day

admin • April 17, 2020

The Dorothy Day Guild asks its members and others to “spiritually gather” (in the words of Pope Francis) to pray a novena for solidarity and compassion in this challenging time. All are affected, but the devastation of this pandemic is falling most heavily on those already at the margins of our society. We pray for the most vulnerable among us — the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, the undocumented, the discriminated against — all too easily forgotten. May God grant us the grace of hearts that yearn, and hands that work for justice.

“What we would like to do is change the world–make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words–we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

― Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker , 1946

Let us pray…Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be OR the Holy Rosary

Prayer for the Canonization of Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980)

God our Father,
Your servant Dorothy Day exemplified
the Catholic faith by her life
of prayer, voluntary poverty,
works of mercy, and
witness to the justice and peace
of the Gospel of Jesus.
May her life inspire your people
to turn to Christ as their Savior,
to see His face in the world’s poor, and
to raise their voices for the justice
of God’s kingdom.
I pray that her holiness may be recognized by your Church
And that you grant the following favor that I humbly ask through her intercession:
(here mention your request)
I ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

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Monica Cornell, 1942-2025: A Worker for the Lay Apostolate and Friend of Dorothy Day

By Casey Mullaney • August 16, 2025
Dear Friends, All of us at the Guild were saddened to learn of the death of Monica Ribar Cornell , founding member of and advisor to the Dorothy Day Guild, on Friday, August 8th.

Summer News and Updates from the Guild!

By Casey Mullaney • August 5, 2025
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, We hope this missive finds you well! The heat has finally broken in South Bend, and all of us at the Worker are grateful for the relief as we’ve passed the mid-point of the summer season. For many of us in the Midwest and the Northeast, this time of year is marked by transitions and heightened activity as we begin to bring in stone fruit and tomatoes from our gardens or look towards the start of a new school year. With that in mind, we have a lot of great things to share with you this month, including new resources, song lyrics, events, and two peace and justice action items! Dorothy on the Small Screen: Friday, August 1st marked the third anniversary of the death of Tom Cornell , former editor of the The Catholic Worker, founding member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and close personal friend of Dorothy. Tom met his wife Monica (pictured here at their wedding, where Dorothy was among the guests!) at the Worker in New York in the 1950s; the Cornells passed on their vocation of hospitality and Gospel nonviolence to their children, Tommy and Deirdre, and to the hundreds of others they welcomed into their homes and lives over the course of nearly sixty years of marriage.

"The Best Revolutionary Technique:" Dorothy on the Works of Mercy, the Mystical Body of Christ, and more

By Casey Mullaney • July 8, 2025
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, Greetings on what for many of us in North America is already shaping up to be another hot, sticky summer day! We hope that those of you in hot climates are staying cool and are finding creative ways to support those in your towns and cities who are unsheltered from the elements. Emma, a member of our Catholic Worker community in South Bend, washes out empty milk jugs, fills them halfway with clean water, and freezes them overnight. In the morning, she fills them the rest of the way and hands them out to guests at our drop-in center to help them stay cool and hydrated throughout the afternoon. If you regularly walk or drive past homeless community members on your commute, we encourage you to pack an extra sealed bottle of water to give away on days like this. Here in the United States, we just celebrated the Fourth of July, a holiday which admittedly doesn’t mean very much to many of those who admire Dorothy and seek to follow Christ as she did. Dorothy practiced a very different kind of revolution than the kind which is celebrated by military parades and fireworks displays. In 1940, she wrote , “we consider the spiritual and corporal Works of Mercy and the following of Christ to be the best revolutionary technique and a means of changing the social order rather than perpetuating it. Did not the thousands of monasteries, with their hospitality change the entire social pattern of their day?” To all those who undertake the responsibility of sheltering the homeless, giving drink to the thirsty, and all works of mercy in the heat, thank you for these revolutionary acts! Summer events: Our Guild’s online and in-person summer programming is in full swing as of this week! As a reminder, we are running TWO book clubs this summer, one in English and one in Spanish. Our English-language club is reading The Long Loneliness and has already had two meetings, but it’s not too late to sign up!
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